Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2993

“Your mind is a ruin already. It is as if someone tore out half of your heart and replaced it with fog. How can a castle stand on fog?"

That was what the Madness of Kanakht had told Nephis in the Eternal City.

Back then, she did not really understand what the abomination meant. She knew, of course, that parts of her memory were missing; however, without knowing what she had lost, it was difficult to assign the missing parts value. And since she did not feel the pain of having lost them, Nephis could not help but treat them as unimportant.

...She understood the Madness of Kanakht now.

It happened subtly. The Vile Thieving Bird escaped in the calamitous conflagration of the dying sun, taking Sunny with it. Having fallen behind, Nephis was left alone.

Below her, the Great River was boiling. She landed on one of the larger shards of the destroyed sun, its surface still incandescent with incinerating heat, and looked around. The world was obscured by billowing clouds of searing steam, so Nephis could not see anything.

She remained motionless for a while, then sighed and dismissed her Transcendent form. Free of the harrowing pain of her Flaw, Nephis was finally able to breathe freely — so, she assessed the situation and came to the conclusion that finding the Thieving Bird and Sunny would be impossible.

Sunny was going to have to finish the job alone. He was going to win... he had to. Nephis had no say in this matter anymore. All she could do was make it back to the present, where Ananke waited in the shattered Estuary — they did not know where the exit from the labyrinth of broken time was, after all, but they did know the starting point.

Returning to where it all began was her best chance of reuniting with Sunny.

So, commanding herself not to think about the possibility that he would lose the battle against the Thieving Bird, Nephis attempted to make her way back.

And as she did, Nephis could not help but feel lost in the oppressive solitude of the Tomb of Ariel. She was lost, alone, not knowing the way back — or if she would ever be able to get back, even.

It reminded her of the lonely journey she had undertaken once, crossing the Forgotten Shore and venturing into the Nightmare Desert.

And so, Nephis did what she had habitually done in the Nightmare Desert — she summoned her runes to check on Sunny. And there, she saw it...

Name: Sunless.

True Name: Lost from Light.

Rank: Supreme.

Class: Titan.

Nephis froze.

Her first reaction was the feeling of profound relief. He was alive, after all, somewhere out there. The Thieving Bird had not managed to destroy him.

The worry and fear Nephis had locked away in a deep, dark corner of her mind finally released their hold on her heart. She let out a shaky breath and sank to the ground, suddenly exhausted.

‘Thank the gods...'

Her second reaction was elation, because she could help him now. Nephis could feel his longing — it was the sole flame in the vast darkness of her ruined Domain, burning with far more intensity than any spark had burned before.

So, Nephis extended her Aspect toward the roaring flame and healed him, like she would an actual subject of her Domain. The Shadow Bond allowed it.

It was only when all was said and done, and she was sure that Sunny was not wounded and dying somewhere out there, that Nephis froze and looked into the distance with a slight frown.

‘Right... the Shadow Bond...’

The Shadow Bond had always been there. But why was she only remembering its existence now?

The memory of her lonely journey across the Forgotten Shore and the Nightmare Desert reminded her of how she used to summon Sunny's runes and think about him. Where he was, what he was doing... what kinds of abominations he was fighting, and who was by his side.

These glimpses into the world that existed outside her monstrous reality had been Neph's only connection to the human world, and also the only thing that had kept her from forgetting that she, too, was a human. That one memory was like a thread, and when Nephis pulled on it...

The rest of them surfaced from the depths of her mind one after another.

Meeting Sunny for the first time in front of the Academy gates... back then, Nephis had not paid him much attention — in truth, she had not even perceived him as a person. To her, he was merely a variable to be aware of. She evaluated him briefly, determining whether he was a threat or not, and then stayed aware of his movements in case he was.

Who knew that a boy she had randomly met would one day become the most important person in the world to her?

Things started to change when they met on the Forgotten Shore. Nephis suspected him of being an assassin sent by the Great Clans to kill her back then — too many things about him simply did not make sense. So, she was both wary of him and forced to rely on him, because having a second sword aimed at her enemies made a vital difference in the Dream Realm.

And then, slowly...

Nephis did not even notice the moment when he became important to her. She only realized it after Sunny left her in the Dark City... that he was vital to her — not as a sword, but as a person.

And that person left her.

Nephis was angry and indignant at first. She told herself that he would return to her after a few days, having realized that trying to survive alone in the Dark City was suicidal... but Sunny did not return, and her anger was slowly replaced by worry.

Then, when she learned that he was well, living among the Nightmare Creatures somewhere in the Dark City, her worry was replaced with a complicated mixture of relief and resentment.

It was a mess of emotions she had never experienced before and did not know how to handle.

Nephis was quite inexperienced back then, and handling complicated emotions was not her strong suit — because most of those emotions were new to her.

Her childhood was extremely sheltered, after all. She had only ever interacted with a few people, and all of them were retainers of her clan — not because her grandmother was smothering her, but simply because people had been trying to kill Nephis since she was a young child.

The circle of people around her was narrow by necessity, and her opportunities to experience life outside the tall walls of the Immortal Flame manor were few and far between. And as the Immortal Flame clan slowly came to ruin, the circle only grew smaller.

She had never gone to school. She had never had a friend of her age. She had never done all the things that children usually did, learning how to interact with other people and learn their own emotions in the process.

...That was why Sunny and Cassie easily managed to occupy such a large place in her heart. They were the first people outside the retainers of the Immortal Flame clan that she had interacted with so closely — and so intensely, as well.

Cassie was someone who relied on her, just like the rest of the Sleepers of the Dark City. Sunny, though...

Sunny was the only one who defied her. He was the only one who challenged her. He was unpredictable and uncomfortable, and Nephis kept being bothered by him.

But she also found comfort in him. Because out there on the Forgotten Shore, he was the only one who made her feel like she was not alone.

Her feelings toward Sunny were not romantic, at first. They couldn't be, because that word wasn't in Neph's vocabulary.

She simply did not have a concept of feeling that way about someone — in fact, the spectrum of emotions she knew how to recognize was quite limited back then, and skewed to a darker side. Not to mention that romance was the last thing on their mind as they struggled desperately to survive on the Forgotten Shore.

But then, gradually, things changed. The more there was friction between them, the more they both recognized the nature of their bond. Only there was never a right time to act on it — and neither of them knew how, either.

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