As Sunny and the treasure chest plunged through the skies into the boundless black abyss, pieces of the shattered island pursued them. The Crushing was slowly growing weaker, but it was still strong enough to kill most Awakened.
If not for the power of his shadows, Sunny would have been long dead. And even with it, he was much closer to becoming a corpse than he would have wished to be. His whole body was bruised, bloodied, and in pain.
…Which he could see very clearly, because, in addition to being terribly banged up, Sunny was also currently completely naked.
'What a… glorious sight. Damn it!'
He had dismissed the Puppeteer's Shroud to absorb the shadow essence spent on its summoning, and had none of it left to manifest the armor again. The last drops had been spent to summon the Dark Wing.
As the result, Sunny found himself falling into the Sky Below atop a lop-sided treasure chest while wearing nothing but his pack and the strip of leather holding his broken arm in place. His only hope right now was that neither Master Roan nor Saint Tyris would suddenly appear to save the day and see him in this state.
He would rather plunge into the Tear than live through that embarrassment.
Well… not really.
'I take it back. Both of them can descend from the clouds and carry me away in their arms. I won't mind! No, really!'
But no one came to his rescue. Dodging the heavy slabs of shattered stone and desperately trying to glide through the field of debris, Sunny slowly pushed the chest toward the empty expanse of the Tear and prayed that nothing would damage his fragile cloak.
It was having enough trouble obeying his commands already.
The Dark Wing wasn't really designed to carry heavy weights. It could barely support just Sunny himself… and that was in normal conditions. Now that Sunny was refusing to let go of the dead Mimic, and with both of them being affected by the Crushing, the enchanted cloak was on the verge of breaking apart. Instead of gliding smoothly away from the falling rocks, Sunny and the treasure chest were more or less just falling between them at a slight angle.
Needless to say, dodging the debris of the destroyed island in these circumstances was not easy. But, somehow, Sunny managed to protect both himself and the Dark Wing for long enough to escape the danger zone in one piece.
By then, the Crushing had become almost bearable.
Sitting on the lid of the treasure chest and feeling the terrible pressure grow weaker and weaker with each second, Sunny grimaced from pain, then let out a relieved sigh. The cool breeze was softly touching his burning face, as well as his... well, everything. All things considered, the fall was not unpleasant.
But then, a sudden thought appeared in his mind.
'...What are you feeling relieved about, idiot?'
Oh… right.
Looking down, Sunny saw nothing but the swiftly approaching, boundless dark expanse of the Sky Below.
The endless abyss that stretched downward forever, and from which there was no escape. Not unless one knew how to fly.
That was where he was headed.
***
Except for the golden String of Fate Sunny had seen disappearing into the depth of the Tear, he had no reason whatsoever to believe that he would survive the fall into the Sky Below, let alone ever be able to return to the Sanctuary and the real world. Most likely, he was going to go mad and either be devoured by some terrifying abyssal titan or die of hunger.
His life, almost literally, was hanging by a thread.
…But right now, he didn't care. All he cared about was the physical relief of not being pressed down upon by the Crushing. He was still wounded all over and in pain, but experiencing just the normal amount of it was almost euphoric.
'It's the small things that matter…'
Like not being constantly crushed by an invisible, murderous magical force. Or resting comfortably on a wide lid of a treasure chest instead of having your limbs being crushed in its jaws.
…Simple stuff like that.
Now that the Crushing was almost gone, Sunny used the Dark Wing to push the dead Mimic deeper into the Tear, as well as keep it level in the air. The treasure chest was wide and long, and its lid was flat. In a sense, it was almost like a firm, narrow cot.
There were worse ways to fall into an endless abyss, really.
Sunny stared at the wide sweep of the Tear, trying to burn the memory of the golden string of light into his mind.
The Tear was situated in the center of the Chained Isles, and was both vast and absolutely empty. Some people believed that the Ivory Tower had once stood in its middle, and was the first island to break free of its chains. Over thousands of years, islands that had bordered it were slowly destroyed one after another, causing the Tear to grow.
By now, it was a couple of hundred kilometers across, and from what Sunny could tell, the String of Fate led to somewhere in its very center.
The question was… how deep in there was the thing on the other end of the String? The longest someone had flown down into the Sky Below before turning back was a week. Was the mysterious object hidden in an even deeper part of the abyss?
And what was that object?
Sunny could not even guess. The only thing he knew was that his intuition had pushed him toward the Twisted Rock because of it.
If so… it should have been something that would allow him to survive.
Right?
Of course, his fate might have been to just die there. Fate didn't really discriminate against any type of occurrence, including fatal ones. Regardless, Sunny was going to find out.
…It's not like he had a choice now.
Feeling the air get colder, he shivered and watched the sky around him grow darker and darker.
Soon, there was no light left in it at all.
Sunny had fallen into the Sky Below.
Chapter 432: First Day of Nothing
'This is… sort of grim.'
Sunny was falling through a boundless, empty void of cold darkness. Far below, false stars were shimmering with pale white light. Their radiance, however, did very little to illuminate the Sky Below. Everywhere around him, there was just… nothing.
Sunny was still resting atop the treasure chest, holding onto it with his one healthy hand. He had no reference point to measure how far he had traveled, but suspected that the distance was swiftly leaving the realm of mundane sense and logic.
He was not very educated, however, even he knew that a falling object would forever accelerate at a steady pace… theoretically. That meant that every second Sunny was falling, his speed was increasing exponentially. By now, it had to be simply insane.
But he did not really feel that speed. All he felt were wisps of cold wind caressing his skin from time to time. If there was one good thing about the situation, it was that he had accumulated a bit of shadow essence and was able to summon the Puppeteer's Shroud again. So he wasn't naked anymore, at least.
If there was one thing he did know, though, it was the approximate speed with which he could glide forward with the help of the Dark Wing. Adding the weight of the dead treasure to the equation, he could more or less calculate the distance he was covering horizontally. With that in mind, he guessed that he would reach the middle of the Tear in around a day…
Problem was, he had no reliable way to measure time, as well. There were some clues he could try to use, like the rate of shadow essence regeneration or the state of his wounds, but they were not exactly reliable.
In heroic stories, characters often found themselves in similar situations. Every time that happened, the hero somehow managed to measure the passage of time by the state of their facial hair. Sadly, despite being eighteen, Sunny could not grow even the most pitiful of beards. That was a real shame.
'...I guess I'm not hero material.'
With a bitter sigh, he stared at the lid of the treasure chest and tried to assess his physical state.
Things weren't good, but they also weren't very bad. He had sustained minor internal damage due to the Crushing, as well as several rather ugly wounds in the battle against Mimic. The half-healed cuts left on his body by the Mirror Beast had also opened at some point, and were now hurting once again.
The worst injury was, of course, his broken arm.
His mental state was also somewhat in shambles after being ravaged by the visage of the Strings of Fate. Luckily, there seemed to be no long-lasting effects. Even the splitting headache was already growing fainter. Sunny also could not remember the exact details of what he had seen, as if his mind completely erased them from his memory to protect itself.
