Shadow Slave

Ananke's ketch was floating through a world of mist. The thick fog surrounded it from all sides, suffused with somber twilight. All sounds seemed both muffled and exaggerated, echoing across the vast expanse of shrouded water. Sunny could not see very far. Even his shadow sense was dulled by the mystical mist.

It was a familiar sight.

'Indeed... I've been here already.'

This was the exact same place where Sunny had found himself at the start of the Nightmare.

The Source.

Here, covered by mist, the Great River flowed into itself, and the past turned into the future. He could not feel the current anymore, but it was still there, strangely jumbled and disjointed. The ketch was moving, yet Sunny could not tell in what direction it was being carried.

If he allowed himself to be pulled by the invisible current and reached the edges of the Source... he would be sent back to the day he had entered the Tomb of Ariel, as well as to the point upstream where the person whose role he took had been at that time.

'No... I can't allow that to happen.'

Sunny did not know if he could endure another cycle of the Great River. Much more importantly, the Six Plagues — and the Mad Prince — had broken the rules of time, somehow, and invaded a cycle they were not meant to exist in.

He did not know if their existence had become a part of the Great River by now, or if their heretical presence would be erased should a new cycle start. If it was the latter, then all the effort the Mad Prince and Torment had put into ensuring that all members of the cohort survived until the end of the Nightmare would be for naught.

More than that... that end was so close. Nephis would be reaching Verge soon, armed with the means of destroying the First Seeker. Sunny desperately did not want to live through the horrors of the Tomb of Ariel one more time, especially since the result would be hanging in a fragile balance.

in the mist and miss his opportunity to enter the

lay the key to his shackles. His

had made sure that he would have everything he needed to accomplish

Light to lead him to the entrance of the Estuary. He had the Mirror of Truth

the Sin of Solace,

the mist surrounded him, the bastard had disappeared somewhere. He must not have been in the mood to talk, or simply unable to manifest

away for as long as you

studied the radiant crystal that was

light was behaving...

of sailing through the mist, the light would suddenly change, pointing in an entirely different direction.

though the entrance to the Estuary was constantly moving. 'No... it's not moving. I

stationary, but space itself was unreliable in the Source. It was Sunny who was being thrown around without any order, moving a few meters to

was no wonder that the Seekers of Truth, despite all their might and knowledge, had failed to discover the Estuary before Aletheia

her own time loop, and her own sea of mist. Had it all been in order to learn

she had

was her own doom... unless that

goals the Nine

the time to make it flow endlessly in a circle. Therefore, he would have never been able to find

it the first time, as well? Or had his versions from the previous cycles come

way, Sunny allowed the ketch to sail forward, moving the steering oar in

except for the danger that the Source itself presented. So, traveling through the