Shadow Slave

1491 Dark Boundary

"Sunny, the sails!"

Before Jet's shout even faded, Cassie and Sunny were already moving. He called upon the shadows to raise the sails of the Chain Breaker, while she rushed to the runic circle. Nephis turned to look into the darkness, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword.

'What kind of disaster have we stumbled into now…'

Grasping the steering oars, Cassie skillfully turned the ship to borrow the force of the wind. At the same time, the runic circle ignited, absorbing strands of her essence — now that the enchantment circuits were repaired, it was not to power the sorcery of the ancient vessel, but simply to control it.

Finally, the Chain Breaker came to a halt, hovering in the boundless darkness of the Tomb of Ariel.

Sunny approached Jet and Effie, tracing their gazes into the distance.

"What is the… matter…"

His voice faltered.

Out there, far away…

The world ended.

It was hard to see, even for Sunny, because the end of the world was perfectly black, barely distinguishable from the darkness that surrounded them. But still… there was a vast, seemingly endless surface in front of them, stretching in all directions as far as the eye could see, like a boundary of the world.

Smooth and lusterless, like polished stone.

It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at.

'It's the… inner wall of the pyramid.'

The endless black boundary was just that… the wall of Ariel's Tomb, seen from the inside. However, it dwarfed anything he had ever seen. The towering walls of the Dark City were like a speck of dust in front of it. The great ramparts of Falcon Scott were like sand.

Looking at the endless black wall, Sunny was stunned by its sheer magnitude. For a moment, he wondered… was the interior of the pyramid truly large enough to encompass an entire realm, or was it him who had been reduced to the size of an ant?

Well, in any case… Jet's warning had come in time. The Chain Breaker was not going to crush into the endless wall of black stone anymore. They had already stopped, and there was plenty of distance between them and the boundary of Ariel's dreadful world.

But then, a slight frown appeared on his face.

Turning to Jet, Sunny remained silent for a moment.

how special his sight was. She, however, did

and Effie known

"What is it?"

forward with a somber expression. She remained silent for a

you smell it? It reeks of Nightmare

and glanced at Jet,

eyes were radiating

souls… powerful souls,

but now, her expression was grave. Seeing it,

His frown deepened.

just any soul. What kind

to the distant black boundary and strained his eyes, trying to discern something… anything…

had the best chance of discovering the hidden threat, the rest of the cohort

I

more detail… not that there was a lot to study. It

there was one thing, it was that the wall was not smooth, as he had initially thought. Rather, it was uneven, as if covered in countless ridges and bumps. Those ridges and bumps looked tiny from afar, but they should be dozens, if not hundreds, of

at the

are caves

Then, he suddenly froze.

of the black pyramid, something had

his vision, so if Sunny had not been looking at the wall

he stared at a particular spot. What was it? He still couldn't see any creatures hiding

It was just a mundane shift, like concentrating on a near object instead of a distant one, as well as a mental one, like trying to perceive something as a part of a whole instead

this moment that Sunny's hair stood on end, and

petrified, he swayed

'D—damnation!'

Powerful souls…

There were no caves hidden between the bumps and ridges

covered by abominations, who clung to

the edges of millions

a colossal swarm of numerous Dark Butterflies. There were myriads of these eerie Great Monsters

awaken if

took an involuntary

place Song and Valor

Great Monster was a calamity that only a few people in the waking world could quell. But there were

who would try to desecrate the tomb that