Shadow Slave

The Sin of Solace

These words were clearly a part of the ghostly spellweave of the Estuary Key. Sunny stared at them intently, feeling a strange mix of confusion, curiosity... and dread.

What the hell was the meaning of this?

Shifting slightly, he looked at the sword wraith. The apparition stood in the shadows, wearing a bored and resentful expression. Sunny had grown so accustomed to the company of the Sin of Solace - first in the form of a disembodied voice, then of a vague figure, and finally of a perfect reflection of himself - that he rarely paid it much attention these days.

But the sword wraith was not at all benevolent or harmless. In fact, he was a sinister and insidious being, spawned from the whisper of a fearsome daemon and meant to drive the wielder of the sword mad.

The fact that Sunny still had his sanity intact... or rather, somewhat intact... was only due to his extraordinary mental resilience and resistance to mind attacks. Most humans would have already been turned into raving lunatics by the jade jian.

Sunny, though? Apart from looking like a madman from time to time due to an outwardly strange habit of talking to himself, he only found the presence of the Sin of Solace frustrating, nothing more.

'...Is there more to this damned curse?'

He knew that the apparition would never give an honest answer, but nevertheless asked:

"There's no reason your name would be etched into the weave of the Estuary Key, is there?"

The sword wraith gave him a disdainful look.

"I don't know. Maybe there is... you're the great sorcerer, so you tell me."

Sunny took a deep breath.

"You are keeping a lot of secrets these days, huh? Makes me wonder if I should just feed you to Nightmare. Better safe than sorry, that is what they say."

The Sin of Solace laughed.

Nightmare, anyway. In fact, I encourage you to

He grinned.

problem. Are you sure that destroying the sword will get rid of me? It might, it might... but then again, maybe it won't. Maybe the damage to your mind has already been done, and we are stuck together for the

Sunny gritted his teeth.

doing so would banish the apparition. They were

get any information out of the bastard,

mystery of the Estuary Key and its connection to the Sin of Solace. One was to find the great sorcerer who

with

Solace has something to do

He suddenly felt cold.

come into possession of a Supreme Memory, Sunny made several theories about how it could have ended up in his Soul Sea. One of them was that the Soul Serpent

was that it was Sunny himself who had created the Estuary Key far in the future but somehow received it in the

of the Sin of Solace was etched into the weave

down, Sunny slowly clenched

was him... the Mad Prince. He must be the one who

thinking these words made

just too compelling of a theory to discard. Sunny had suspected that the mysterious Memory had been created by a future version of himself. He also

that the future version of himself who had created the Estuary Key was the Mad

the weave, the ghostly strings of shadow essence, the unexplainable nature of the Key... and the

The answer is oblivion.

had to

many weavers were there who could

was certain

exactly

really created

Six Plagues? That would certainly make things easier for the cohort. One adversary was already gone, after all. And it didn't even have to be just one... what if each of the members of the

to not have to deal with the Six Plagues, it also meant that the other members had been sent directly to the heart of the Defilement, the city