Shadow Slave

The only question was how soon would Nephis see the message, and how long would it take for her to come up with a response. Sunny suspected that he was going to have to wait for a while.

Morgan\'s Warbow proved that forgemasters of clan Valor were capable of naming the Memories they created. However, he did not know how high Changing Star\'s standing in the great clan was at the moment, and if it was possible for her to charge them with forging a specific Memory for her, let alone do it quickly.

In any case, he was sure that she would come up with something. Nephis was a frighteningly resourceful person, when she needed to be.

...Kind of like Sunny himself.

\'It won\'t be fast, though.\'

With a sigh, he glanced at Professor Obel and Beth.

"The message is sent. Now, we just need to wait for a response."

The convoy continued its meaningless march. Hour after hour, the small column of vehicles drove through the overflowing darkness, their sense of time and direction slowly disappearing. The dark tunnel was just too eerie, inexorable, and unchanging. Everything there seemed like a strange, foreboding dream.

From time to time, one of the vehicles would break down, forcing them to stop for quick repairs. The Rhino was operating on an advanced spelltech engine, which meant that its fuel was soul essence. Luster was more than capable of keeping the APC moving indefinitely. The military vehicles had primitive spelltech batteries serving as a backup energy source for their hybrid systems, so he was able to help the soldiers, too.

The civilian transports, however, were entirely mundane in nature. Their fuel cells were immaculately designed and possessed a vast charge capacity, but were going to gel exhausted sooner or later. Although it did not seem like it, Sunny knew that the convoy was on a clock.

They drove for the rest of the day, and then made camp.

The next day went by in the same manner. Sunny spent it on the roof of the Rhino, staring at the entrances to the side passages that would sometimes appear in the stone walls of the tunnel.

By that time, they had traveled more than a thousand kilometers inside the tunnel. If this place was abiding by the laws of nature, the convoy would have been passing under Erebus Field, their final destination, right about now. With no mountains to climb and no Nightmare Creatures to fight, only the straight road and no obstacles ahead, the distance that Sunny had hoped to cover in weeks was traversed in a few days.

He doubted that it would translate to the same amount of covered ground in the real world, though.

...Two days after he had sent his message, Nephis finally responded.

Sunny had actually not expected to receive an answer so soon, but there it was. He habitually summoned the runes to check on Neph, and then blinked a couple of times, noticing that the list of her Memories seemed much longer than it had been before.

Ever since Changing Star joined hands with Valor, her soul arsenal improved by a lot. There were certainly benefits to being an adopted daughter of a great clan, so she would occasionally receive a Memory or two. It seemed that she was being provided with a constant stream of soul shards, as well, even if their influx had slowed at some point, most likely to hide the fact that Nephis possessed multiple cores.

\'I am not envious at all... yeah... I am not regretting my decisions... even a little bit!\'

Sunny maimed at the dismal walls of the dark tunnel, then at the battered convoy, the desperate people who clung to what little warmth they could find inside the ramshackle vehicles, and sighed.

Then, he looked back at the runes, which showed that Nephis had gained fifteen new Memories in the Span of a couple of days.

Even if she was being nurtured by a great clan, that was too many.

Frowning, he read the names of the new Memories:

\'Faint Glimmer, Ire Hearth, Nebulous Veil, Dire Warning, Haunting Eversong, Eager Cut, Altar of Denial, Rust Reaver, Testament of Malice...\'

And six more.

None of them seemed to have been created by the forgemasters of Valor.

Sunny scoffed.

\'...Clever.\'

Smiling faintly in the darkness, he read the first letter of each Memory in order.

What he ended up with was a concise message:

FINDHEARTCUTRUN

\'Find heart... cut... run.\'

The meaning was quite clear. He had to seek out the heart of the true darkness that drowned the tunnel, destroy it, and then run as fast as he could. The first two parts did not promise anything good, but the last one was downright ominous.

Sunny did not know what Cassie had seen or learned, but she would not have included the word "run" if the consequences of destroying the mysterious Heart of Darkness were anything short of terrifying. However, how was he supposed to find it? And if that thing was so frightening, how was he going to destroy it?

\'Really now, would it have killed them to be more specific?\'

He shook his head with a bittern expression.

Well, it must have not been easy to scrounge up fifteen new Memories, let alone ones with names that could be arranged into a simple cipher. So, Sunny thought that he should be thankful.

\'Yeah... thank you kindly.\'

Regardless of how he felt, the course of action was rather clear.

As Sunny stared at the walls of the tunnel that flew by, a dark entrance to a side passage appeared in view. What little of it could be seen showed a narrow road that sloped down at a steep angle.

He quietly grimaced.

\'I guess I won\'t be able to avoid crawling deeper underground, in the end... how unexpected.\'