Lucien and Nephis followed the border between the Nightmare Desert and Hollow Mountains for the next few days. The return journey was far less eventful, having only fought a few monsters on the way. Whenever the fog descended they'd find an opening in the mountains to hide within, or they would enter the outer edges of the desert, carefully avoiding the deathless.
Eventually, they left the desert behind and entered the eternal night of the Forgotten Shores once more.
Lucien sighed, glancing back towards the nightmare desert where it was still daytime. He was going to miss the light.
He stared at the division between the starless night of the shores and the incandescent sun of the desert. Something about that felt wrong, like two different worlds had been jammed together with no concern for the impact they'd have on each other.
Why would anyone do that? More importantly, how? A feat like that…maybe only a god could do.
Or a daemon.
Shaking his head, Lucien pushed that thought to the back of his mind. A different idea struck him and he slowly walked to the edge of the nightmare desert, where the white sand undeniably overtook the grey ash.
Slowly bringing down the Soul Sack, Lucien began pouring the sand inside. With his newest weapon, he could control the sand. And sand wasn't an easily available resource. At least not in the hollow mountains. Considering the dangers of his life, it was better to be well prepared.
Nephis gave him a strange look, but didn't bother to ask a question. Neither did Lucien elaborate, there was nothing to explain. Eventually, when he was satisfied with the amount of sand, he stopped and tied the sack to his waist once more. Without another word, the two of them continued onward into the Forgotten Shores.
That night, after a long while, they lit a fire in the dark. Away from the danger of the deathless, the two of them could finally relax a little.
The moment he thought that, Nephis suddenly stood up. Wreathed in a shower of sparks, she summoned her memories and stared expectantly at Lucien.
'Right, the spars.' Lucien sighed, he had almost forgotten about those. Though he wasn't quite opposed to the idea, he wanted to know how much he had advanced.
Standing up, Lucien summoned the helmet of the Stone Armorsuits and allowed the sands of Mictlans Demise to flow down his hands. Holding the two daggers up, he waited for Nephis to raise her blade. Once she did, the two of them clashed.
Once again, the grey ash of the Forgotten Shores was stained with blood.
The two fell into the old routine once more. During the 'day' they would travel the shores, while Lucien tried to advance his aspect legacy. During the night they would spar, bringing each other as close to death as possible without using their aspects.
Soon enough, they had crossed the massive crater where an angel had once fallen in the past, and climbed atop the stone hand.
If the sun still existed on these shores, they would have seen the ruins of the Dark City below them. But it didn't, and all they saw was darkness.
However, Lucien didn't just rely on his sight. Spreading his storm sense outward, Lucien scoured the ruins in their vicinity, looking for any nightmare creatures around them. The chances of any of them surviving the fall of the sun was low, but if any survived, they would have been the strongest fallen beings in the shores.
Thankfully, there was nothing nearby.
Sharing a glance with Nephis, he nodded and began his descent downwards. Their goal was simple, head south towards the hollow mountains.
That was exactly what they did. Holding their lantern memories up, they navigated through the ruins of the dark city, until something caught Lucien's eye.
A part of the ruins he had known to be fairly whole, had been reduced to rubble. Almost as if something had fallen from above.
Frowning, Lucien walked towards it to get a closer look. The buildings were gone,leaving nothing but shattered stone behind. Some of the stone had even dug into the ground. This wasn't just the result of fallen creatures fighting, this was something else.
"Wait here." He whispered, and shot off the ground, flying above the broken rock and holding his memory out. It was an awakened memory that grew brighter the more essence you put in it, and Lucien had enough essence to spare.
The light from the memory grew, covering a wider and wider area by the second, revealing what was below. A chill ran down Luciens spine and his eyes widened as he realized what exactly he was looking at.
There, below him, a roughly oval part of the ruins had been destroyed. Up front, not much far from him, was yet another oval. If he turned around, hed find another oval shaped depression on the ground. Something gigantic had walked through the Dark City, smashing the ruins below it. Tracing the direction of the footprints, Lucien looked to the distance where there was nothing there.
Once, there had been a massive crimson tower that seemed to touch the heavens there. That was where the denizens of the Dark City had held their last stand. Hundreds had given their lives, so that a fraction of them could leave. There, the sun of the Forgotten Shores had been slain by a defiant dreamer.
And now, the headless walker had gone to the Crimson Spire.
Slowly, he floated down beside Nephis and shared what he had learned. Nephis frowned and looked towards the spire.
"Perhaps it has gone there to reclaim its head and make it its final resting place." She said after a while.
Lucien frowned, "It's head? What do you mean by that?"
"Did I not tell you?" Nephis said, "The heads of the seven statues were kept in front of the spire. Stolen by the Terror a long time ago."
