204 Mysterious Key

A while later, they were resting in the shadow of the giant statue. Every member of the cohort looked nothing short of terrible, however, beneath the bloodied сlothes and broken armor, their bodies were whole and sound.

Changing Star had healed them all, and now, she was the only one who was weak and exhausted. Using the white flame so much had taken a heavy toll on her.

Sitting in the mud, Sunny raised his head and looked at the giant statue of the faceless woman. She was just like the last time he had seen her, slender and graceful, with her light flowing robe rippling in the wind, as though made out of actual fabric and not hard stone.

The statue was tilted slightly to the side, with its one remaining hand reaching high into the sky. A long time ago, on the night of their harrowing escape from the Ashen Barrow, Sunny, Cassie and Nephis had taken shelter in her palm.

It was from its height that he had first seen the walls of the Dark City.

Looking down, Sunny stared at the other hand of the giant statue, which had broken off a long time ago and fell down, crushing through the dome of the underground chamber.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and thought:

'Thank you for saving us again.'

Then, his face darkened.

Remembering the events that had transpired in the catacombs, Sunny felt his good mood evaporating. Although he had found the answer to one of the mysteries that had been plaguing him for a while now, he wasn't happy about it.

The fate of the inhabitants of the ancient city had always been something that Sunny was very curious about. As an amateur explorer who spent most of his free time studying the ruins of the Dark City, he was familiar with subtle details of their culture more than most. Learning about the mundane facts of their lives was somewhat of a passion of his.

He had known that the history of this ancient civilization ended in tragedy, of course. A cataclysmic disaster had destroyed it, turning the once prosperous land into the desolate hell it was today. But against all logic, Sunny still hoped that these people had somehow managed to survive.

Perhaps they had migrated somewhere, leaving the ruins of their city behind.

But now he knew that it wasn't so. All of them were right there below him, buried forever in a damp underground chamber, piled onto each other high enough to form a ghastly mountain of bones. More than that, their remains had been soaked in the cursed waters of the dark sea and turned into a vessel for the soul of a vile Nightmare Creature.

There were a lot of questions about the fate of these people still lingering in his mind. How did they end up in that dark chamber? Had they died there, or had their bodies been brought there by someone… or something… later? How was the Lord of the Dead born? Was its inception the same as that of the Soul Devourer?

But he didn't really want to know the answers anymore. He felt that learning them would only break his heart.

With a sigh, Sunny decided to distract himself from these depressing thoughts with something uplifting and summoned the runes.

One cluster, in particular, interested him the most.

Shadow Fragments: [322/1000.]

He had received four fragments for killing the Corpse Eater… even though the manner of its death was rather peculiar. Having now killed Nightmare Creatures of the Awakened, Fallen, and Great ranks, Sunny could surmise that his initial theory was right.

The Spell gave him double the fragments for killing enemies of higher ranks, according to the number of soul cores they possessed. An Awakened creature would land him two fragments for each core, a Fallen one four, and a Great one sixteen.

It was easy to guess that killing a dormant creature, which was equal to him in terms of rank, would result in one fragment per core, while killing a corrupted one would result in eight.

Made sense. It was the same as absorbing soul shards, with the difference being that shadow fragments entered his core at the moment of the kill and without making a distinction between Nightmare Creatures and humans.

Looking up, he glanced at the list of his Memories.

Memories: [Silver Bell], [Puppeteer's Shroud], [Midnight Shard], [Ordinary Rock], [Prowling Thorn], [Endless Spring], [Blood Arrow].

The last one was new. Slightly intrigued, Sunny read its description.

Memory: [Blood Arrow].

Memory Rank: Ascended.

Memory Tier: I.

Memory Type: Weapon.

Memory Description: [A debt of blood must be paid in blood.]

Memory Enchantments: [Rain of Blood], [Restitution].

Enchantment Description: [The arrows are created from the wielder's blood, and as such, can rain on the enemies for as long as the archer has any left in their veins.]

Enchantment Description: [If the arrow finds its mark, it will drink the blood of the prey and restore that which had been taken from the archer. If it misses, the archer's blood will be lost forever.]

'Huh. Creepy.'

Since Sunny didn't know how to use a bow, this Memory was useless to him. Which was a real shame, because it was the first Ascended one he had ever received. Memories of that rank were extremely rare on the Forgotten Shore.

He could either feed it to the Stone Saint for a couple of shadow fragments, or…

Sunny glanced at Kai and frowned, lost in thought. While the Blood Arrow was of no use to him, it would be a real boon for the charming archer. With it at his disposal, he wouldn't have to carry a quiver with him, not to mention that each shot he made would be much more devastating.

…As long as Kai didn't miss, of course. If he did miss, he would be sacrificing his blood for nothing.

Transfering the Blood Arrow to Kai would have made the cohort much stronger. But Sunny wasn't sure that he was ready to give up his first and only Ascended Memory. Not for free, at least.

Torn, he dismissed the runes and decided to think about it later.

In other news, the Blood Weave had revealed a new trait. Turns out, Sunny's blood was poisonous — or rather, damaging to anyone who ingested it. At least it seemed that way from the manner of Corpse Eater's death. He would have to experiment to find out more later...

Or not. Honestly, Sunny didn't even know how one would go about checking something like that, and wasn't particularly eager to find out.

After dismissing the runes, Sunny finally decided to take a look at the mysterious key. Subtly glancing around, he furtively took it out from beneath the vambrace of the Puppeteer's Shroud, where he had hidden it earlier.

The intricate iron key lay on his palm, glowing with a pale golden light.

The light of divinity.

Sunny had no idea what the key was supposed to open.

He had taken an insane risk and almost died to get it. Was it worth it?

Honestly, he wasn't sure.

But deep down, Sunny felt that it was. For some reason, he sensed that the small iron key would turn out to be extremely important to him.