Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2944

2944 /2954

“What a dreary place."

Ananke's voice sounded subdued.

As they gazed upon the surface of an Unholy Titan's heart, she looked around with a peculiar expression, a pale smile playing on her lips.

“I must say, my lord and lady... it is a strange thing, to witness the dark truth that lies beneath the surface of your world. We knew, of course, the legend of how the Demon of Dread had built the Tomb of Ariel and created the Great River from the flesh and blood of the Stone Titan. But seeing the Titan's heart with your own two eyes, hidden here in the darkness, is an entirely different experience.”

Sunny gave her a long look, then shrugged.

"Hideous things hidden in the darkness beneath the bright surface of reality are the theme of all existence, it seems."

He sighed and turned to face the distant mountains.

“Those mountains ahead of us are where we can enter the true Estuary. So... let's go."

They traveled across the vast expanse of black rock in silence.

The Estuary was different from how Sunny had remembered it. It felt just as eternal and indestructible, lost in absolute darkness, but there was no roar of the rushing water surrounding him from all sides like a maddening whisper.

There was no graveyard of ships, either — no countless Chain Breakers and ketches laying shattered on the rocks like a great monument to all his sins.

Instead, there were things that were not supposed to be here, but had inexplicably found their way to the Estuary nonetheless — ruins of magnificent gilded structures, carcasses of enormous Nightmare Creatures that glistened in the dark, giant formations of glimmering crystal, and the like.

It seemed that these were the things that the Thieving Bird had stolen, then grew bored with and discarded without actually taking them into its nest.

Ananke stopped for a moment, glancing at a particular ruin. Sunny felt that it was vaguely familiar, as well, albeit it was hard to tell due to how utterly destroyed the structure was.

"It's the Knowledge Temple of Fallen Grace."

Ananke's voice sounded confused.

"It had been sealed, cut free, and carried away by the River long before Fallen Grace itself was destroyed and pulled over the Edge by the currents, plummeting into the darkness. What is it doing here?"

Sunny raised an eyebrow.

‘Right. This is the drowned temple where we fought the Defiled Sybil.'

He lingered for a moment, then looked away.

“It must have spent thousands of years laying on the floor of the Tomb. All kinds of things must have accumulated there over the eons... and all kinds of harrowing beings, as well... so the Thieving Bird would undoubtedly visit to pick up a few curios."