The only thing that remained was the fragment of the memory that he had preserved on purpose — the image of the thread of golden light leading deep into the Tear.
Sunny stared at the black nothingness, waited for a while, then slowly exhaled.
'Great. Now what?'
There was no answer.
***
After a while — Sunny had no idea how long — he got tired of waiting for something to happen and decided to act.
'Might as well…'
The first thing he did was summon the Covetous Coffer.
Sunny expected that an identical chest would appear near the dead one, but instead, what he saw was a miniature version of it. A box made of dark wood, with strips of iron reinforcing it, appeared on the lid of the treasure chest.
It was about the size of a jewelry box, but not at all elegant. In fact, the Covetous Coffer looked more mean than graceful… somehow. As Sunny stared at it, the lid of the box raised slightly, revealing rows of sharp iron teeth.
He blinked.
'I guess that's all I can manage with my current Soul Core capacity.'
Shaking his head, Sunny looked at the Coffer and said in an uncertain tone:
"Come here."
Immediately, eight short iron legs appeared from under the box, and it scurried over before plopping down near him.
Sunny hesitated for a few moments, glanced at his fingers, then cautiously opened the lid of the box. Luckily, it didn't try to bite them off.
Taking off his pack, Sunny transferred its contents into the box. Although it seemed rather small, the Coffer swallowed all his supplies without any problem.
'...Perfect.'
Sunny closed the box, patted it on the lid, and dismissed it.
Then, he summoned the Moonlight Shard and methodically cut his now empty pack into strips of leather. Using his one healthy hand and his teeth, Sunny tied them into a semblance of a rope, then tied himself to the treasure chest, and finally calmed down.
Now, his coins weren't going anywhere.
Satisfied with his handiwork, Sunny rested for a bit. He was starting to feel tired… and sleepy.
Falling through the endless abyss turned out to be way less exciting than he had thought. In fact, it was extremely boring.
There were still a lot of things he had to do, though…
With a grimace, Sunny cautiously shifted his weight and crawled to the end of the chest. There, he used the Moonlight Shard to widen a crack on the side of the dead Mimic and separate two long planks of wood from it.
Then, he made a roll out of the last strip of leather he had and bit down on it.
'This... is going to suck.'
Without giving himself too much time to think about it, he removed his broken arm from its sling, and then proceeded to swiftly set the bones… just like he had been taught.
A sharp, blinding pain pierced his mind.
When Sunny regained his vision and the ability to think straight, he saw that his arm did not look like jelly anymore. It seemed more or less straight.
'That will have to do...'
Hissing and cursing, he used the two planks of wood and the strip of leather to create a sturdy splint, then carefully placed it back inside the sling. Now, his broken bones had a good chance of growing back together correctly.
Hopefully.
After that, Sunny summoned the Endless Spring and the Covetous Coffer, took some of his remaining food out of it, and had a strangely relaxed meal on top of the dead Mimic's lid.
By the time he was done, the Sky Below… did not change at all.
He was still falling into its depths, slowly moving the treasure chest toward the center of the Tear with the help of the Dark Wing.
…He was also absolutely exhausted.
Sunny somberly stared at the distant false stars.
He stared at them until his eyes started to water and his thoughts became slow and muddy.
Then, he stared at them some more.
After a while, he thought:
'I can't take it anymore.'
By then, his reserves of shadow essence were full by a third. Judging that around twenty-four hours had passed after the destruction of the Twisted Rock, Sunny sighed, then dismissed the Dark Wing and allowed the chest to start falling straight down.
He was going to have to keep falling into the Sky Below for six more days... at least. Probably longer. Sunny shook his head, knowing full well that these estimations had almost nothing to do with reality.
Then, he did something that he had never thought he would ever do…
He cautiously lay down on the long lid of the dead Mimic, tightened the rope connecting them together… and closed his eyes.
Soon, Sunny was dead asleep, plummeting into the darkness of the abyss without a care in the world.
Chapter 433: More of the Same Nothing
Sunny's bed trembled slightly, and he felt the wind blowing across the room. Still mostly asleep, he sighed and tried to pull the blanket higher. However, that damned thing was nowhere to be found.
'Where the hell is it…'
Reluctant to let go of sleep, he blindly searched for the blanket. Instead of finding it, though, Sunny suddenly felt his whole bed careen to the side. Startled, he opened his eyes… and saw nothing but darkness surrounding him.
'What the?! Oh… right.'
He wasn't in his small room in the Sanctuary. He was plummeting into a lightless abyss atop the corpse of a Fallen Devil, instead.
Sunny stared into the darkness for a bit.
Then, he yawned.
'Well. At least I slept well.'
Indeed, he was feeling rather refreshed. Most of his aches had either disappeared or grown milder, and even his wounded mind felt soothed. He felt rested, energized, and much better overall.
The only problem was, he was still falling into the endless void of the Sky Below.
Sunny scratched the back of his head, though about this predicament, then summoned the Endless Spring and drank some water. Then, he concentrated and tried to assess the situation.
...The situation was absolutely the same.
He was surrounded by nothing, nothing had changed while he slept, and there was nothing he could do about it.
Sunny sighed and stared at the treasure chest beneath him. After a while, he thought:
'If you think about it, this is just next-level pettiness. Not only did I kill this poor bastard, I even went so far as to take a nap on top of its dead body. Talk about insulting…'
Somewhere down, down below, false stars shimmered with white light.
Judging by how much of his shadow essence had regenerated, Sunny judged that he slept for about twelve hours. A bit longer than usual, but he was really exhausted after everything that had transpired.
These calculations of his, of course, were very rough. But if he assumed them to be correct, that would mean that he had left the Sanctuary six days ago.
He had no idea how long it was going to take to reach the thing on the end of the golden String of Fate, but had to assume that it would take at least a week… much longer than that, most likely.
Back in the real world, his body was safely hidden in the luxurious sleeping pod in the basement of his house. The pod would keep it alive for months, so Sunny was not too worried about his physical well-being… yet.
Would anyone miss him?
...Probably not. Kai and Effie were used to his long ventures into the Dream Realm, and even if none of them had been as long as this one was going to be, they would just assume that he was too lazy to answer their messages and go about their business. They were famous heroes now, after all, with packed schedules and plenty of problems of their own.
Teacher Julius didn't expect any reports from him, too. The lookouts in the Sanctuary were not in the habit of keeping a detailed record of who went in and out of the Citadel. The most anyone was going to think about him would be when Cassie arrived from the Night Temple, and he wasn't there to help Saint Tyris receive her.
But she would just think that he was avoiding her, as he had done before.
Sitting on the lid of the dead treasure chest in boundless darkness, Sunny realized that no one was really going to care that he was gone. So many things had changed, but even more remained just the same.
Throwing a long look at the beautiful glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a while, then dismissed it and knocked on the lid of the dead Mimic.
'Whatever. I have my coins, at least!'
***
Some time later, he was performing a strange aerial dance. Holding onto the rope connecting him to the dead Mimic with his one functioning hand, Sunny summoned the Dark Wing, then cautiously climbed onto the side of the big chest and tried to balance it so that the heavy thing didn't flip.
