940 Heart of Darkness

'l... damned... knew that this would happen!'

There was a scratching sound in the utter darkness, and then, a stream of bright scarlet flame shot out of a chemical flare. Rising it above his head, Sunny looked at the narrow cave, which was now flooded with dim, ominous red light. The darkness retreated, for now, but it seemed ready to pounce on him at any moment.

Feeling his heart beating wildly, he glanced at Saint, who still stood behind him, unfazed. Turning away, Sunny grumbled:

'Well... what did I expect... she was born in the Underworld, of all places. I bet Saint is feeling right at home in this misbegotten darkness...'

He remained motionless for a few moments, getting accustomed to the blood-red gloom that surrounded him. Then, Sunny hit his lip and took a step forward.

"Let's go. We still need to find the heart."

The Cruel Sight was not supposed to burn through its reserve of absorbed light so soon. The chemical flare, which was supposed to burn for at least fifteen minutes, stuttered and drowned in just five, forcing him to ignite a new one. It was as though keeping true darkness at bay exhausted any source of light faster than it should have been possible...

And the deeper into the mountain they went, the more pronounced that discrepancy became.

'Curse it all...'

Sunny had dreaded reaching the heart of darkness, but now that he was literally burning through his flares at a concerning speed, he couldn't wait to find it.

Sadly, it turned out to be harder than he had thought.

The human-made tunnels above had an obvious direction, but the chaotic network of caves was both harder to traverse and all over the place. Sometimes, he would follow a path downward, only to end up climbing for a while. Other times, descending deeper into the mountain only made the distant hum grow quieter, which told him that he was getting further from his goal.

In the end, Sunny abandoned all pretense of knowing what he was doing and chose where to go randomly, relying on his intuition to show him the way.

Soon, he discovered a new pattern.

The passages where the darkness seemed to flow faster were the ones that fell correct to him. Armed with that knowledge, he hurried forward, knowing that there was not much time left.

Time had lost all meaning, and Sunny only measured it by the amount of flares he had burned through. When there were only two of them left...

He finally reached his destination.

The walls of the narrow passage he was following suddenly disappeared, and he found himself in a vast, spherical cave. 1n the dim red light, he could see dozens of similar dark holes opening into it, each leading to a different natural tunnel.

"However, Sunny did not pay them any attention.

All he could look at was a giant orb of jet-black stone that floated in the center of the cave, burning darkly with the crimson reflections of the flare's fire. The darkness... the darkness flowed through it, or maybe was born from it. The hum he had heard came from the orb, like a rustle of waves that were imprisoned within it. Suddenly, he felt a terrible chill spread through his body.

Whatever that black sphere was... he knew that it was not something any human was supposed to see.

'Cut... run...'

Sunny gupled.

He couldn't believe that no one was guarding that thing. Then again, there was nothing guarding his own heart, either... if something managed to crawl into his chest, it would find his rib cage empty of defenders, as well.

...Maybe not, if Blood Weave had to say anything about it.

Sunny stretched his senses outward, checking if his connection with the fourth shadow still remained. It was there, albeit strangely muddled. Nevertheless, he knew that he would be able to use Shadow Step to get the hell out of the dark cave after destroying the Heart of Darkness.

'No time to waste, then...'

His second to last flair was about to burn out.

Stepping forward, Sunny chased all hesitation away from his mind and thrust the blade of the Cruel Sight forward. It struck the side of the black orb... and slid off its surface without leaving a scratch. Sunny froze.

The sound of the spear hitting polished stone seemed deafening, and when it died down... was it just him, or did the tuna coming from the sphere grow a little louder?

Glancing at Saint, he felt cold sweat rolling down his face and whispered:

"Help me with it, will you?"

The taciturn knight remained motionless for a moment, staring at the sphere with a hint of subdued emotion. Then, her eyes suddenly flared, the flames inside them turning darker.

Saint did something strange.

She took a step forward and handed him the Sin of Solace.

Confused, Sunny grabbed the hilt of the jade jian, feeling the infuriating whispers assault his mind.

"Pathetic."

He frowned, surprised at the sudden thought.

...Was it a thought?

At that moment, Saint took another step forward and unsheathed her broken stone sword. The jagged line of its shattered blade flashed through the darkness...

And sunk into the black surface of the sphere to the hilt.

A small crack snaked its way up and down through the surface of the orb. Suddenly, the bum became almost deafening.

'What...'

Then, the giant orb suddenly burst open, releasing a tide of darkness that washed over Sunny and Saint, throwing him back.

He fell on the cold stone, feeling something rustling against the steel of the Undying Chain. The flare was swiftly extinguished.

In the last split second that it burned, Sunny saw what the darkness released from the sphere was, and understood what the hum he had heard represented.

It was not the rustle of the waves.

...lnstead, it was the rustle of countless tiny feet scraping against the shell of the black sphere from within.

The flood of darkness that had escaped from the cracked orb was actually myriads of tiny beetle-like creatures that were now swarming over him like a river, already shredding the Transcendent metal of his armor.

Worse still, the tide of them was still flowing out of the broken sphere, rushing into the dozens of passages leading out of the cave like a flood. The sight of it was both terrifying and bizarre... no matter how large the shell of black stone had been, the mass of beetles it released - and was continuing to disgorge - was many times larger than what could possibly fit inside.

At this rate, the whole mountain was going to be filled with them in mere minutes.

'Ah... so that's why she told me to run...'

Feeling a sharp pain suddenly pierce his side, Sunny belatedly realized a dreadful fact.

He needed to enter a shadow to use Shadow Step.

...And with all light gone, there were no shadows left in the true darkness of the flooded cave.