"Ah," Lucien breathed out. So that's why all the statues were headless, they had been desecrated by the Fallen Terror. Suddenly it made a lot of sense why the walker had gone to the spire. Maybe one day Lucien could return the remaining heads to their respective statues? But that day wasn't today, he didn't even know how he would do that. He could use the spider webbing he used to make his house to attach the severed heads to the bodies? But it wouldn't fit properly, he felt like that'd be a disservice to it. He'd just need to learn how to craft stone the old fashioned way instead.
Then, he moved his gaze away from the colossal footsteps and towards the Bright Castle and the human settlements around it. A part of him wanted to go back there, to visit his old home again, to glare silently at the bright castle, and to take a look at Effie's old hovel. So many of his memories revolved around that place.
But he didn't, that part of his life was over. For all intents and purposes, Nether's Citadel was his new home, and the hollow mountains were his new hunting grounds.
"Let's go," Nephis said, bringing him out of his thoughts. She had noticed him staring longingly towards the human settlement. Now was not the time to get sentimental.
Sighing, Lucien turned away, "Yeah, let's go."
Turning away from the Dark City, they continued southward, eventually reaching the catacombs that had once been so dangerous. Now, only bones decorated the narrow pathway.
Soon, they had climbed out of the Lord of the Dead's den, and reached the surface of the sea of ash.
It had originally taken the cohort three months to cross, without the help of the walker. For Lucien after awakening, it had taken a whole month. Granted, he had been fighting his way through the labyrinth and couldn't make any progress at night.
Now that there was no labyrinth to navigate, no enemies to kill, and no dark sea to hide from in the night, that journey took only three weeks.
As the two stared at the dim visage of the hollow mountains, Nephis opened her mouth to ask:
"Have you thought about how we are going to cross the river and the maze?"
Lucien glanced towards her. The last time Sunny had guided them through it, using his unique aspect to navigate through the maze while all of them were blindfolded. Without him, crossing that distance would become much harder. Lucien could try to navigate through it with his storm sense, but he didn't know how much success he'd have. It was a gamble.
Which was exactly why they weren't going to take that path.
"We aren't going to." He said, expanding his storm sense upward to find the crack in the wall he had used to leave the mountains.
Nephis frowned and turned to face him, silently asking him to elaborate.
"There's another path, one that bypasses both the river and the maze. Although it's not a path you can walk through." He explained, just as his storm sense reached the crack.
Narrowing her eyes, Nephis stared at him and asked, "What do you mean by that?"
"There's nothing to walk on there, and since you can't fly, I'll need to make a platform for you to stand on. So, let me go in first when we get there, otherwise you might just fall to your doom."
Slowly, Nephis nodded. It wasn't the best plan, but it was better than crossing that maze again.
"Great," Lucien said, "Follow me."
The two sprinted up the mountain, wary of the fog that could descend at any moment.
As soon as they reached the crack in the wall, Lucien dismissed his armour and weapons .
"Wait here." He said as he began squeezing his way through the crack, limb by limb.
Above them, the fog had already taken notice and had begun descending.
A moment later, Lucien popped out of the crack, and reached the hollow interior of the mountains. Floating in the air, he summoned Mictlan's Demise and took out some sand from the soul sack and said:
"You can start making your way through now."
Near instantly, a hand appeared on his side of the crack. Below it, the sand shaped itself into a square platform wide enough for two people to stand on.
Just a few seconds later, Nephis' body slipped out of the crack and immediately began falling. If not for the sand platform, she'd have fallen to her death.
As it stood, she dropped down to the platform, making it stretch a bit, and stood back up. Frowning, she looked around herself. There was nothing but pitch black darkness surrounding her.
Then, she opened her mouth to say, "Is it safe to summon a lantern?"
Lucien nodded, but then realized she couldn't see that, "Yes, this path is relatively safe."
As if to prove his point, a lantern materialized itself out of white sparks at his waist. Seeing that, a similar memory appeared in Nephis' hand. These were the lantern memories they had bought from the Memory Market, Old Stev had collected quite a few of these lantern type memories. They believed it was the primary form of lighting used by the ancient people of the Forgotten Shores.
The light from the lanterns filled up the area around them, but did nothing to chase away the darkness that clung to every surface.
Seemingly satisfied, Nephis nodded, "Let's go."
Lucien took a deep breath in as he replayed the path the goliath had taken last time. Soon, a primitive map formed in his mind and he began retracing the steps the goliath had originally taken.
It wasn't long before they reached the slab of black stone that acted as the door to Nethers Citadel. But that wasn't the most important part.
There, in front of the doors, a Transcendent Tyrant was waiting for them.