Because of the fact that both of them were plummeting down with incredible speed, his body felt pleasantly light. Sunny thought about it for a while, then frowned.
How did that even make any sense? Yesterday, he had thought that the speed of his fall was going to increase exponentially, which meant that at some point his body was bound to be simply torn apart… probably.
But now, he realized that his assumption was wrong. Since he could breathe in the Sky Below and felt the wind — or rather, the air moving past him as he fell through it — it meant that the speed of his fall had a limit dictated by the air resistance.
He did not, however, feel that resistance too much. By all accounts, he should have been hearing the roaring of the wind and feeling it assault his body, instead of falling through the emptiness in something that resembled comfort.
Common sense didn't seem to be working the Sky Below.
'Better not think about it too much.'
What was the point of trying to understand the laws of a place that simply denied all logic? He had far more practical things to do.
Trusting the leather rope to hold his weight, Sunny let go of it and summoned the Moonlight Shard. Then, perched precariously on the side of the treasure chest, he inserted the narrow blade of the ghostly stiletto between its lip and the lid, and tried to pry it open.
The task turned out to be far more difficult than Sunny had anticipated. Not only did he have to do everything with only one hand, he also had to balance the chest to prevent it from spinning in the empty void… as well as keep an eye on the rope, hoping nervously that it would not break.
After some time and plenty of exasperated curses, however, he finally managed to pry the jaws of the dead devil open.
Inside its maw, a pile of golden coins was waiting for him to claim them.
A dark smile appeared on Sunny's face.
Then, he let out a shaky, slightly unhinged laugh.
"Ah! It feels nice to be rich…"
Chapter 434: A Lot of Nothing
Summoning the Covetous Coffer, he commanded the toothy box to climb inside the… bigger, toothier box and open its lid. Then, he started whistling a lighthearted melody while throwing the heavy coins inside.
'One, two, three, four… ah, what a day to be alive… five, six…'
One after another, the miraculous golden discs disappeared into the Coffer. After a while, Sunny shifted his weight slightly, got more comfortable, and continued gathering his spoils.
In the end, he had recovered almost fourteen hundred coins from inside the dead devil. Just as Sunny had expected, the entire top layer of the treasure pile had turned out to be real.
That was an incredible, astonishing boon! Suddenly, everything that had happened seemed worth it…
Almost.
Glancing at the lightless void around him, Sunny sighed.
'Who knows if I will even be able to return to the Sanctuary? Without the altar, these coins are just dead weight.'
Somewhat disheartened, he lingered for a few moments, then turned his gaze back to the opened treasure chest.
The top layer of the treasure pile that he had successfully plundered was indeed real, but beneath it…
Sunny struggled to keep the contents of his stomach inside. Beneath the treasure, the limbs and organs of the Mimic were tightly packed together, taking up most of the chest's volume. The whole thing was soaked in black blood and producing a sickening stench, not to mention looking like a butcher's nightmare.
'Disgusting… so disgusting…'
Thinking about how repulsive the sight in front of him was, Sunny used the Moonlight Shard to cut through the terrible sludge and fished out four large soul shards with a wide smile on his face. After cleaning them up a little, he placed the alluring crystals inside the Covetous Coffer and dismissed the Memory with a feeling of great satisfaction.
After that, Sunny stared inside the treasure chest with a dubious expression on his face.
The thing was… he only had around three days worth of provisions left, stored neatly inside the Covetous Coffer. If he rationed his food, it would probably last him for about a week. After that…
Sunny scratched the back of his head, then shuddered and closed the lid of the chest with a loud thud.
'...I'll think about it when the time comes. But, hopefully, it never does!'
With that, he climbed back onto the dead devil and rested for a while, looking into the darkness.
As time slowly passed, Sunny grew more and more solemn. Finally, he came to a frightening realization.
…He had nothing else left to do.
***
"This is going to be a problem."
An eternity later — or just a few hours, who knew — Sunny was sitting on top of the treasure chest and dying from boredom.
He was still falling through the boundless dark abyss. Of course, what else would he be doing? There was nothing else to do!
The Cruel Sight was in his hand, the silver blade shining with a bright radiance. He was using its [Light Eater] enchantment to summon the sunlight the somber spear had absorbed and project it into the darkness of the Sky Below. Thanks to that light, the shapes of his two shadows could be clearly seen, one resting on the surface of the chest to his left, the other to his right.
Sunny shook his head, then said:
"I am dying of boredom here. I have never been this bored. How are we going to survive weeks of this crap? What do you guys think?"
The happy shadow to his right hesitated, then raised a fist encouragingly. Its sentiment was quite clear:
"You got this!"
The gloomy shadow to his left stared at him grimly, then simply shook its head. Its meaning was clear, too…
"Just give up already…"
Sunny blinked a couple of times, then smiled.
"Well, I think it's going to be fine. I'll just… think about it as a vacation. Yeah. When was the last time I could just relax and do nothing? That's right… never! If you think about it, guys, this is a godsend opportunity. An opportunity to rest and laze about as much as I want."
He remained silent for a while, then added:
"I literally have no choice but to do nothing. Lucky me, right?"
The gloomy shadow glanced at him, then covered its face with a palm.
Even the happy shadow hesitated for a bit before giving him a timid shrug.
Sunny frowned.
"What do you mean, go crazy? I am not going to go crazy! I'm so done with being crazy. Been there, done that, as they say. There is zero possibility that I will go crazy."
The shadows didn't answer, making him huff angrily.
"Whatever! Why am I even speaking to you two? It's not like you even have enough decency to pull your weight in the conversation!"
He scowled and dismissed the Cruel Sight, letting the darkness shroud everything once again. The shadows became invisible.
After a while, Sunny said scornfully:
"And it's not like I don't have better alternatives to talk to, anyway."
…Where had he put the Ordinary Rock?
***
By the time three days had passed — at least Sunny suspected that it had been three days, since that was how long his shadow essence usually took to fully recover without the aid of the Soul Serpent — he was, indeed, on the verge of losing his mind.
It wasn't even the boredom that was the worst, it was the absolute lack of any external stimuli.
Nothing ever changed in the Sky Below. Nothing ever happened. Nothing ever appeared, or disappeared, or was there at all. There was nothing but empty darkness, the distant shimmering stars, and him.
And falling.
At the start of it all, Sunny had been worried that he would encounter evil, colossal, inconceivably horrifying creatures in the abyss. That was what one would expect from an abyss, right? But there was none.
By now, he almost hoped to encounter a stray titan or two.
He had heard that people were prone to going insane in isolation, but never expected to be in such a situation himself.
Sunny had spent the first day thinking about this and that, remembering his experiences and trying to learn something from them.
He wondered about the Mirror Beast and the Cruel Sight. Why was the silver spear even called that? Then, he understood.
It was called the Cruel Sight because its polished blade showed a person their own reflection.
He wondered about the shipwreck, the coins, the Mimic, and the person called Noctis. How were all of these things connected?
