Shadow Slave

As it turned out... the daemons had not appeared out of nowhere, nor had they created themselves.

Instead, they were born from the seven pieces of a god whose very existence had been erased from the world, concealed, and forbidden from being mentioned. The seventh god...

The Forgotten God.

Who had been Dream God, once.

So, it was not that the origin of the daemons was unknown. It was just that their very existence was forbidden, and since no one was allowed to remember the Forgotten God, it seemed as if they had appeared from nowhere.

Sunny shivered, and then looked ahead.

There, the last cluster of light was burning under the surface of the dark lake.

He walked forward, his legs numb.

Soon, he reached the light and looked down, seeing runes once again. Taking slow steps, he studied them.

The message left behind by Ariel, the Demon of Dread, read:

[Here is the truth I leave behind

That reveals the lie of the gods

The Forgotten One slumbers

In the Void

Eternal, everchanging

Dreaming of escape

The gods, who were flawless

Learned shame

And were flawless no more

I am a child of their transgression

And thus, their Flaw]

Sunny trembled.

'The gods... were flawless no more...'

Suddenly, he remembered the last thing Noctis had said to him, in the depths of the Second Nightmare, just before Hope broke free of her chains. He remembered the weight of the four words the whimsical sorcerer had whispered:

'Never trust the gods.'

were liars,

of their own in the cage they had built to imprison the Void, and, full of shame, erased his existence from

universal law of imperfection had been born? Or maybe it had gone the other way around, and it was precisely the creation of the law of imperfection that had given the gods the final push they needed to seal

the Forgotten God their

born from his

Hope had meant when

by Sun God, her kingdom destroyed, after mortals

'Wait... no...'

what had made the gods forbid the knowledge

something deeper hiding

'The law of imperfection...'

including the gods themselves. Therefore... the seal they had placed on the Void had to be imperfect,

it could be

a sense, was their

been sealed in the void

would happen if he

clicked in Sunny's

not what would

paled, an expression of utter terror appearing on

'What has happened.'

seven gods, not

divine realms, not six, like Wind Flower

belonging to War God... While the Dream Realm was the seventh,

which was devouring all the rest and spreading Corruption to all of existence through

the result of the Void influencing that which had been created by

gods was exposed

god? The God of Corruption? Sunny trembled once

had already broken

asleep. And all of existence was in

God... has succumbed

he was released would have brought doom to the world created by the gods. So, they had to have done everything in their

the world. They had forbidden the daemons from siring offspring, thus preventing

when people started worshiping her... and, through her,

had not even been aware of their origin at the time. After all, the description of the

gods. However, he was the first to shed their blood, as

first to reveal the lie of the gods

gritted his

'Damnation... damnation...'

revealed in front

during

had the gods and the daemons

the seal of the Void been