Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2888

2888 Other Side of the Coin

The Deathless were already rising from beneath the dunes, ready to descend upon those who had invaded Ariel's Hell in all their unending fury. Sunny and Azarax took their places at the head of the battle formation, while Nephis remained at the back, standing among the shades like a flash of pure white flame in the sea of darkness.

Just before the battle began, Sunny glanced at the distant — but not as distant as before — silhouette of the Tomb of Ariel.

At that moment, he thought he heard something...

An echo of a distant, indiscernible whisper that crawled into his ears and disappeared, as if it had burrowed into his brain.

He stumbled slightly.

Azarax gave him a contemptuous glance.

"What, Shadow? Are you afraid?"

Sunny remained motionless for a moment, then shook his head — the incarnation who was closest to Azarax did, at least.

“No. I just... I thought I heard something. Didn't you hear it, too?"

The black skull of the ancient tyrant just stared at him with its empty eye sockets, then turned away with a snarl.

“Get your head into the game.’

Sunny smiled darkly.

‘What the hell was that?’

Of course, he knew what it was even while asking the question.

It was the Call of Nightmare.

The great pyramid was built from numerous enormous blocks of black stone, and each of those blocks was a Seed of Nightmare — just like the one that had been knocked free and sent flying by some titanic blow eons ago, ending up far away in the desert. The block of stone Sunny and his cohort had used to enter the Nightmare about the last days of the River People.

All Seeds emanated the Call, and all Awakened were susceptible to the Call. In fact, the more powerful you were, the more maddening the Call of Nightmare became, drawing you forth to challenge the Seed... Actually, Sunny had never known if the Call of Nightmare was simply something innate to the Seeds or if it was a function of the Spell meant to push Awakened to grow stronger.

Now that he was not a carrier of the Spell but still suffered from the maddening melody of the Call, though, he knew that it was the former.

Which was an interesting philosophical question to ponder, if one had free time. Why were all Awakened drawn to the Nightmare Seeds? After all, it was only the carriers of the Nightmare Spell who could destroy them by challenging the Nightmares. For everyone else, touching a Seed simply meant surrendering themselves to Corruption.

Perhaps that was why the Seeds emanated the Call — maybe they were meant to lure living beings into becoming twisted by Corruption... like enormous flytraps emanating a sweet scent.

Or maybe it was the reverse side of what the Puppeteer had once told Sunny. According to the giant moth, all Nightmare Creatures were drawn to the Flame because of a maddening contradiction within them. They longed for the Flame and wanted to either possess or destroy it, because only then would they know peace.

Perhaps the Awakened were drawn to the Void for the same reason, as well.

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