The night fell with a heavy, suffocating gloom.
Above them, the sky was a vast, starless abyss. Below, the sea whispered and howled, crashing against the jagged stone of the island. The three sleepers sat around a pile of cold ashes where a fire had once burned.
A heavy silence blanketed them.
'The creature from Cassie's vision...'
Sunny's thoughts turned dark. Whatever it had been—it should not have existed. It defied the very essence of what a vision was supposed to be—a fleeting, disconnected glimpse into the past or future, full of strange symbols and hazy images, never more than an intangible dream.
Yet, somehow, this being had managed to tear through the fabric of reality itself and attack her within that dream.
The only other time Sunny had seen a being like that was when the Great abomination that forcefully widened the Category Four gate in Antarctica...
But even that was nothing compared to the being in Cassie's vision. What kind of existence was this? What thing was capable of such power?
"The world was a dark place," Cassie's voice broke through the tension, soft but heavy with meaning. "And in that darkness, a lonely star shone."
Sunny frowned. Was she speaking of the vision where the Bright Castle had burned? Where the castle burned, blood flowed like rivers, and Gunlaug's corpse sat on a broken throne?
But then, Cassie's next words made his frown deepen.
"I saw a golden statue crying on a throne."
Her blind gaze drifted toward the ragged edge of the island, where the jagged rocks met the sea. She lingered there, staring into the abyss for a moment before continuing.
"Most of what I saw... I've already forgotten. The parts I remember, though... I don't know if they make sense."
She turned toward Sunny, her empty eyes meeting his with eerie precision—as if she could see him.
"I saw the Castle again. But this time... it was night."
The next words hit him like a hammer.
"And it was being devoured by shadows."
Sunny opened his mouth, but no words came. He turned toward Nephis, her gaze fixed on Cassie's every word. The tension between them all tightened, stretching in the air.
"I saw a woman with a bronze spear... drowning in a tide of monsters."
"...An archer trying to pierce the falling sky with his arrows."
Sunny exhaled sharply. Effie and Kai. They were going to be alright. He would make sure of it.
"...And an old man... dragging himself through a sea of blood."
Sunny's stomach churned.
'An old man?'
When had there ever been an old man in this place? Could it be...
But before he could voice the thought, Cassie continued.
"I saw an angel..." Her voice faltered for a moment. "And a knight, devoured by darkness."
Sunny stiffened.
...What?
Is the angel Nephis? Then who is the knight?
Cassie's description continued. Fragments of her vision spilled out in disjointed bursts. The more she spoke, the more the details eluded him. The images were familiar, yet not. Cassie struggled to remember what she had seen, but the deeper she reached into her mind, the more she found that some of the most crucial pieces had been... erased.
Sunny could feel it—the twisted sense that something fundamental had changed. The events she described were close to the ones he knew, yet... not the same.
'The timeline has changed.'
The realization hit him hard, a combination of relief and growing dread. Relief, it meant the worst fate might have changed. And dread, because the changes were getting more and more out of control.
Still, there were things that remained the same.
The Vessel of the Artificial Sun went mad. The curse of the all-consuming darkness that had been freed from its seal, forged by the seven ancient heroes. The seven severed heads, guarding the seven locks that held back the dark. The Star Sigil Sunny had used to banish the dark sea.
None of these things had changed. But everything else? Everything else was shifting. Changing. And there was no telling where it would end.
Above all, one thing gnawed at him more than the rest.
'She still hasn't mentioned the vision of the angel devoured by shadows.'
Had they truly escaped that fate? The cursed chain of events that had led to his freedom being stripped away... and Nephis being left alone on the Forgotten Shore? Had that horrible future been averted?
...Or was she deliberately hiding that part from him?
Sunny inhaled slowly, then exhaled through clenched teeth.
Cassie had told them about the vision the last time. She had no reason not to... unless something within the dream had changed her mind. Something she wasn't ready to share.
"A lone shadow writhed and twisted in the darkness," Cassie continued, her voice turning brittle and low. Her skin had gone pale, her lips trembling as she forced the next words out. "The shadow felt like dying... suffering in the presence of that abomination."
Sunny's eyes narrowed.
Was that the creature that had attacked her? And worse—was he going to fight it?
'How in the hell am I supposed to survive a thing more harrowing than a Great Nightmare creature?'
No matter how strong he had become, no matter how strong his echo was or how much power his transcendent Memory granted him, Sunny wasn't foolish enough to believe he could overcome something that twisted the very essence of reality itself. Not alone. Not yet.
