Shadow Slave

The small dot that had appeared in the distance slowly drew closer as the ketch approached it, guided by Neph's firm hand. At some point, however, she silently released the Names, allowing the boat to drift forward on its own.

Her gaze was directed forward, a rare rattled expression apparent on her face.

Sunny was no different.

Paralyzed by shock, both of them froze. After a few moments of stunned silence, he flinched and asked in a trembling voice:

"What... what the hell is it doing here?"

His mind was in turmoil, unable to process the truth of what they saw.

In front of them, a battered ship was floating listlessly on the waves. Its silhouette was beautiful and fluid, but there were ugly burn marks and terrible scars littering the graceful wooden hull of the damaged vessel. It looked... like it had escaped from the depths of hell after a long and dreadful battle.

It also looked completely empty, like a ghost ship abandoned by its crew.

But what was truly inconceivable about the drifting ship...

Was the sound of rustling leaves carried from its deck by the wind.

Looking up, Sunny saw the mighty branches of a sublime tree that grew around the eerie vessel's mast.

He knew this ship. He knew it too well.

...It was the Chain Breaker.

The battered vessel in front of them was the ancient flagship of the Fire Hunters, which Noctis had won from them in a gamble. It was also the ship that Cassie and the Fire Keepers had restored to its former glory, and which Sunny named.

Chain Breaker looked almost exactly the same as the last time Sunny had seen it... but also unfamiliar. Apart from the harrowing scars covering its hull, there were also other differences. The hull itself seemed different, with bands of dull metal reinforcing its graceful lines. He did not recognize the fearsome shape of the ship's ram, either.

The vessel looked much fiercer than the one from his memories, resembling an embattled warship more than it did a beautiful yacht.

There were many discrepancies, but the most glaring one was the sacred tree itself. It was much, much taller and more robust than the one Cassie had nurtured, drowning the entire middle section of the ship in the shadow of its crown.

was the

Was it?

No, it couldn't be...

its way into the Tomb of

it felt

tore his gaze away from the battered vessel and

it be

rattled as he was. After a while, she

it's a different ship. The people who built the Chain

had owned the flying ship for the better part of a thousand years, and modified it extensively over the centuries. He had been the one who planted a tree from the Sacred Grove of Heart God on the ship's deck and created

be another ship

a

in time. If he did, then his ship would have been carried into the

She frowned.

like how it had been when Noctis commanded it? It's different from how it is

was full of

looked at the battered ship once more. After a while, he said

either the past or the present version

a short pause, he

very end of the thousand years he had spent in the Kingdom of Hope. The ship we traveled on might have looked different before. That guy... he surely rebuilt and modified it many times. The version we saw was only the last

The copy of the Chain Breaker was here because Noctis had visited the Tomb of Ariel once upon a time, leaving an imprint for the Spell to conjure

Why was his ship drifting in the current of

the only one that made any kind of sense... but it was

and Nephis looked at each other, both feeling a somber sense of

Eventually, he sighed.

different, more pressing

She nodded slowly.

are the odds that in the endless vastness of the Great River, we

of

he remained silent for a while. His thoughts were