After a while, he guessed that Noctis had been the captain of the ancient ship, the master of the Mimic, and the person whose face was depicted on the miraculous coins. Noctis was also probably the one who had created the coins, in the first place.
That's why they could only be used in his Sanctuary.
He wondered about what Kai, Effie, and Cassie were doing.
He wondered about Nephis.
On the second day, he summoned the runes and saw that she had become a devil. Sunny stared at the counter that showed [2/4000] with a deadpan expression, then sighed and dove into the Soul Sea.
There, he had studied all of his Memories and the shadows of all the creatures he had killed.
That only took him a couple of hours.
...Or an eternity.
On the third day, Sunny just lay on the lid of the dead mimic and stared into the void. His mind was starting to behave in strange ways. Although there was nothing around him, Sunny could sometimes see strange shapes and silhouettes in the darkness, as well as hear distant noises.
He wanted to think that they were real, but knew that it was just the result of prolonged sensory starvation. Human minds were weird that way… they couldn't really withstand a lot of nothing.
Suddenly, the story of a man who had to turn back after seven days of descending into the Sky Below out of fear of going insane made much more sense to him.
To make himself perceive at least something, Sunny summoned the Silver Bell and rang it in the darkness, listening to the melodious ringing as it disappeared into the abyss.
And now, he was sitting on the treasure chest, looking at the distant stars, and speaking with the Ordinary Rock.
"So, how has your day been, Rock?"
The Memory answered in his own voice:
"Same old nothing. Yours?"
Sunny remained silent for a while, then said:
"I am enjoying my vacation."
The Ordinary Rock laughed.
"Sounds wonderful! How is your vacation going?"
He sighed.
"Splendidly. I've yet to hit the rock bottom."
For a while, there was nothing but silence. Then, a new question came:
"...Why is it so dark?"
Sunny smiled weekly.
"Why wouldn't it be dark? This is the Sky Below, after all!"
But then, he froze.
'...What?'
The voice that asked the question… had not come from the Ordinary Rock.
That voice was not his own.
Chapter 435: Listening to Nothing
Sunny shuddered.
The voice he heard… was not his own. It sounded pleasant and calm, and seemed to have come from the darkness of the Sky Below itself.
'...Have I finally lost it?'
His first thought was that he had gone crazy again and was now hearing things.
His second thought was much less comforting…
'Damnation!'
Had he summoned some unholy titan from the depths of the Sky Below, after all?!
Sunny outstretched one hand, ready to manifest the Cruel Sight, but then hesitated.
If the owner of the voice was not a figment of his imagination, but some harrowing being of the void, was it really wise to agitate it? Would the silver blade even do anything against it?
'Calm down. Calm down. Maybe you just imagined the whole thing…'
As if to answer his thoughts, the void laughed softly.
"Ah, my apologies. I seem to have startled you."
Sunny gulped.
The pleasant voice seemed to belong to a young man, but no matter how hard he looked into the darkness, he couldn't see anyone… or anything… nearby.
He was reminded of his first meeting with Kai, only this time... this time, things were much more frightening.
"N—no worries. I just… didn't expect to hear another human's voice here. You, uh… you are a human… right?"
The void was silent for a while, then answered in a neutral tone:
"A human? I used to be a human once, I guess."
Sunny realized that he couldn't even pinpoint the direction from which the voice was coming. It was just… there, somehow. Everywhere. Around him...
He tensed, then asked cautiously:
"Used to? Then what are you now?"
The voice disappeared for a few moments, then sighed. Finally, it answered:
"...Lost."
Sunny blinked.
'What the hell does he mean?'
"Lost? As in lost in the Sky Below?"
The darkness let out a sad laugh.
"...No. Not in the Sky Below."
As Sunny felt cold shivers run down his spine, it hesitantly added:
"I am sorry. I haven't spoken to anyone in a long, long time. Instead of lost, It would be more proper to say that I am one of the Lost. My body in the waking world was destroyed, but my soul continues to exist here, in the Dream Realm. I hope that explanation is more clear."
One of the Lost…
Sunny knew of these people, although he had never met one in person. Just like there were Hollow — people whose souls were destroyed, leaving an empty body behind — there were also the Lost. People whose bodies had somehow died in the real world, leaving their souls stranded in the Dream Realm. There wasn't a lot of them, since most of the time the soul perished shortly after the body had, but there were some.
Knowing that the owner of the voice was one of these lost souls made Sunny relax a little… not that he had any reason to believe that the stranger was telling him the truth. He could have been a Nightmare Creature, still.
Or something worse...
But even if he was Lost, that didn't explain how they were able to converse. The Lost, from what Sunny knew, were just like any other Awakened in the Dream Realm. It was just that they couldn't return to the real world.
What they certainly were not were disembodied voices coming from the void.
He shifted his weight slightly, ready to… do something to protect himself, if need be, and asked:
"Sorry to hear that. But how is it that I am able to hear your voice, but can't see you?"
The voice lingered for some time, that answered with a bit of amusement:
"That is a good question."
Sunny waited patiently for him to expand on that answer, but that seemed to be it. A bit irritated, he said:
"Well? Aren't you going to explain?"
Instead, the voice suddenly asked:
"Why are you descending into the Sky Below? This is a very dangerous place."
Sunny blinked a couple of times, then coughed.
"Ah, that… well, you see… I am not so much descending into the Sky Below as I am falling into it. I got stuck on an island because of the Crushing, and sadly, that island broke off its chain. So, I had to jump off. And here I am."
Then, he frowned.
"Wait… dangerous place? Why is it dangerous? I haven't seen anything dangerous anywhere in this dreadful pit!"
The voice lingered for a while, then sighed with regret.
"You'll see. When you reach the stars… then you will see."
Then, it disappeared.
Sunny stared into the darkness, a bit disturbed. A deep frown appeared on his face.
"What do you mean? What will happen when I reach the stars?"
But there was no answer.
No matter how long Sunny waited, the voice did not speak to him again. The void was silent and empty, just as it had been before.
In the end, he just massaged his temples and cursed.
"What the hell was that?!"
Did he imagine the whole thing? Had his mind finally cracked?
Sunny stared at the Ordinary Rock, as though expecting it to actually talk and collaborate his story. Sadly, the Memory could only repeat the sounds it had recently heard…
'Wait… the sounds it had heard!'
Sunny hurriedly commanded the Rock to repeat everything it had recorded in the past few minutes. Then, feeling cold sweat appear on his forehead, he listened to his own voice speaking to nothing. His words were repeated, but where the words of the strange voice should have been, there was nothing but silence.
Dismissing the Ordinary Rock, Sunny clutched his hair and groaned.
"Crazy… I've gone completely crazy… curse it all, it has been just four days, and am already turning back into a lunatic!"
Not even a full week passed by, and he was already going insane.
"This is the worst vacation ever!"
After a while, he frowned.
Despite being mostly sure that the whole thing was just a symptom of his sanity slowly breaking apart, Sunny cautiously crawled to the edge of the chest and looked down, at the distant shimmering stars.
