Shadow Slave

Nephis and the Fire Keepers followed the onyx devil across the land of shadows. Their taciturn guide walked without looking back, her beautiful armor gleaming as it reflected the white light of their lanterns. The living statue's steps were neither slow nor hurried, her measured pace full of indifferent confidence.

It was as though she was not afraid of the creatures hiding in the dark at all.

Nephis would have expected the steps of such a heavy creature to resound like thunderclaps in the dead silence, but they were entirely noiseless. She stared at the back of the mysterious stone knight, white flames dancing in her eyes.

The Fire Keepers were tense and quiet, looking into the eerie darkness with wary expressions.

'What is going on?'

Nephis was not troubled, but she did feel somewhat curious. A vast expanse of inexplicable darkness, the fearsome creature that had been sent to meet them... it was all hard to explain, and she rarely encountered things that escaped explanation.

[Cassie?]

There were a few moments of silence, and then the familiar voice resounded in the darkness, answering the question she had not asked:

[It is... strange.]

Nephis glanced at the beautiful stone demon and waited. Cassie continued after a short pause:

[She is a Transcendent Devil. Her soul is an impossible fusion of shadow, darkness, and divine flame. Her powers are those of a sword saint... however, she is not a simple Echo. I... I don't know what she is.]

Nephis nodded calmly.

is alright. I

not recognized that fearsome stonelike armor, that cold presence, and those

looked up to in the depths of the Second Nightmare, drowning in despair as the darkness of the

fact, the body she had inhabited was one of the countless flawed vessels that Nether had callously discarded

the onyx devil was a more perfect version

children succumbed to Corruption and survived until this day? Had the Lord of

her

spark of divinity from their creator, as well. But why did this one possess an affinity to shadows? That was not in

have something to do with the Aspect of the

this lightless expanse around them... had he somehow conjured

something that a mere Transcendent

to chase away the deadly sunlight of Godgrave, Nephis had not expected for this shadowy region to be expansive. But to her surprise, the

'Odd.'

surroundings became. Because sunlight never reached here, there was nothing to incinerate the bones of slain Nightmare Creatures. Therefore, remains of powerful

few of them, but the deeper into the land of shadows the Fire Keepers ventured, the more and

been slain by sharp steel, some shattered and broken by brute force, some killed by strange means

nothing short of chilling. Even if all these powerful Nightmare Creatures had not been slain at the same time... what kind

there was a seed of truth in the ominous

devil to lead them to their destination. The signs

kilometers to reach the

turning into a vast chasm. If she could pierce the darkness with her gaze, she would have seen the spine of the titanic skeleton far below. To her left and to her right, in the distance, its

Right ahead, though...

the light of their lanterns, a magnificent temple stood at the very edge of the abyss. Its colossal columns and walls were cut from black marble, with exquisite reliefs decorating the stygian