Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2123

2123 /2448

One of the Nine…

Sunny considered these words for a few moments, a deep frown twisting his bruised face. The seventh incarnation just raised an eyebrow, maintaining a nonchalant attitude.

He had encountered traces left behind by the mysterious Nine a few times throughout the years. However, he knew neither who the members of this nebulous group were nor what their purpose was. All he knew was that they seemed to have left deep scars on the history of the Dream Realm.

Auro of the Nine, the adversary of his First Nightmare.

Eurys of the Nine, the guide who had led Nephis to her Second Nightmare.

And Alethea of the Nine, the First Seeker… the source of the Defilement whose destruction had ended their Third.

And now, here was the fourth.

…A shadow of the fourth, at least.

Sunny stared at the dazed archer, then turned to study the white skull intently before speaking.

"And who, exactly, are the Nine?"

A few particles of light escaped from the empty eye sockets of the skull before it answered in a neutral tone:

"It seems you do not know me, after all."

Sunny smiled darkly.

"I know that you are avoiding the answer, though."

Eurys sighed.

"If our tale has been forgotten, then let it remain so. It's not something to be proud of, anyway... and all of us are dead now, hopefully."

He seemed reluctant to share.

Sunny considered his next words for a few moments. He wanted to know the secrets of the Nine desperately, but at the same time, he was wary of the motionless skeleton.

It would probably be best not to irritate the strange being, especially in his current state…

At least not yet.

Sunny finally spoke:

"You don't seem that dead, though. And yet here you are... how did you end up in the Shadow Realm? You're not a shadow."

Nephis had left Eurys in the Underworld, so what was the talkative skeleton doing here?

The battered skeleton laughed.

"How did I end up here, indeed? Simple, really… I walked here."

Sunny continued to stare at the white skull, not amused.

Eurys sighed.

"What? I really did. It was hard to reach the Shadow Realm before, but now that it has no master and all the realms seem to have been fused together, it's easier to travel from one to another. The Realm of Death always shared a connection to the Underworld, which served as the boundary between the lands of the living and the lands of the dead. Now, it simply lies beneath it. If you jump into the Abyss, you'll end up falling into the Shadow Realm… that was what I did."

Sunny's eyes narrowed slightly, and he couldn't help but look up.

Slowly, it dawned on him that the starless black sky above him was not a sky at all. In fact… he was deep underground. Deeper even than the Underworld, which lay beneath the Hollow Mountains.

However, the Shadow Realm was vast. So, it seemed that there was an entire subterranean world beneath the known surface of the Dream Realm, stretching all the way from the Forgotten Shore to… who knew where. He would only find out if he crossed the entirety of the Realm of Death and found a way to the surface on the other side, if it even existed.