Sunny looked away, his cheeks burning, a foolish smile tugging at his lips.
The reason? Well, Sunny had always been curious, so he decided to ask why Nephis had fallen in love with him—and he liked the answer.
Of course, Nephis didn't have a Flaw that forced her to tell the truth, but he could feel the sincerity in her words.
Her reply came quickly, without hesitation:
"You know... our relationship wasn't the best at first. But when you saved me that time in the Soul Devourer, or in those small glances of concern when I used my Aspect and suffered from my Flaw's pain... —" a faint smile touched her lips "—. Also, because you're never afraid to contradict me. And well... even if you think you're being honest when you say you're not the most attractive Ascended, you're quite wrong."
At that last remark, Sunny turned away again, pretending the cave's shadowed ceiling was suddenly the most fascinating thing in the world.
And so, carried by the warmth of the moment, the two of them lay close together, letting silence and exhaustion wrap around them as they rested.
⸻
The eternal night of that city was strange. From the fragments of memories Sunny had pieced together, this place must once have worshipped the god of the sun... or perhaps a sacred being with an Aspect of light.
After all, the sacred were demigods in every sense. And, truth be told, Sunny knew far less about them than about the divine. A paradox that always left him intrigued.
What if that being of light had been revered as a god? The embodiment of clarity, blindly followed by its people? Whatever it was, that light had vanished, and with it the entire city had fallen into eternal darkness.
That thought sent a chill down his spine. Even more so knowing that the only reason he was here was because of the two cursed swords that had dragged him to this forsaken island.
They had spent too much time in the cave. It was time to head toward their true destination. Sunny suspected that what mattered lay at the very heart of the city, a place his shadows had not yet reached.
In his earlier explorations, he had spotted ruined structures: collapsed walls, shattered towers, temples barely standing. Everything was blackened, as if the stone itself had been charred by some impossible fire, or slowly corroded by the darkness.
The city was a cemetery of stone. Houses with sunken roofs and doorways long gone stood like open mouths, frozen in a silent scream. Faceless statues rose in deserted plazas, worn not by time, but by something crueller—as though the darkness itself had erased their identities on purpose.
And yet... there was still beauty here.
The artistry of its builders lingered in the details: carvings on the walls of radiant suns, warriors wrapped in light, spirals shaped like rays. Though blackened, the engravings still shone faintly under Sunny's gaze, scars refusing to vanish.
For a fleeting moment, he could almost imagine the city in its prime: golden towers blazing like torches in the night, white marble streets reflecting light, temples raised to an unsetting sun. A city proud, glorious, alive.
Now, all that remained was silence. A heavy silence, watching them from every ruin and every shadow.
Sunny swallowed, feeling as if the very air was thick with forgotten memories and broken vows.
"This won't be easy..." he muttered, more to himself than to Nephis.
But they were here now. At last, they had reached the heart of the abandoned city. And it was time to uncover what lay in its depths.
Nephis's eyes fell curiously on the tower before her. Colossal, more than sixty meters tall, built of the same black stone as everything else in this place, shrouded in true darkness. And yet, what caught her attention wasn't its size, but the figure painted on its surface: the blurred silhouette of a tall, curvaceous woman.
The surprising part was that, unlike everything else, the silhouette still held color. It wasn't merely paint—it gave off a faint glow, as if some fragment of power still lingered within. Though worn and faded by time, Nephis could make out the feminine shape. Even blurred and ancient, the woman possessed an ethereal beauty, likely surpassing even hers or Cassie's.
Of course, it could simply have been a well-crafted painting... but if this woman had truly existed, and had been that beautiful, then it meant something more.
After all, beauty was also a measure of power, wasn't it? The further one advanced along the path of Ascension, the fewer imperfections remained, the more perfect—more inhuman—the body became.
And the figure of that woman displayed a level of perfection Nephis had never witnessed, not even among the Saints of Valor or of Song.
The thought formed unbidden: the silhouette might belong to a Supreme. It wasn't impossible. After all, the serpent Sunny had slain had been a Sovereign, one that had fallen to corruption.
There was another possibility, of course: perhaps the painter hadn't been skilled enough to capture such impossible beauty, or maybe the woman had been so divine that no mortal hand could reproduce her faithfully. What if she wasn't a Supreme at all, but the very light spoken of in the fragmented memories?
A sacred being? Or a divine Ascended outside the Seven Gods? Anything was possible.
But Nephis had no more time to speculate.
She noticed Sunny tense beside her, his dark gaze turning dangerous. The atmosphere shifted instantly: the darkness itself seemed to thicken, growing heavier, pressing in as if an unseen threat drew near.
Nephis pressed her lips together and gripped the hilt of [Sin of Guilt]. The blade glowed faintly, a luminous blue like jade, beautiful and deadly, ready to carve through the shadows surrounding them.
She knew that Sunny's shadow sense and his ability to scout were severely weakened by the true darkness surrounding them. In this place, even his shadows seemed to falter, as if the oppressive density of the environment devoured the invisible threads of his perception. That was why Nephis forced herself to be more alert than ever. Any mistake, any lapse, could mean a surprise attack... or something worse.
The silence was so heavy that every breath felt like sacrilege. And then, as if the air itself wanted to announce it, a faint sound slipped down from the top of the tower. Just a subtle creak, a strange scrape against stone. Hard to decipher: footsteps? claws? or perhaps the drag of a body crawling across the surface?
Nephis raised her gaze, her hand tightening around the hilt of [Sin of Guilt]. She didn't have to guess for long. A heartbeat later, a harrowing howl shattered the silence, so deep and resonant that it made the tower itself vibrate beneath her feet. The sound spread through the ruins like a cursed echo, awakening dormant memories in every shadow.
And then, from the blackened sky, a monstrous figure plummeted.
Nephis barely managed to step back before the creature crashed into the ground with a bone-jarring thud, shattering stone and sending a cloud of dust erupting around it. The air it carried reeked of iron and decay.
It resembled a wolf... but only in the broadest sense of the word. What stood before her was an aberration.
Its body stretched over ten meters long, supported by massive legs that ended in claws as black as obsidian. Its "fur" wasn't fur at all, but a cloak of shadows that writhed like solid smoke, impossible to fix in her sight for more than a moment. Where she expected two savage eyes, four crimson orbs glared instead, arranged in asymmetrical pairs that made the beast seem all the more unnatural.
Nephis had never seen anything like it outside the pages of ancient bestiaries, and even those descriptions fell short of reality. Wolves were fearsome predators, yes... but none carried that aura of raw corruption, as though the darkness itself had sculpted this thing to hunt within that starless hell.
The beast opened its maw, revealing rows of fangs too numerous to count, each longer than a dagger. Its breath was thick, carrying a stench so foul it seemed to corrode the very air.
Nephis clenched her jaw.
The wolf crouched slightly, like a spring about to snap, and the ground quaked under its weight. This time, there was no roar, no warning—only motion. A fraction of a second later, the monster launched itself at them with brutal speed, the tower trembling in its wake.
The clash was inevitable.
Nephis raised her sword, the blue blade flaring with a cutting glow, while beside her Sunny's shadow stirred, spreading like a swarm of black blades.
The battle had begun.