..Was he imagining things, or did they seem to be a little closer?
Chapter 436: Nothing to worry About
After the conversation with the disembodied voice of the void — whether it was real or not — Sunny felt different. Not exactly better, but at least not as lost and unmoored as before.
'That would be really ironic if the voice was just a figment of my imagination, wouldn't it?'
The empty void around him didn't seem as empty anymore. Even if it was now full of potential danger, the danger was better than nothing.
…Anything was better than nothing. After four days spent in the endless silence of the dark abyss, Sunny realized just how terrible nothingness was. The human mind was simply not built to withstand it.
In any case, he wasted some time staring at the distant stars, and then got to thinking.
Now that his cores were once again full of essence, he had no tool left to measure time. After considering his options for a while, he summoned the Cruel Sight and activated the [Dark Mirror] enchantment.
Even though he had no enemies to fight in the Sky Below, simply keeping the enchantment active was going to drain his shadow essence. Sunny felt that he could keep it going for about two hours straight.
After his reserve of Essene became approximately half-empty, he dismissed the Cruel Sight and sat cross-legged in the center of the dead devil's lid.
Plummeting through the lightless void, Sunny inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. Then, he concentrated on the flow of essence through his body, feeling it permeate every fiber of his being.
Directing it into the coils of the Soul Serpent, he felt its flow accelerate and widen.
By using the Shadow, he was going to replenish all of the spent essence in about a day. That was going to be his clock from now on.
Sunny exhaled, directed the shadow essence into his left hand, and concentrated it in his thumb, then in his index finger…
Thanks to the Soul Serpent, his control of the essence was better than that of most Awakened. However, it was still rather crude. Sunny innately knew how to enhance his physical attributes by expending it, but wasn't really efficient with how he did it. To him, it was a matter of instinct — he just thought about making his hand stronger, and the essence flowed like a torrent to achieve the desired effect.
That was how all young Awakened used it.
True masters, however, were much more intricate in their control of essence. They could isolate every muscle, every nerve, every bone in their body and only enhance those parts of it that they needed to perform an action. Their expenditure of essence was more akin to a trickle than a torrent, but achieved the same result.
That's why between two Awakened with similar soul core capacity, one could be able to fight at his peak physical prowess for much longer.
…Now that Sunny had nothing else to do, he decided to really work on this aspect of mastery over his own body and soul. He had practiced essence control before, of course, but between the constant need to hunt down Nightmare Creatures and the fact that Soul Serpent served as an effective replacement for months of training, not as much as he could and should have.
Directing the flow of essence into his right hand, Sunny sighed and thought:
'Vacation is over.'
***
Two more days passed… or rather, two cycles of spending shadow essence with the help of the Cruel Sight and then waiting for it to regenerate, which Sunny had decided to count as days.
He spent that time meditating as he controlled the flow of the essence through his body, sleeping, and feeling hungry.
Now that Sunny was rationing his food, the feeling of hunger that he had forgotten ever since becoming infected by the Nightmare Spell returned. Even then, his supplies were on the verge of running out.
He only had enough for two meager meals left. After that, Sunny was either going to have to starve, or consider opening the treasure chest again and gnawing on the dead devil's raw meat.
Both possibilities seemed rather bleak.
What he was more concerned about, however, were the shimmering fake stars of the Sky Below.
Now, he was more or less sure that they were slowly growing larger. If not for the conversation with the voice of the void, he would have never noticed the subtle change. But after being alerted to their importance and spending a lot of time observing the stars, he had become convinced that the voice — whether it was one of the Lost, a Nightmare Creature pretending to be human, or simply a manifestation of his damaged psyche — had been right.
He was slowly drawing closer to the stars burning in the deepest reaches of the abyss.
If only the voice had told him why, exactly, the stars were dangerous…
Luckily, on the seventh day of his plummeting through the Sky Below, the voice returned.
Sunny was grimly eating his second to last piece of food and staring into the darkness, feeling his mind teetering on the verge of madness, when the voice resounded from the void again:
"...What a curious creature you are."
'Oh, thank god!'
Sunny choked on a piece of dried meat, took a sip of water from the Endless Spring to chase it down, and glanced at the empty expanse of the Sky Below with a dark expression.
"Where the hell have you been?!"
The voice remained silent for a bit, then answered apologetically:
"Talking like this is draining for me. I was recovering."
Sunny frowned, trying to glean some information about the nature of the owner of the pleasant voice from this statement, but then gave up. He had too few clues to guess.
"Well… if you are about to disappear for a few days again, at least tell me what's the deal with these stars first. Why are they so dangerous?"
The void hesitated:
"You don't know?"
Sunny blinked.
"Of course, I don't know! Why would I ask if I knew?"
When the void answered in a few moments, it sounded slightly surprised:
"Well. Those lights are not really stars. They are actually remnant conflagrations of the divine flame."
Sunny thought about what he just heard, then tilted his head to the side.
"Divine… flame? What? Why would divine flame burn in the depths of the Sky Below?"
The voice chuckled. Then, it said with a bit of amusement:
"How do you think the Sky Below came to be? A long time ago, this was a beautiful and prosperous land, you know."
The amusement drained from its voice, replaced with something much darker.
"But then, its prideful ruler provoked the wrath of the Lord of Light. The Lord… ah, you probably only know him as Sun God… brought down his heavenly flame upon the lands, shattering the earth and burying an unquenchable fire beneath it."
The void grew silent, and then sighed.
"Over the ages, that fire devoured everything — the earth, the land, even reality itself. All that is left is this empty abyss, and the remnant fragments of the divine flame still burning deep below. So, I am sorry to say this… but unless you know a way to survive the searing heat of the all-destroying heavenly fire, you will probably burn to death in a few weeks."
Chapter 437: Nothing, Nothing, Nothing
Sunny sat silently for a few moments, thinking.
'Sun God…'
So, the ruler of this land had angered the gods, and one of them struck down her kingdom. He could just imagine it — a vast pillar of incandescent white flame falling from the skies, piercing the ground and causing the whole region to fracture, its fragments falling into the searing inferno of the divine flame one after another.
Well… not all of them had fallen.
He glanced up, wondering if the Chained Isles were created to save the citizens of the destroyed kingdom from annihilation. If so… that prideful ruler must have been not so simple herself.
Who would be powerful enough to dare resist the wrath of the gods?
And what had that being done to provoke it?
But more importantly…
How the hell did the voice of the void knew so much about it?
A subtly suspicious expression appeared on his face.
"...Really? This is very interesting. And how exactly do you know all this?"
Sunny hesitated, and then cautiously added:
"Did you, perhaps, have something to do with that prideful ruler?"
The voice was silent for a moment, and then suddenly exploded with sincere laughter.
"Oh my! I wish! Wouldn't that be grand… but no, I am just an Awakened who had studied the Chained Isles, probably the same way that you have studied them in your travels. The ruins here are all but destroyed by the endless cycle of the Crushing, but if one knows where to look, there are still some answers left to find."
Sunny smiled.
