Shadow Slave

Limping across the dark expanse of still water, illuminated gently by the pure radiance of the Guiding Light, Sunny stared at his battered reflection. A dark grin twisted his lips into a crooked line.

"Look at us... nearing the finish line, and not anywhere near dropping dead."

The situation was quite unfamiliar. Usually, Sunny would have been at the very doorstep of death, or even past its threshold with one foot by now. But he was strangely in one piece. Sure, he had been mauled and mangled by plenty of dreadful Nightmare Creatures on the way to the Estuary —however, his state was nowhere near as rough as the norm in such moments.

Had he been lucky, or had his tenacity finally reached such an unreasonable level that it was simply too hard for anything to truly bring him down without outright killing him?

"Well, in any case... I'm not complaining. Let's finish this, then..."

His reflection did not answer, leaving Sunny in tranquil silence. He was momentarily unnerved by the lack of a mocking retort, but then remembered that the Sin of Solace was gone. His mind was free of the voice that had haunted it for so long with maddening whispers.

It felt... very strange.

'Sort of... peaceful?'

Now that the curse that had plagued him was gone, Sunny realized that he had been under constant pressure without even noticing it. His mental resistance had prevented the insidious whispers from truly driving him mad — but the act of resisting the loss of sanity itself had been putting a burden on his mind.

That burden was no more, filling him with a sense of levity.

However, he was also exhausted, drained, and deeply shaken by the secrets he had learned. It was a strange mixture of emotions.

'One step at a time.'

Sunny continued walking toward the vague shape rising from the water in the distance. As he did, he wondered about himself and the Mad

Prince... about all the versions of himself and the Mad Prince that had reached the Estuary in the previous cycles.

How was it that Sunny — the current him — was the only one who had made it that far?

'I guess it's simple, really.'

It was already indescribably hard to find the entrance to the Estuary within the Source. Beyond that, though...

To get to the heart of the Estuary, one had to possess three things. The first one was a soul that was free of Corruption — made possible by the Estuary Key. That requirement itself demanded that he succumbed to the Defilement, invaded another cycle of the Great River, and spent centuries accumulating power and knowledge.

However, it was also the easiest of the three.

The second requirement was the ability to pass the stone maze that served as the border of the inner lake without falling back into the cycles of the Great River. Sunny did it without much trouble, but that was only because of the Guiding Light and the True Name that Torment had delivered to Cassie. How many cycles had it taken for the duo of conspiring Plagues to learn that True Name?

he did know, however, was that the story of this Nightmare was the story of the gradual accumulation of

entirely on that accumulation. It was to have

the Great River. However, he did not want to, and had no reason to... because the Mad Prince and Torment

they learned to manipulate all the events of the cycle in their favor? Too many to count, perhaps. And it was for that reason that Sunny was not tempted to try anew, aiming for

In short...

it that far because he was the inheritor and beneficiary of all the countless past

somewhat poetic, then, that he could only reach the heart of the

a little

he could see the dark shape more clearly. As it revealed itself, a strange expression

the hidden lake, rising into the darkness. Its rough slopes were almost vertical, and it had two peaks,

looked lonely and forlorn in the empty

a palpable pressure, making Sunny

hell is

staring at the peak of the mountain and wondering if he would have to scale it. But then,

looked like an

darkly and headed for that entrance. Passing its threshold, he plunged into the darkness dwelling inside the mountain and found himself in a

water rushing beneath his feet, flowing to somewhere deep inside, and the

'Not creepy at all.'

was a consecrated place — a place more holy than any temple he had ever visited, and therefore

because

time, the sacral nature of

Light and

eternity — before the walls of the

as soon as

He suddenly turned blind.

Guiding Light was swallowed by darkness, and he lost the ability to see through it. What rattled Sunny the most, though, was that it was not the

by deep shadows, which were like family to him. It was just that these shadows did not respond to him anymore, as if subjugated by some other, much more powerful and terrifying

his shadow sense was still

something vast moving in the darkness — in front of him, behind him.

like the coils

the Guiding Light and lowered it

then that a harrowing voice resounded from the darkness, enveloping

"Turn back."

kneel under

escaped from

'Damn it...'