Shadow Slave

Sunny assumed his human form, standing on a twisting stalk of a giant vine side by side with Nephis.

Sunlight was streaming from above, illuminating her slender figure… his, however, was hidden in the deep shadows, almost imperceptible. If someone gazed upon them right now, it would have seemed as though she was observing the overgrown ruin alone.

The ruin was vast and sprawling, but most of it was swallowed by the jungle. Only a few crumbling stone edifices rose above the canopy, covered in red moss. It was hard to recognize them as man-made structures, but the Awakened were experts on all things having to do with ruins — the Dream Realm was littered with them, after all.

Nephis tilted her head a little.

«Ruins? I didn't know that humans once lived here, in Godgrave.»

Sunny remained silent for a few moments.

«…Godgrave was densely populated once, in fact. There was a fairly advanced civilization thriving here. The surface was just as deadly, and I can't say anything about the sea of ash below. But there are many ruined cities in the Hollows, some of them as large as the lesser population centers in the waking world.»

She glanced in his direction, seeing only the darkness.

«I didn't know that you have such a keen interest in ancient civilizations, Lord Shadow.»

He smiled.

«Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it in the future.»

His words vaguely hinted at a double meaning, but he didn't say anything else.

In any case, Nephis was right. Sunny did indeed have a keen interest in ancient civilizations — he always had, even back in the Dark City. Solving the mysteries of the past appealed to some hidden part of his heart.

The thrill and charm of exploring forgotten ruins was the closest thing Sunny had to a hobby… maybe, in a perfect world, it would have been one of his life's passions.

However, his interest in the ruins of Godgrave was special.

The dead civilizations of the Dream Realm had always been one and the same for him — the people were different, the histories were different, but they all belonged in the pages of the same book. After meeting Wind Flower in the Tomb of Ariel, though, Sunny learned that there were two entirely different kinds of ruins in the Dream Realm.

One kind belonged to the people who had lived in the mortal realms, and were destroyed by the war between the gods and the daemons, as well as its immediate outcome.

in the five divine

difference between the

been infected by the Nightmare

like the people of the Waking World — the sixth divine

belonged to the second

once been

God's world after it had been swallowed by the Dream Realm. The immolating white void

realm must have survived the conclusion of the Doom War. The gods were dead, the nightmares of the Forgotten God were slowly devouring the scattered lands, the Dream Realm was being born. But here,

civilization had been, with vast cities rising in the glowing jungle,

have been the heartland of that civilization, with satellite kingdoms rising inside the ribs, and most remote cities being built

Spell had descended. And just like the people of the Twilight Sea, the inhabitants of Godgrave failed to meet its dire challenge, being

were gone. Even the memory of them was gone. The world they had called home was now part of the Dream

were these

Sunny and Nephis looked at them with the same emotion, even

like this one, too? Would their people disappear like these

sent his shadow sense

a while, his expression

shadows around her grew darker, Nephis shifted and asked, her tone

«Are they dead?»

his

piece of good news and a piece of bad news,

moment, then

that the two Sleepers

at him with

is the bad

took a step out of the shadows, bright sunlight reflecting from the surface of his onyx armor. The crack of his visor, though, still

aren't the only ones

the hell did

belonging to a powerful Nightmare Creature. He had never seen or sensed abominations like these before, but simply from the depths of their

there was… a