"True. But I am actually a research assistant for the Wilderness Survival faculty of the Academy, and yet I have never seen any of the information you possess in the database. With the level of access that I have, that is very strange, isn't it?"
The voice chuckled.
"How am I supposed to report my findings to the Academy? I can't even leave the Dream Realm."
Sunny blinked.
That… actually made a lot of sense. Sort of. Lost or not, an Awakened still had to survive somehow in the Dream Realm, so they were bound to live in one of the Citadels. Probably. So, it wasn't like they had no contact at all with the real world, even if it was only through the other inhabitants of their Citadel.
Unless the owner of the voice was not a usual Lost. Or was lying to Sunny...
Or was just a figment of his imagination.
He frowned.
"...By the way, where are you, exactly? I haven't heard a voice like yours anywhere in the Sanctuary. And I have spoken to most of the Awakened there at least once."
The voice lingered for a while, then answered:
"I am not in the Sanctuary."
What was that supposed to mean? There was another Citadel on the Chained Isles, the Night Temple. But only those serving Valor were allowed to anchor there. Well… excluding Cassie and her cohort.
Did the owner of the voice have something to do with the great clan Valor? Sunny raised an eyebrow.
"Are you from the Night Temple, then?"
…But there was no response.
It seemed that the mysterious young man Sunny had been speaking with — if he was even real — had once again reached his limit, thus ending their conversation.
Sunny sighed.
"I swear to gods, this is even more annoying than when Effie leaves me on read!"
Who knew that a voice of the void could be more irritating than someone who had been almost literally raised by wild wolves?
"No manners! No decorum..."
***
Soon, Sunny regretted not asking the voice necessary questions. He would have to be more strategic with his words in the future...
"Survive heavenly fire… survive heavenly fire…"
Sunny glanced at the stars and felt that they had drawn even closer.
How was he supposed to withstand the searing heat of the divine flame?
Could that flame burn shadows?
He didn't really have an answer, but felt that it would be at least damaging to him, even in his shadow form.
And then, there was a more looming problem. The voice said that it would take Sunny a few weeks to reach the layer of the abyss containing the false stars, which meant that he was going to be… very, very hungry by the time he did.
Humans could survive a surprising amount of time without any food, but it would take a heavy toll on his body. Sunny had no idea what he was going to find on the other end of the golden String of Fate, but doubted that it would be a warm welcome.
He had to be ready to confront danger, and becoming starved and weak was not really an option.
Sunny lingered for a while, then stared down, at the lid of the treasure chest.
Was he really going to have to eat… that?
Even his shadows seemed disgusted by the idea.
But hey… food was food.
'Right?'
With a sigh, Sunny summoned the Covetous Coffer, took out his last meal out, and looked at it with regret.
"Tonight… we feast!"
'...Tomorrow, we mourn. And barf. Probably.'
***
A few days later, the stars were visibly brighter than they had been before. The sight of the black void littered with shimmering lights would have been beautiful if not for the terrible danger they represented.
Sunny was sitting in the center of the plummeting treasure chest with an extremely miserable expression on his face. It was deathly pale, and his chin was covered with drying black blood.
Raising a piece of raw devil meat to his mouth, he tore a piece of it with his teeth, and forced himself to chew.
'Disgusting… this is so disgusting… who knew I would miss the taste of synthpaste one day? Maybe I should just starve, after all!'
As soon as he thought that, the void suddenly spoke again:
"Oh, gods! You are actually eating that!"
Sunny stared into the darkness with hatred, swallowed the piece of mimic meat, and said evenly:
"Sure. Want a bite?"
The voice hesitated for several seconds, then asked:
"You're eating it raw?"
Sunny gritted his teeth.
"Of course I am eating it raw, you fool! How else am I supposed to eat it? I don't exactly have a kitchen here!"
Then, with a furious determination, he tore another piece of meat and chewed on it. As it turned out, his face had not reached its maximum paleness before. Now, it seemed not only white, but also a little green.
The void sighed. Then, it asked curiously:
"Are you not afraid of poisoning yourself?"
Sunny snarled.
"...I have a strong stomach."
He had, indeed, considered the possibility of catching a severe case of food poisoning from eating the corrupted meat of the vile devil. As an Awakened, however, his digestive system was much stroтger than that of mundane humans. And on top of that, there was Blood Weave. So, he judged that his chances of dying from eating the mimic were rather low.
…Now matter how poetic it would have been. Choking to death on the flesh of a devil you killed would be, too...
'How funny.'
Sunny swallowed the disgusting meat and took a sip from the Endless Spring.
A few moments later, the voice asked:
"Have you thought of a way to survive the divine flames?"
He stared at his broken arm, then shrugged.
"I considered a few."
The voice seemed to be pleased to hear that.
"Good. I have thought about it, as well…"
Chapter 438: Prince of Nothing
Sunny stared into the void suspiciously.
"Yeah? And how come you are so concerned about my well-being?"
The voice remained silent for a bit, then answered wistfully:
"I haven't really spoken to anyone in a long, long time. It would be a shame to finally find someone to talk to, only for them to die soon. Don't you think?"
'That guy is definitely not just a simple Lost… what is his deal, really? Is he actually a human or only pretends to be one?'
Sunny thought for a bit, then said:
"I guess. And since we're on the topic… how is it exactly that we are able to talk?"
He expected the voice to change the subject or ignore the question, but to his surprise, it actually answered:
"I am not really sure. This has never happened to me before, either."
After a while, it added hesitantly:
"Have you… have you perhaps found a piece of a broken mirror somewhere?"
Something clicked in Sunny's mind.
"Broken mirror… Mirror Beast… Beastie…"
The Ascended Reflection! The shard of a mirror that the strange creature had left behind was still inside the Covetous Coffer… smeared with his blood…
'Crap!'
So the owner of the voice was the creator of the murderous Reflection Sunny had encountered on the Reckoning. That… that gave him as many questions as it had given him answers.
He couldn't really think about it right now, though, because the pressure of the Flaw was already building in his mind, forcing him to speak.
"Now that you mention it, I did, indeed, recently find a piece of a broken mirror. With the word "Beastie" written on it in a child's handwriting."
The voice remained silent for a while, then asked quietly:
"Oh? How exactly did you find it?"
Sunny did not answer for as long as he could, then reluctantly spoke:
"That mirror shard was left behind by a powerful creature I killed. I took it with me, thinking that it might turn out to be important."
This time, the voice was quiet for an especially long amount of time. When it finally spoke, there was a hint of anguish in it. The owner of the voice tried very hard to suppress it, but his pain seemed to be too deep to not seep into his words even slightly.
"...So it's dead. I see."
Then, it fell silent once again.
Sunny tensed. After a while, he asked carefully:
"You, uh… you're not going to be angry with me for killing your pet, are you?"
A deep sigh resounded from the void.
"Angry… with you? Why would I be angry with you? You are not to blame for what happened to us."
Sunny shivered, suspecting that whoever or whatever it was that had been responsible for the Mirror Beast becoming separated from its creator — and eventually dying by his hand — was extremely lucky that the owner of the voice had become one of the Lost.
