Shadow Slave

It was only later, when they returned to the flying ship and looked down upon the devastation that the short and furious clash between Noctis and Sun Prince had created, did the understanding of what had happened finally settled in their minds. There was no going back now.

…The war of immortals had finally started.

Soon, the whole of the Kingdom of Hope was going to be turned into a battlefield and drowned in blood by its frenzy. And then, the repercussions of that madness were going to spread outward like a tidal wave, changing the world forever.

Looking down, Sunny couldn't help but shiver. The broken pillars, the severed hand of a giant, the ash swirling in the air… this place, this event, this moment in time…

Was that the spark that would eventually ignite another, much more terrifying war? A war between gods and daemons, one that would destroy them all and bring about the end of the world… the war to end all wars. He still suspected that it was the unchaining of the Demon of Desire that had set it in motion.

Looking down, Sunny silently whispered:

'But then came desire, and with it came direction…'

Turning his head slightly, he looked at Noctis — the person who had started it all. The sorcerer seemed calm and without a worry in the world. His beautiful face was pale with exhaustion, but other than that, he did not look too different from his usual self… not at all like a person who had potentially ushered in the obliterating apocalypse.

Did he not understand the consequences of his actions?

…Or did he understand them far better than Sunny ever could?

With a sigh, Sunny threw one last glance at the Iron Hand island — not truly and once again deserving of its name — and walked to sit beneath the branches of the sacred tree. Despite the fact that he had not done much, he felt exhausted, too. And there was a lot he had to think about…

***

toppled pillars and the

had witnessed how the island came to be in that

past had repeated itself inside the Nightmare almost to a tee. Sunny had already formed a theory that fate was like a current, always pulling things toward an inescapable conclusion, after the destruction of the Temple of the Chalice. The details could be changed, but the result seemed to always be

on the Iron Hand island only

and even slain one of the Chain Lords. If not for them,

years were, perhaps, the countdown to the blossoming of the Nightmare Seed. If no Awakened appeared to challenge the Nightmare by then… the Seed would have

challenger was to resolve a conflict that would have otherwise remained unresolved. But now, knowing what he knew about the Chained Islands and the Kingdom

always going to be destroyed, and Sun Prince was always going to lose

nameless temple slave would have probably died, and Auro of the Nine would have survived… or would they? In any case, there

really make

was the role of the challengers? If the conflict could resolve itself, why were they here? What did the Spell want from them? Prove that they were

solving the conflict. The reward was going to be the same, either way — the challenger would ascend to a new Rank. They could receive a True Name, or even, in extremely rare cases, an evolution of their Aspect, but those things could be done outside

cared about was that the challenger survived until the

little… at least enough to appraise the challenger's performance. The appraisal did not really matter outside of the First Nightmare, where it was tied to

Remarkable... Glorious... and so

a hint in there, somewhere,

apparently pleased the Spell

the shade of the sacred tree, he sighed and looked into