468 Desecrated Grove

Sunny descended from the White Feather's aery in a complicated mood.

If he ever had doubts that the lost prince was harboring dire secrets, now, there were none. Why else would Saint Tyris caution him to not speak about the Mirror Beast, who had seemingly been the only trace left of Mordret's existence?

Mordret had conquered the First Nightmare when he was only twelve… such an individual, surely, would have been as famous as Nephis back in the real world. And yet, Sunny had never heard of him, or of anyone who had accomplished the same feat.

It was almost as if someone very powerful had purposefully erased any mention of the mysterious prince from history.

…How had he lost his physical body, to begin with? And where was his spirit body in the Dream Realm? Did… did he even have one? He must have had it once, at least. The pack Sunny had found on the Reckoning contained a detailed map of the Chained Isles, with the word "hope" written on it next to a question mark.

Back then, he thought that the owner of the pack had been killed by the Mirror Beast. Now, however, he suspected that it had belonged to Mordret himself.

So, the lost prince had at least visited the Chained Isles before disappearing. Was the great clan Valor complicit in his disappearance? Sunny had no real reason to come to that conclusion, other than the fact that the Chained Isles were in their sphere of influence, and that Saint Tyris hinted at her knowledge of the nature of the Mirror Beast.

But why hadn't she killed it herself?

'I am going to have to ask Mordret a lot of questions when he appears.'

Which wasn't going to happen for many days, sadly.

Until then, Sunny had other matters to attend to.

He glanced at the sun and judged that it had barely reached its zenith. The moon wasn't going to appear for a while… so, even though the desire to place his precious coins on the altar gnawed on him, he decided to address the most pressing problem first.

…Cassie.

No matter how reluctant Sunny was to face his former friend, he had to speak to her. He couldn't make plans for the future without knowing who would be by his side as he challenged the Second Nightmare.

And he absolutely needed to challenge it.

Collecting essence was fine, but becoming a Master would change the power dynamic between him and Nephis much more. And even though creating future cores would be harder after he achieved a higher Rank, being an Ascended also meant that there would be much fewer things out there that could squash him like a bug.

…Not only among the Nightmare Creatures, but also among the humans. The more crumbs of information about the Sovereigns Sunny learned, the more disturbed he became. He was distrustful by nature, so he didn't believe that these hidden overlords would not try to exert their influence on him or try to destroy him one day, simply by virtue of being able to do so.

And even without this threat… there were hundreds of Master in the world, which meant that there were hundreds of people who could kill him without breaking a sweat. But if he became a Master himself… well, then there would only be a few dozen individuals he would have to be really wary of.

Like Saint Tyris.

...Not to mention that, as an Ascended, he would be free to come and go from the Dream Realm as he wished. He would even be able to abandon it forever, and never come back.

Wouldn't that be a nice choice to have?

'So… the Desecrated Grove it is.'

Sunny frowned, then returned to his room, took out his map from the Covetous Coffer, and spent some time adding all the details he remembered from Mordret's map onto it. Soon, he was in possession of an intricately detailed depiction of most of the Chained Isles on his hands, complete with descriptions of what dangers he was likely to meet, and where.

With its help, traveling to his destinations was going to be much safer.

Sunny studied the route to the Desecrated Grove and sighed.

'...Shouldn't be too hard. I can probably reach it by morning, and return to the Sanctuary the next day at night, when the moon is high in the sky.'

And finally get to use the coins he had bled so much to earn.

He dismissed the Covetous Coffer, stretches his limbs, and headed toward the exit from the Sanctuary.

***

The journey to the remote island that Cassie named in her note indeed turned out to be uneventful. Sunny rode the heavenly chains in the form of the shadow and traversed the islands on foot, avoiding any Nightmare Creature that crossed his path.

The southern part of the Chained Isles was relatively safe, or at least safer than the northern part. Well, no surprise — it was bordering regions of the Dream Realm that had been tamed by humans more than a decade ago, while to the north there was nothing except for the dreadful Hollow Mountains.

The Desecrated Grove itself was somewhat near the main route from one of the Great Chains — which connected all of the Chained Isles to the rest of the Dream Realm — to the Sanctuary of Noctis. People who were either coming to or leaving the region used that route to travel between the Great Chain and the Citadel, so it was often patrolled by the White Feather forces.

Sunny traveled along the established route, then left it to go deeper into the dangerous wilderness of the flying islands. He carefully avoided all the places where Corrupted Nightmare Creatures were known to dwell, and kept his eyes open for any sign of danger.

However, nothing that couldn't be avoided happened. None of the islands Sunny wanted to cross were rising, so he even managed to escape having to endure the Crushing.

The sun rolled down over the horizon and disappeared, and the moon followed its example.

As the first light of dawn ignited in the east, Sunny flew through the shadows and then soared high into the air, cresting the edge of a large island and softly landing on its soil.

The Desecrated Grove… he had arrived.

Sunny let out a heavy sigh.

…He had almost hoped that some terrible monstrosity would attack him on the way, making it so he wouldn't have to meet Cassie. The searing mess of emotions he felt toward her… was much scarier than any Nightmare Creature could ever hope to be.

At the end of the day, humans were much harder to deal with than monsters.