Shadow Slave

After getting all the information the frightened Sleeper could share, Sunny and Nephis let him rest. Without wasting any time, Nephis headed for the exit from the temple... however, Sunny led her into its depths Instead.

Soon, they reached a set of stairs and descended underground.

The Nameless Temple was larger than it seemed from outside, because it had a vast basement level. In fact, it was almost a perfect copy of the grandiose upper level, with its own great hall, auxiliary rooms, and inner sanctum.

There were a few differences, of course. For one, there was no altar in the underground temple. There was no path to the courtyard, either. Instead, a towering gate was cut into the marble wall, covered by intricate engravings.

When Sunny and Nephis reached the underground hall, it was bathed in impenetrable darkness. Even the radiant light of the flames burning on her palm could not dispel it... Sunny didn't want anyone to see what was hidden there, yet, and so, he shrouded everything in the deepest of shadows.

And for a good reason.

As Sunny had found out after conquering the Nameless Temple, all Citadels had something special about them. Some special qualities were minor, while some could do truly stunning things.

Sunny called them Components.

He was not sure if these Components were innate to the ancient strongholds or something added to each by the Spell, like the Gateways were. Perhaps it simply built upon what was already there, strengthening existing traits and making them easily accessible by humans.

However, what Sunny did know was that only a Saint that bound the Citadel to their soul could command it, making use of the Components. The Spell made the process easier for them, most likely... as for Sunny, he had to sort everything out himself.

Luckily, it had not been too hard.

both of them rather powerful as far as Citadels went - not on the level of the

killing anyone and anything that tried to enter the temple

allowed him to enter the temple in

sacrifice himself to the gods, Back then, Sunny had assumed that it was a temple of Shadow God, but now, he

to cross the mountains, the imperial soldiers were actively destroying shrines and monasteries of the Shadow God. And yet, the styglan edifice of the grand temple looked like it had been laying in ruins for countless

Spell had spoken when he coughed up blood on the black altar. It did not say that he had offered himself as

Temple was much more ancient than almost anything else he had seen in the Dream Realm. If he was correct, it had been built at the dawn of time, during the early days

for the Pantheon of Seven, had been abandoned and lost.

could as well have been the

heretics who worshiped the lost delty despite the

thousands of years during Sunny's First Nightmare, which took place at the very end of the Golden Age, just

The only creature who ever visited it was

yet, now, the Nameless Temple was somehow here in

reason for this discrepancy... was the

the towering gate. It was not comprised of runes, or elements of any other type of sorcery Sunny could recognize. The only thing he could think of that resembled the enchantment of the Nameless Temple were the knives Sun God had created alongside the Chain Lords... Perhaps it was divine sorcery, which followed no rules and bent the world to its will simply by virtue of existing. In that case, he wasn't sure that "sorcery" was the right word to describe it. A miracle fit such a

was the heart of the

of the Citadel flooded the ancient temple with an ocean of essence, it could vanish from one

very heart of Godgrave. He suspected that it had been wandering the realms long before being made into a Citadel by the Nightmare Spell, as well. The wandering temple had not been built on the peak of that dark

would only be able to share this secret with Nephis

gate. Nephis did not say anything,