Cassie's legs trembled. Beads of sweat glistened on her brow. Her head darted around, as if expecting the abomination to appear behind her at any second... to hear her speak and silence her for it.
Sunny rose to his feet and placed a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Do you need more time?"
Cassie jerked violently, almost leaping from the touch. For a moment, it was as if the monster itself had reached for her instead of him. She lingered, then shook her head with a harsh motion and let out a ragged breath.
"No... I'm fine."
She took in another breath and steadied herself.
"It's... hard to explain what I saw." Her fingers dug into her temples, trying to claw the memory into focus. "That thing... it didn't feel like it belonged to this world. Not even among nightmare creatures."
Sunny frowned.
Cassie had only seen a handful of Awakened abominations. Any Great Nightmare Creature would seem overwhelming to her. The concept of will—the monstrous force exerted by higher-rank creatures—was beyond her understanding. A being strong enough to impose its will and twist the very laws of the world would naturally appear otherworldly in her eyes.
Sunny understood that.
And yet... a subtle chill crawled down his spine.
"Its skin..." she whispered. "It glowed orange—like molten stone. Not fire... something worse. Just looking at it made my body move on its own. My foot rose, stomped the ground. My arms—it felt like they wanted to fight. Just to hurt it. To kill it. The hatred it made me feel in that moment..." She shivered. "I've never felt anything like it."
She hugged her shoulders and pulled her knees in, trembling. Her eyes fluttered rapidly, like she was trying to blink away the image burned into her mind.
Sunny watched her in silence, his face carefully blank, searching for something to say... anything that might bring comfort. But before he could speak, Nephis moved closer.
She knelt beside Cassie, placing a hand gently on her back. The blind girl flinched and turned toward her, frowning.
"...I'm not hurt anywhere."
Nephis gave a small shrug.
"But do you feel better?"
Cassie was quiet for a moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.
Her voice was low when she spoke again.
"That creature... it waved its four hands in the air, like it was celebrating the shadow's suffering. Its body... it was covered in scars. Or maybe they were symbols. They kept changing every time I blinked."
Her fists clenched, knuckles white. Her lip trembled as if bracing for a blow.
"And then... I saw its face." She stopped. Her voice dropped to a whisper, as if uttering the words might summon the creature itself. "It... looked back at me. As if it knew I was there. As if it could see me watching it."
Cassie's voice cracked.
"...As if it wanted to kill me."
Cassie reached out and clasped Nephis's hand, then extended her other hand toward Sunny. He took it, feeling the trembling in her fingers.
"I ran," she whispered. "I ran and ran. Through the alleyways of cold, wreathed stone. Past the hordes of abominations that haunted its narrow streets. They were harrowing... disturbing... but they didn't exist. Not in my world."
Her grip tightened, almost painfully.
"I passed crumbling ruins, jumped over broken rooftops, sprinted through blood, sweat, and tears. But no matter how far I fled, that thing... it never stopped. It chased me. As if the only desire it had ever known was to torment me."
A single tear traced the curve of her cheek. Sunny bit his lip.
"It was a world meant for me alone. A fragment of my vision. And yet... that creature wandered through it like it owned the place. No... like it had stolen it from me."
Her voice hardened. There was another emotion beneath the fear—resentment, fury.
"But that thing... it wasn't like me. It was different than me. Because the other monsters—the nightmare creatures that haunted the ruins—they existed in its world."
Sunny frowned slightly. Her words were starting to slip into surrealism, becoming harder and harder to interpret.
"The monsters... they attacked it. Tried to stop it. Tried to protect me... I think?"
She shook her head slowly, uncertain even as she spoke.
"But it tore through them like they were nothing more than insects."
Her lips trembled. Her voice faltered... then faded into silence. A long, heavy pause hung between them like a storm cloud.
"When it looked into my eyes," she said eventually, her voice barely a whisper, "the only thing I saw was hatred. Hatred so deep, it felt like an endless abyss. It hated me for being there. For seeing its face. For existing. I don't know."
Then, her grip on Sunny's hand loosened. Slowly, her fingers trailed to her throat.
"There was an orb," she said quietly. "Floating near its waist. Just one. But... there should have been more. I don't know how I know that. Just... a hollow space where others should have been."
She swallowed.
"It grabbed my throat with one hand... and raised the orb with the other."
She paused, her expression twisting as if reliving the agony all over again.
