Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2930

Out on the edges of Verge, the dilapidated buildings still stood, ancient darkness nestling in their empty doors and windows. Further away, though, the city was flattened, having turned into a stone valley. That was where the mountains of flesh that belonged to the First Seeker once lay — but they were there no more.

Nothing was moving in Verge. Nothing was alive.

Instead, the entire city was littered with bones. Countless bones lay scattered among the ruins. Some seemed like they had belonged to humans once, some were gruesomely deformed and twisted. Some were small, while some were giant. Some lay alone, stuck between the rubble, some lay in towering piles.

There were hollowed-out carapaces of enormous, monstrous creatures as well. There were skeletal remains of abominable leviathans.

One thing that lacked in the city of bones, however, was the Defilement.

Its source had disappeared, and the Defilement itself vanished as well.

"What do you see?"

Nephis could not see in the darkness, and the light of her flame did not reach that far. She could sense it, though — the absence of the terrifying enemy she had been prepared to destroy for the second time.

Sunny sighed.

"It's gone. The First Seeker, the Defiled... they are all gone."

At that moment, he felt like he understood what kind of calamity had befallen the Great River. What kind of unstoppable, merciless monster had visited such final devastation upon it, leaving only silence and desolation in its wake.

It was time.

Shadow God might have created death, but time was the ultimate killer. It destroyed everything, in the end... even the Great River had eventually fallen to its ruthless cruelty, despite being the River of Time. Sunny remained silent for a while longer, then shook his head.

"Let's go."

Together, they entered Verge and traversed its empty streets, stepping over the ancient bones. Then, they climbed the flattened ruins and walked across them, as well. Having crossed the sea of bones, they reached the other edge of the fallen city and saw the dark, still water again.

Nephis stared at it for a long while, then closed her eyes for a moment.

“Everything... everything is different from how I imagined."

She exhaled slowly.

"I really thought that at least the First Seeker would be here."

Sunny nodded.

"Me too."

Then, he looked into the darkness... where the Estuary, and the Vile Thieving Bird, awaited.

“There is nothing for us here. Let's go. It shouldn't be far, now."

They left the city of bones behind.

Once, a long time ago, Sunny had sailed the last stretch of the Great River on a small ketch. He had encountered many terrifying Nightmare Creatures back then — the most terrifying abominations of the Great River dwelled in the furthest reaches of the past and in the most distant future, after all.

But even those horrors were nowhere to be found. So, Sunny and Nephis traveled in relative peace.

It was just that the waters of the Great River were growing thinner and thinner the closer to the Estuary they came.

In the end...

The Great River simply ceased.

There was not even a great waterfall where its water ended, just a gradual termination. The shallows grew vast, and then, they became ubiquitous. Instead of islands of empty darkness interrupting the surface of the still water like pustules, it was the small islands of water that broke the vast expanse of empty darkness, separated by a great distance.

And finally, Sunny and Nephis reached a patch of shallow water that seemed to be the last — there was none that could be seen from it, at least. All that remained was an endless and dark vastness.

A great abyss of dark nothingness...

And somewhere far away, too distant to be seen, a hint of something hidden in the darkness.

Manifesting a thin layer of shadows atop the water, Sunny walked to the very edge and looked down, a pensive expression on his face.

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