Shadow Slave

Sunny had long lost the track of time... if it even existed in this furious abyss. The howling of the wind and the roar of harrowing thunderclaps had fused into a deafening cacophony, making his ears ring. His sight had been robbed by the boiling mist and the torrents of water. His lungs were on fire, and his muscles felt like they were on the verge of tearing.

It was not easy to bring an Ascend to such a sorry state through sheer physical hardship. But here he was, feeling like dying. With each passing hour... or minute, maybe... Sunny was using more and more essence to supplement his failing strength.

The ketch was still being carried by the tumultuous current, dancing between towering waves. The world was veiled by mist and darkness. He was still scooping up water, which was now sloshing around his ankles. The wooden dipper Ananke had given him had broken sometime ago, replaced by an iron bowl.

'How... much... longer?'

Sunny was not sure what he was trying to ask himself. How much longer before they escaped the storm, or before they drowned? In any case, he longed to drop on something solid... unmoving... and rest. Even if that rest would last forever.

The deck suddenly lurched upward, and he toppled, hitting it with his head. For a moment, Sunny saw stars. But even the stars were dancing wildly, tossed around by the cursed storm.

There was no answer. He had attempted to measure time by how fast his essence replenished, hoping that the Crown of Twilight would tell him when dawn and dusk came. But even the Great Memory succumbed to the vagaries of broken time. It activated and fell silent with no rhyme or reason, acting as bizarrely and chaotically as the deadly storm around them.

All that Sunny knew was that it had to be a day... two days, maybe?... since they had entered the wall of darkness, at least. Even though it felt like an eternity.

The only measure of the passage of time that Sunny and Nephis had was Ananke. Although... that, in and of itself, was one of the most frightening things.

The young priestess was still steering the ketch, now slumped and barely holding on to the oar. However, her appearance had changed. If before she looked like an adolescent girl in her late teens, now, she seemed more like a child, no more than twelve years old.

Ananke had always been a person of small stature, but at the moment, her body shrank even more. The dark mantle she wore looked almost comically large for her delicate frame, which seemed to drown in its folds.

Nevertheless, she never wavered in her duty, keeping their small boat afloat despite the harrowing fury of the Great River.

...Even knowing that the priestess was a couple of hundred years old, Sunny couldn't help but feel his heart tighten when he saw a child struggling against the same hell he and Nephis were being tortured by.

damn it, damn

to scoop the water up. The slower he was, the heavier the ketch would

was already a miracle that the old boat

continue

hull of the ketch could split apart at any moment, but also because the chaotic nature of

in the

her figure and face seemed to be changing from time to time. Her

turn into the pale face of a drowned corpse for a fraction of a second, or become burned and charred

as he blinked, the changes would disappear, and

she

a demented mask of mutilated

was not the scariest part

hear the vague echoes whispered

senseless and twisted, broken beyond recognition, as though even the Nightmare Spell was not above being

been created by Hope. According to Ananke, the time storms were echoes of the final battle between the daemons and

all, he had already known that

disaster, Sunny withstood a

'Absolute...'

in the midst of the infernal tempest. He froze for a moment, desperately trying to catch his

Weaver's attempt at creating an absolute law of their

stunned by that idea that it even seemed like the storm disappeared for a moment. It was as though the

No...

'What?'