Then, he asked cautiously:
"What… what exactly was it, though? I have never seen a creature like that."
The voice seemed more in control of itself when it answered after a few long moments:
"A manifestation of my Aspect Ability. A kind of an Echo, you can say. I… I created him when I was just a lonely kid. We were together for a long time, before… before we weren't anymore."
Sunny tilted his head, then frowned slightly.
"What do you mean, a kid? A kid with an Aspect Ability?"
The voice laughed bitterly.
"Ah, that… I had my First Nightmare when I was twelve. It's rare, but does happen sometimes. Few children survive the trial, though."
Sunny blinked.
'Being sent into the Nightmare at twelve… of course very few survive!'
He did know that, in extremely rare cases, the people infected by the Spell were outside of the usual age range. The entire first generation of the Awakened had been, for example. And there were cases of this anomaly to this day, even though it usually happened to someone older than the norm, not someone younger.
'And I thought that I was unlucky…'
He cleared his throat, then said awkwardly:
"Well… I am sorry for your loss. If it makes you feel any better, the creature tried to say something before it died. Uh… we never stopped searching. Something like that."
The voice, however, didn't respond. It seemed that its owner had once again spent all of his soul essence… or whatever it was that allowed him to communicate with Sunny… and was now gone for another few days.
Sunny sighed.
"Curse it! I didn't even have time to ask him how to survive the damned stars!"
More strategic with how he chose his words, damn it!
***
Sunny spent a few more days plummeting into the void. By now, he was having trouble remembering what it even felt like, to not be falling. The darkness seemed to be eternal and everpresent, as though he had always been here, in its empty embrace, and all of his actual life was just a strange dream.
'Maybe it was?'
No... no, it wasn't. He was almost sure.
By the time the voice returned, the void had changed slightly. Not only were the distant shimmering lights now closer and brighter, but it also felt as if the air was getting warmer.
Sunny was in his usual spot, sitting cross-legged in the center of the treasure chest and training to better control the flow of shadow essence. On the surface of the lid near him was a dark longbow and a quiver of black arrows.
"...You practice archery?"
Sunny opened his eyes and glanced into the darkness, then shrugged.
"Not really. But I hope to learn a bit of it soon."
He made a grimace and nodded toward his broken arm:
"I do need two functioning hands before I'll be able to, though."
The bow and the quiver of arrows were the same he had entrusted to Saint before. Both of the Memories were Ascended, but only of the first tier. The bow's enchantments made it incredibly strong and sturdy, while the only enchantment that the arrows possessed was that they came as a whole quiver instead of a single one.
His broken arm, meanwhile, was healing. He could already move his fingers, but the process was far from over. He was halfway there, though.
Sunny healed much faster than mundane humans, and even other Awakened. He was sure that in another week or so, he would be able to take off the splint and draw the black bow.
The voice lingered, then said:
"We had no time to discuss the divine flames last time."
Sunny nodded.
"Indeed."
Then, he remembered something and asked:
"Oh, by the way… what do I call you? Do you have a name? It's a bit awkward to keep thinking of you simply as the Voice."
The voice laughed.
"A name? I used to have a name, I guess."
Sunny sighed.
"Yeah? Well, what is it?"
The void lingered for a while, then answered with amusement:
"...Mordret. Or, rather... Prince Mordret, I guess."
Sunny opened and close his mouth a couple of times, then asked with suspicion in his voice:
"Prince? What are you the prince of?"
Mordret laughed.
"Nothing! I am a Prince of Nothing. Nothing at all…"
Chapter 439: Do or Die
Sunny stared into the darkness with an incredulous expression, then shrugged:
"Sure. Whatever. Nice to make your acquaintance… Your Highness. I am called Sunless, by the way. Sadly, no title."
Silently, though, he thought:
'...The young prince that the Dreamspawn had taken away?'
Oblivious to his suspicions, Mordret hesitated, then asked politely:
"Sunless? What an unusual name."
Sunny grimaced.
"Yes. My mother had a… on second thought, forget that! Are you going to tell me about the divine flame or not?"
The Prince of Nothing was silent for a bit, then said:
"There is not much to tell. The heat of those flames is absolutely deadly. Unless you have some way to fly, you are in big trouble. Which, I assume, you don't… otherwise, you wouldn't be in this predicament, to begin with. Right?"
'Well… you can't argue with sound logic, I guess!'
Sunny sighed.
"...I can control the direction of the fall, but yes, no true flight."
He hesitated, then added reluctantly:
"For what it is worth, my Aspect Ability allows me to turn incorporeal, as well as teleport for short distances."
He didn't really want to share the details of his powers with the mysterious prince, but currently, there was no other choice. Mordret obviously knew more about the Sky Below than Sunny, so his advice was vital.
The lost prince thought for a few moments, then said:
"Turning incorporeal will help against being cooked by the heat, but it won't save you from the divine flame itself. However, not everything is lost. Even though you can't fly, you do have some mobility. With some luck, you might be able to dodge the conflagrations."
Sunny glanced into the darkness with a resentful expression.
"That I already figured out myself. Tell me something that I don't know, genius."
The void chuckled.
"Fine. But only because you asked nicely…"
Then, it disappeared.
Sunny's face twitched.
"Goddammit! He's gone again!"
But a second later, Mordret's voice suddenly resounded from the darkness:
"No, no. There is still time. I was just thinking…"
He was quiet for a few moments, then said hesitantly:
"There is actually a path through the divine flame. An empty rift in the tapestry of stars where none of it remains. If you find it, you might survive."
Although it was hard to control his emotions these days, Sunny tried his hardest to suppress the misplaced anger and calm himself down. When he spoke, his voice sounded almost even:
"Why didn't you tell me sooner? How far am I from this rift, then?"
Mordret sighed.
"How would I know? It's not like I know where you are, exactly. More than that, I had never managed to find the rift myself. The Sky Below is vast and deadly, after all…"
'...So, he was exploring this abyss, too. Why? What's out there, beyond the fake stars?'
Sunny tilted his head, the asked cautiously:
"If you never found it, how do you know that it's there?"
The void remained silent for some time. After a while, when Mordret spoke again, his voice sounded distant and weak:
"The Tear… it should be somewhere near the Tear. I think…"
With that, Sunny felt that he was alone in the darkness again. This time, the mysterious prince was truly gone.
He sat motionlessly for a while, staring into the endless nothingness of the Sky Below.
"Near the Tear…"
The String of Fate, too, had pointed toward the Tear. To somewhere very near its center. If the rift in the annihilating field of the divine flames had anything to do with the golden thread, then Sunny had a much better chance of finding the path through the merciless stars than Mordret had ever had.
…He had already half-found it, really.
Looking down, Sunny sighed and closed his eyes again, returning to the endless routine of circulating the shadow essence through his body.
***
Day passed after day.
The closer Sunny drew to the obliterating stars, the calmer he became. Now that mortal danger was getting near, his mind had no time and reason to slowly destroy itself. The absolute nothingness of the void that had assaulted it, too, was much less empty now.
Not only was it full of threat, but also of heat and light.
