Shadow Slave

By the time Sunny had finished the alteration of the Dawn Shard, they were not that far away from Fallen Grace. Neither he nor Nephis knew the exact distance they had to traverse to find the last city of the sybils, but the navigation tools Ananke had left them pointed to its approach.

Fallen Grace was situated in the western reaches of the Great River, where the sky was almost always painted crimson by the setting sun. As the Chain Breaker sailed deeper into the past, it was also leaving behind the pure light of day.

Gradually, the color of the sky above their heads changed. From vibrant azure to breathtaking magenta, and finally to the bloodred blaze of perpetual sunset.

It was like sailing into a sea of blood.

Sunny stared at the burning sky, awed by its fiery beauty... and its ominous dread.

'That's... not concerning at all.'

Why would the sybils build one of their cities in such a darkly beautiful, but sinister place? Surely, living in the warm sunlight of the central region of the Great River would have been much more pleasant.

Shaking his head, he returned to the shade of the sacred tree and sat down, resting his back against its white bark. He had just finished weaving another Memory for Nightmare and was not in the mood to start on the next one just yet.

His study of the spellweave of Ananke's Mantle had also been producing fewer and fewer results. It would never stop being useful to him as a learning tool, but Sunny felt like he was nearing a dead end. He would need to gain more skill as a weaver before looking to the nebulous mantle for more lessons.

So, what else was there to do?

Feeling restless, he summoned the Estuary Key out of habit. Staring into the weave of the mysterious Memory had become like a ritual by now. Even though Sunny could not understand anything about it, the process itself was calming.

However... he had not taken a glance at the Key since before attempting the alteration of the Crown of Dawn. Who knew? Maybe passing such an important milestone on his path to becoming a proper sorcerer would change something...

favorite toy again? Why don't you toss it overboard

stared at him disdainfully

any attention, Sunny held up the jagged black stone and peered into

weave of ghostly strings was as unattainable as ever. He studied its dark tapestry, following the twists and turns of the black threads... like

I still can't

things Sunny had seen and faced in the Nightmare, the Estuary Key was perhaps the most bizarre. He still had no idea how this Supreme Memory of the Sixth Tier

at the staggering weave of ghostly strings, he had gained

what these effects were but felt that one was directed outward, while the other was directed inward,

potent than the former. It was unusual that a Memory of the Sixth Tier only possessed a single enchantment - since it did, that enchantment had to be a powerful one. And most of that power went into ensuring the

I wasn't able to discern what exactly the enchantment does. It's only

was an enchantment that teleported the strange Memory into the souls of

was feeling

minuscule part of the inconceivable weave. The lightless tapestry was vast enough that he might have never seen it before... or if he

froze, staring

the hell

Sunny had definitely seen it

all, and as such, it shared many small parts of its weave with all other Memories - the patterns that created the rudimentary enchantments like the ability to be summoned

woven them from scratch many times, after all. And this

have I

recognized its nature after a moment of contemplation - patterns like these were rare but present in every Memory. It was how

language, the other invoking them directly. However, weaving was

there was still a place for words in a spellweave, and therefore for the runes inscribing them. These runes, translated from the corresponding string patterns, expressed the name of the Memory, its description, and