Shadow Slave

1525 Memory of Light

The breakfast ended up passing in a strange atmosphere.

Which was understandable, considering that they were sharing the table with a homicidal maniac. Mordret was nothing but amiable and pleasant, but it was exactly his disarming charm that made everyone feel disturbed and uncomfortable. After all, they all knew what the Prince of Nothing was capable of… some better than others.

Mordret was not the only one who made the conversation feel stifled, though. Nephis was still detached and impassive. Cassie was keeping quiet, as if she had forgotten how to speak. Sunny was not in the mood to talk, either, concentrating on his food. Kai was deep in thought, still struggling to come to terms with what he had learned from Effie and Jet.

After a while, all seven of them were more or less done with the meal. In the silence that followed, Effie glanced around the table.

"So…"

She leaned back and smiled.

"...Is anyone going to explain what the hell happened in that damned city?"

Sunny looked at her somberly. So did Nephis and Mordret — the former without any emotion, the latter with a hint of amusement. At that moment, Jet stretched her legs, crossed them comfortably, and nodded.

"Yeah. Actually, I'm dying to know, too."

Sunny remained silent for a few moments, trying to imagine the situation from their perspective, then sighed.

Taking a sip of tea, he said:

"Well… first of all, our base assumption was wrong. We assumed that Twilight had been frozen in the middle of a battle between its army and the invading forces of the Defilement, but in fact, it was a battle between Soul Stealer and the Dread Lord all along."

He paused, then added in a dark tone:

"They must have breached the walls of the city, which allowed Soul Stealer to consume the souls of everyone in Twilight. That was when he turned on the Dread Lord and tried to consume him, as well… and when the Mad Prince made use of the situation to activate the defensive array and trap them both. So, when I deactivated the array, both of those fiends were unleashed."

Across the table from him, Cassie suddenly spoke:

"Some of us have a good chance of resisting Prince Mordret's power, but some don't. That was why you two had to be hidden from Soul Stealer."

She turned slightly, facing Mordret.

He smiled innocently.

like it at

stared at the Prince of Nothing silently for a moment,

We are currently allies, after all, and he knows that if something

Mordret — there might have been something really wrong with that guy, but he was not a fool. The exact opposite, actually. He knew that harming any member of the cohort inside the Tomb of

destroyed by Nephis, Mordret would not risk making them all his

Sunny sighed.

an enchantment of the Crown of Twilight to resist his commands, but at the cost of plunging into an uncontrollable rage. While the two of us

He paused.

too sure

Saying that, Sunny hesitated.

did not know, but in truth, he

runes were glowing in the air in front of him. They

Name: Nephis.

True Name: Changing Star.

Rank: Ascended.

Class: Titan.

Soul Cores: [7/7].

Soul Fragments: [7000/7000].

already startling enough. But there was something else near the end of the field of runes. Several

were the runes that truly gave

Sunny

Legacy: [Memory of

tree grew from the ashes of doubt, bearing

Knowledge of Fire: [Mastered].

Knowledge of ???: Unearned.

Knowledge of ???: Unearned.

Knowledge of ???: Unearned.

Knowledge of ???: Unearned.

only

also unlocked her Aspect Legacy. And that Aspect Legacy was more than a little bit strange, seemingly granting some sort of knowledge instead

would lie if he said that he wasn't interested in learning

hoping that

for a few moments,

in my way. Facing defeat, I made a breakthrough and conceived of a new way of using my Aspect… just like you had conceived of using yours to take shapes of powerful creatures. So, I used one of my soul cores as fuel and destroyed