And shadows…
Sunny had dismissed the leather elements of the Puppeteer's Shroud and undid the bands of its upper garment. Stripped to the waist, he meditated in the darkness, the Soul Serpent coiling around his pale and lithe body.
Because of the rough diet of only eating the poisonous meat of a dead devil, he had practically no fat left. His skin looked a bit feverish and was drawn tautly across his lean muscles, making for a sight that was both splendid and a little disturbing.
His broken arm had almost healed, so he removed the splint and spent some time every day doing simple exercises to bring it back to its former strength. He had to be cautious not to overexert it too soon, though.
The plan of how to survive the field of stars was slowly forming in his mind. It was bound to be a gamble one way or another, but Sunny was not going to give up without doing everything he could to survive.
…His confidence was somewhat reinforced by the fact that he had, most likely, discovered the rift that Mordred told him about.
Following the direction of the golden String of Fate that had been practically burned into his mind, Sunny studied a particular cluster of the stars for an entire week before finally noticing something that looked like a tiny, almost imperceptibly minuscule gap in the vast tapestry of countless shimmering lights.
Trusting his judgment, he summoned the Dark Wing and used it to push the treasure chest toward that particular cluster. Luckily, he was already not too far away from it… most likely because he had been aiming to follow the golden string from the very beginning of his fall.
As a few more days went by and the stars grew even larger, Sunny became more or less certain that the tiny gap was, indeed, there. It had grown slightly bigger, too.
What he was uncertain about, however, was his ability to reach the rift without being incinerated by the annihilating heat of the divine flame.
The field of false stars was vast, and the rift was tiny in comparison. At the speed that he was falling, missing it would be far too easy.
But what choice did he have?
'Do or die...'
Well... when had it ever been any different?
Chapter 440: Merciless Stars
After more than three weeks of falling into the Sky Below — at least Sunny thought that it had been that long — he sighed and stood up, balancing on the dangerously swaying treasure chest.
His hair was wet with sweat, and his skin glistened in the piercing white light of approaching stars. By now, they did not resemble white dots in the boundless darkness of the abyss. Instead, each was the size of a fist, surrounded by a furious, blinding halo.
The heat permeating the void was suffocating.
Sunny stared down, at the ocean of white flames beneath him. If this was what remained of the inferno of heavenly fire after thousands of years of burning in an empty void… he shuddered to imagine what it must have looked like right after the hammer of divine punishment had fallen on the ancient land.
His gaze was locked on a small empty space between several radiant stars.
The rift.
This was his goal.
As Sunny stared darkly at the tiny patch of emptiness amid the vast field of flame, the void suddenly spoke:
"Have you… huh? Is that a… uh… what a large tattoo you have."
Sunny glanced at the darkness, then shrugged.
"What about it?"
Mordret lingered for a few moments, as though not sure what to say, then asked with amusement:
"Sunless… are you sure that you are a research assistant?"
Sunny grinned.
"Of course I am! Do you know how many contribution points they give me every month? I scribbled a few words about this and that, and that bought me a house. An entire house! Maybe being a researcher is not as swell as being a prince, but it's still a sweet gig… with all due respect, of course. Your Highness."
The void laughed.
"You are such an interesting person."
Sunny stared into the void with an incredulous expression.
"You are a bit of an enigma yourself, are you not?"
Mordret remained silent for a bit, then asked:
"Are you ready for what is about to come?"
Instead of answering, Sunny pointed to the ocean of merciless stars.
"Look there."
When the lost prince spoke, his voice was strangely regretful:
"I can't really see that well. What is it?"
'Oh… right.'
Sunny hesitated for a few seconds, then said:
"I think I found the rift you told me about."
Mordret asked with surprise in his voice:
"...Really? You found it?"
Sunny shrugged.
"We'll see. You said that it should be somewhere under the Tear, right? Since I fell right into the Tear, there's a chance that I'm right."
The void lingered, then said in a somber tone:
"What if you're not?"
Sunny smiled.
"Then it has been nice knowing you. Anyway… anything else you want to tell me before you go? I doubt that we'll have the opportunity to speak again before I reach the stars."
Mordred thought for a few seconds, then said:
"I might not be able to reach you at all after that. So… good luck?"
Sunny raised an eyebrow.
"Really?"
The voice of the void answered after a long pause:
"Yes. Why?"
He shook his head.
"Nothing, really. I just thought that you are stuck somewhere out there, beyond the stars."
Mordret chuckled.
"...No. I am stuck somewhere else."
His voice grew strangely distant. Then, an almost inaudible whisper reached Sunny's ears:
"I hope… survive… Sunless…"
Then, the lost prince was gone, leaving Sunny alone in the darkness once again.
He sighed.
"Me too. I hope I'll survive, too."
***
After Mordred disappeared, Sunny waited for a bit, and then broke the rule he had set for himself for a second time since starting this expedition — he summoned another Memory that should have been tied only to Mongrel.
The Mantle of the Underworld.
The intricate onyx armor weaved itself from sparks of darkness and covered him from head to toe. Sunny was not accustomed to wearing its closed helmet, since he was usually using Weaver's Mask instead, but it was not uncomfortable. His field of vision, however, became slightly constricted.
'Hopefully, no one will be able to see me this far into the abyss.'
Out here in the Sky Below, he felt as though no one, not even those who were attuned to revelations, could peer into his secrets and glean anything about them.
…The only exception to the rule was the Prince of Nothing himself. But he was gone now.
The Mantle possessed two enchantments that would most likely prove themselves to be extremely helpful soon. The [Stalwart] trait of the armor imbued it with high resistance against various types of elemental damage, including fire. Just seconds after donning it, Sunny felt the suffocating heat retreat, replaced by a pleasant coolness.
How long would that coolness last, he did not know.
The [Living Stone] enchantment, on the other hand, allowed the Mantle of the Underworld to repair itself while being worn. This trait would come into play later, helping Sunny protect himself even after the divine flame became intense enough to damage the onyx armor.
After that, Sunny summoned the dark longbow and the quiver of black arrows. By now, his hand had recovered enough for him to be able to draw the mighty bow… he just hoped that he would not need to.
Finally, he summoned the Cruel Sight and attached it to his belt.
…All preparations were now done.
Looking down through the narrow slit of the visor, Sunny sighed…
Now, everything depended on his resilience, luck… and how deep his reserves of shadow essence were.
***
In the stark darkness of the empty void, deeper than even the memories of a blue sky could reach, a cracked treasure chest was plummeting toward an ocean of searing white flames.
Its underside was bathed in the furious light, while its lid was drowning in the deepest of shadows. Wisps of smoke were slowly rising from its smoldering wood, and the strips of iron reinforcing it were slowly starting to glow as they turned orange.
Sunny, who had become a shadow and was once again hiding on the lid of the dead devil, felt fine… for now. Until the treasure chest was destroyed, he was protected from directly touching the light of the divine flame.
But how long would the corpse of the mimic last?
He was thinking about something else, though… something far more dreadful.
'The rift… the damned rift! I am going to miss it!'