Shadow Slave

'Hope… herself…'

Sunny stared at the seven chains, finding new meaning in their cruel visage and the misshapen, torn remnants of the seven rune-inscribed shackles.

So the Sun God's ire had not been quelled by just destroying her kingdom. He had gone a step further, binding the Demon of Hope at the heart of her decimated domain… for how long?

And how had she escaped, in the end?

He tilted his head.

"So the Demon of Hope was chained here?"

Mordret answered with a hint of surprise in his voice:

"...You know of the daemons?"

A crooked smile appeared on Sunny's face.

"I do... a bit. Why wouldn't I? Although truth be told, there's not a lot of information about them, even among the Dream Realm researchers. So… the ruler that you had told me about was one of the daemons? A lesser deity?"

Mordret kept silent for a bit, then said dejectedly:

"Yes. I am not sure that those two words really go together, though. I also don't know what Hope had done to earn the wrath of the Lord of Light. However, I do know that these seven chains are what holding is the Chained Isles from falling into the Sky Below."

Sunny raised his eyebrows.

"What?"

The lost prince sighed.

seven, and you are looking at their roots... or rather, there were only seven. Each of them had to be broken for the Ivory Tower to become untethered, of course. So, now the islands are linked by the fragments of the original seven chains, many of them severed from each other. That

used to think about the Chained

head, he turned back to

that thing? I guess it contains a Second Nightmare, since you

Mordret answered succinctly:

"Correct."

get out of the Dream Realm, then… but am I suicidal enough to go into the Second Nightmare alone? Whole cohorts of experienced Awakened

Master jet had said, no one survived in the Dream Realm alone. She

He scowled.

in the real world if it's

answered, his voice was almost

in a few years, or a decade. It

Sunny hesitated.

can be

did not answer for a

time and a Gate opens, challengers can fight their way through and enter the Nightmare directly. The Gate also disrupts the anchors of those near it, so Masters and Saints that enter the Dream Realm will appear in the vicinity of the blooming Seed. After that,

He paused, then added:

only partially explored. That's why the Nightmare Creatures are entering our world so often. Challenging a Seed before it blooms is much better. In this case, however… I would advise

from the mass of shimmering darkness, then asked in

"Yeah? Why?"

out a

away. The chances of returning alive are very slim. That is why Awakened challenge them as members of cohesive, experienced cohorts. Even then, many don't survive… most, even. But

ears open, suddenly very

"Unless what?"

remained silent for

those who have shed blood on the altar and received the Memory of the knife have a chance to survive the trial that hides within this

blinked a couple