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.'

gods... were

in the cage they had built to imprison the Void,

it had gone the other way around, and it was precisely the creation of

making the Forgotten

had been born from his soul, living incarnations of

that what Hope had meant when she spoke to

had been imprisoned by Sun God, her kingdom destroyed, after mortals

'Wait... no...'

shame really what had made the gods forbid the knowledge of the Forgotten God from

there something deeper

'The law of imperfection...'

Therefore... the seal they had placed

that it could

sense,

the Forgotten God, who had been sealed in the void for so long, slumbering, could one day

would happen

something clicked in Sunny's

what would

of utter terror appearing on

'What has happened.'

were seven gods, not

there had to be seven divine realms, not six, like Wind

likely belonging to War God... While the

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

of the Void influencing that which had been created

gods was

a corrupted god? The God of Corruption? Sunny trembled once

already broken

he was still asleep. And all of existence was in the throes of

Forgotten God... has succumbed to

brought doom to the world created by the gods. So, they had to have done everything in their power to prevent him from growing stronger, restless, and

from the world. They had forbidden the daemons from siring

had destroyed Hope's kingdom when people started worshiping her... and, through

of their origin at the time. After all, the description of the Mantle of the Underworld stated it clearly

to lead his army against the gods. However, he was the first to shed their blood,

the first to reveal the lie of the gods and learn the

gritted his teeth, feeling

'Damnation... damnation...'

in front of him. Except for the

happened during

the gods and the

seal of the Void