Shadow Slave novel Chapter 204

Chapter 204 Mysterious Key

A while later, they were resting in the shadow of the giant statue. Every member of the cohort looked nothing short of terrible, however, beneath the bloodied сlothes and broken armor, their bodies were whole and sound.

Changing Star had healed them all, and now, she was the only one who was weak and exhausted. Using the white flame so much had taken a heavy toll on her.

Sitting in the mud, Sunny raised his head and looked at the giant statue of the faceless woman. She was just like the last time he had seen her, slender and graceful, with her light flowing robe rippling in the wind, as though made out of actual fabric and not hard stone.

The statue was tilted slightly to the side, with its one remaining hand reaching high into the sky. A long time ago, on the night of their harrowing escape from the Ashen Barrow, Sunny, Cassie and Nephis had taken shelter in her palm.

It was from its height that he had first seen the walls of the Dark City.

Looking down, Sunny stared at the other hand of the giant statue, which had broken off a long time ago and fell down, crushing through the dome of the underground chamber.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and thought:

'Thank you for saving us again.'

Then, his face darkened.

Remembering the events that had transpired in the catacombs, Sunny felt his good mood evaporating. Although he had found the answer to one of the mysteries that had been plaguing him for a while now, he wasn't happy about it.

The fate of the inhabitants of the ancient city had always been something that Sunny was very curious about. As an amateur explorer who spent most of his free time studying the ruins of the Dark City, he was familiar with subtle details of their culture more than most. Learning about the mundane facts of their lives was somewhat of a passion of his.

He had known that the history of this ancient civilization ended in tragedy, of course. A cataclysmic disaster had destroyed it, turning the once prosperous land into the desolate hell it was today. But against all logic, Sunny still hoped that these people had somehow managed to survive.

Perhaps they had migrated somewhere, leaving the ruins of their city behind.

But now he knew that it wasn't so. All of them were right there below him, buried forever in a damp underground chamber, piled onto each other high enough to form a ghastly mountain of bones. More than that, their remains had been soaked in the cursed waters of the dark sea and turned into a vessel for the soul of a vile Nightmare Creature.

There were a lot of questions about the fate of these people still lingering in his mind. How did they end up in that dark chamber? Had they died there, or had their bodies been brought there by someone… or something… later? How was the Lord of the Dead born? Was its inception the same as that of the Soul Devourer?

But he didn't really want to know the answers anymore. He felt that learning them would only break his heart.

With a sigh, Sunny decided to distract himself from these depressing thoughts with something uplifting and summoned the runes.

One cluster, in particular, interested him the most.

Shadow Fragments: [322/1000.]

He had received four fragments for killing the Corpse Eater… even though the manner of its death was rather peculiar. Having now killed Nightmare Creatures of the Awakened, Fallen, and Great ranks, Sunny could surmise that his initial theory was right.

The Spell gave him double the fragments for killing enemies of higher ranks, according to the number of soul cores they possessed. An Awakened creature would land him two fragments for each core, a Fallen one four, and a Great one sixteen.

It was easy to guess that killing a dormant creature, which was equal to him in terms of rank, would result in one fragment per core, while killing a corrupted one would result in eight.

Made sense. It was the same as absorbing soul shards, with the difference being that shadow fragments entered his core at the moment of the kill and without making a distinction between Nightmare Creatures and humans.

Looking up, he glanced at the list of his Memories.