"All I knew... was pain. Not just pain of the body, or the mind. It was deeper than that. It burned through my soul. Like it was trying to tear something out of me that I didn't even know was there."
Her head turned toward Sunny. Her sightless gaze pierced through the dark.
"That pain... changed something inside me," she said. "I didn't understand what it was. Not until your Echo attacked me."
Silence followed. A long, raw silence. No one moved. No one breathed. Then Cassie's voice returned, faint and fragile:
"...The shadow. I hope it lived."
Her eyes fluttered shut. Her head drooped onto Sunny's shoulder, and her body sagged, finally at rest.
He gently lowered her to the ground.
"She's asleep," he said quietly.
There was a strange peace in her expression—like the storm inside her had finally quieted. Even if just for a while.
Nephis stood nearby, watching with a complicated look in her eyes. Sunny couldn't tell how much she had understood. Not everything, surely. Not like him.
But she didn't ask. Didn't press. She waited. Waited for him to speak first.
Sunny rose and walked to the edge of the jagged island. His fingers dug into the surface of a boulder, stone grating against skin, until he lifted it high above his head. Then, with a surge of raw, futile defiance, he hurled it into the abyss.
The boulder flew over a hundred meters before crashing into the surface of the cursed sea with a dull, distant splash.
"Damn it all!"
Why did it have to be this way?
He stood there, staring at the ripples that spread out across the water's dark surface. For a few seconds, everything remained still.
Then something stirred.
From the depths, a colossal tentacle burst forth, lashing the spot where the stone had fallen. It searched blindly, hungry for prey. Finding only stone, it coiled around the boulder and crushed it to powder before sinking back into the abyss.
Sunny watched in silence.
Maybe... maybe he was just like that rock. A small, stubborn thing falling into a vast and merciless sea, foolishly thinking he could create change. But in the end, all he managed was to stir the attention of something far greater than himself. And then... be destroyed by it.
The bitterness left a sharp taste on his tongue. The weight in his chest dragged him lower. A cold thought gnawed at the edge of his mind.
'What's the point of fighting at all?'
Every time he clawed his way forward, fate struck back harder. Crueler. And now... now it had already gone beyond him.
"How in the world am I supposed to cure a seed of corruption?!"
The words tore out of him like broken glass.
Not even a Supreme... not even the Serpent King Daeron could save his own daughter from that vile defilement. So what hope did he have? A lowly Sleeper, trapped in this forgotten realm?
He was weak. Pathetic. A tiny insect kicking at a calamity.
His eyes drifted toward Cassie's sleeping form. And then... a dark thought formed. One he didn't want to acknowledge.
There was a way to stop the corruption. All it would take a single moment... to put her out of her misery.
"Sunny," Nephis's voice broke through his thought, quiet but steady, "what are you thinking?"
He froze. His breath caught in his chest, held there as long as his Flaw allowed. He didn't turn around. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat. Distant.
"There's no hope," he said at last, his voice hollow.
Nephis tilted her head. "For what?"
Sunny's lips trembled.
"I don't see a way to save her."
Maybe she didn't understand what he meant. Maybe she did. But either way, her reply hit him somewhere he didn't expect.
"She saw the three of us walking the halls of the castle," she said calmly. Her silver eyes met his. "That means it's not over. There's no reason to give up yet."
Sunny drew in a breath. Slowly. Deeply.
'That's right...'
Cassie's vision showed the three of them, together, in the castle. That meant they'd either cured her—or the corruption hadn't bloomed. Not yet.
He knew there were different types of corruption. Like the defilement that had plagued Ariel's tomb... the same that had consumed Daeron's daughter. That kind of soul-rot overtook its victim in days.
But this... what had happened to Cassie... it wasn't the same.
There was still time. There was still hope.
For a brief moment, warmth welled up in his chest. It was fragile. Small. But real. A faint smile touched his lips.
"Thank you," he said softly, reaching out to rest his hands on Nephis's shoulders. His voice held a rare tenderness, as if a heavy weight had slipped from his soul.
He didn't even notice the faint blush that bloomed on her pale cheeks.
Turning away, Sunny gazed once more at the sea—at the place where the rock had vanished.
No... he wouldn't be a helpless stone anymore. Not a pebble crushed by the first ripple. He'd become a boulder that shattered the mouth of the storm.
AN: Chapters will be released every alternate day at 12 am IST from now on, until the volume ends. Share your thoughts in the comments and leave a review if you like this fic. It goes a long way in raising my motivation to create a better story for you. Thx for reading :)