Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the severed arm of an unknown deity, then at the harrowing, profane rot spreading from it. Then, he tiredly rubbed his face.

'...Why can't anything ever be easy?'

He was sure that his fate was somehow connected to that arm, which meant that he was going to have to get to it somehow. But Sunny was also sure that there weren't enough rewards in all of the universe to make him go anywhere near that rot, let alone touch something infected by it.

He had the feeling that this thing was way, way out of his league.

In fact, he suspected that a divine being had ruthlessly severed their own arm because even someone as powerful as that had no means to resist that spreading corruption.

What was Sunny supposed to do, then?

Well…

Trying to remain as far from the rot as possible, he studied it for a while before coming to a strange conclusion… or rather, a strange question.

If the corruption was so terrible, then why had it not spread through the entire tower? Why had it only managed to crawl a few meters out of the silver brazier, turning a small portion of the second level of the pagoda into its flesh?

'Scratch that. Why didn't the whole island become one giant chunk of rotten black... whatever the hell that thing is?'

The answer was not hard to guess. It was because the rot, just like everything else inside the tower, had been sealed away from time for thousands of years.

And now that Sunny had broken that seal…

His frown deepened as he glanced at the silver hearth that was overgrown and had become a part of the spreading rot.

the devouring corruption, and it was either going to slowly

with nothing to feed on except for cold stone? Did it need to feed on flesh and souls, or would

I am going to find

eye on the patch of harrowing rot, Sunny

like the rot was spreading.

the worst happened, he had no tool at his disposal that would save him. If that thing began to grow, slowly spreading across the whole of the Obsidian Tower, and then across the whole island, Sunny was simply going to die. Probably jump down into nothingness to

else to retreat to in the Sky Below, after all. And he doubted that he would be able to find a second

hope was to find something inside the pagoda to save him.

possibility that the rot would swiftly wither

higher, to the third level. There, he summoned the taciturn demon again,

thought of turning his back to the silver brazier, Sunny gritted his teeth, and then

as the terrible thing disappeared from view, he let out a relieved sigh and realized that his entire body was

being by his side gave him a little confidence, at least. The Shadow seemed absolutely unperturbed by the horrific visage they had left

bet fear can't even fit into that stone head of hers. Do

fact, behind its haughty exterior, it was rather cowardly. He was sure

these thoughts, Sunny entered the third level of the

Wait, no. What

than the previous three halls he had explored — mostly because the pagoda narrowed the higher

floated in the air, each at a different level of being

pile of broken dolls in the basement

floating garden of disassembled arms, and then walked closer. He felt as though he

design was, and how many moving parts went into making each one as functional and articulated as that of a human.

of that level of ingenuity

these arms brought here and taken apart? Who had done it? The Prince of

would he need to study