Sunny dreamed of a vast city.
Ruined and desolate, it looked like a tiny oasis submerged in an ocean of darkness.
Then, time began to flow backward. The ruined citadel gradually repopulated. Shattered buildings reassembled as if by magic, and streets and avenues filled with life. Every now and then, a massive, clawed hand reached down from above, seizing citizens and dragging them into the surrounding abyss. Time kept rewinding until it finally slowed, revealing the city of the Underworld in all its ancient, stoic splendor.
Vibrant, colored lights illuminated imposing buildings with refined gothic pitched roofs. Its citizens were all beings made of dark stone walking the streets, breathing life into the city.
Stone Saints.
Finally, time came to a complete halt, and his second trial began.
***
Sunny slowly opened his eyes.
As his vision adjusted to the gloom of his surroundings, he realized he was inside a cellar used to dump defective black-stone humanoid puppets.
'What the— where the hell am I?' he wondered, trying to turn his neck—which felt stiff and wooden—to take in his situation. 'What kind of twisted situation is this?'
Sunny tried to move, attempting to find a way out of the storehouse. But as soon as he did...
Thud.
He quickly realized he was trapped inside the body of one of those defective stone puppets. To make matters worse, he had no mouth to speak, no arms to touch, and no legs to walk.
And even worse, his futile attempt to move had left him face-first on the bare stone floor, lying pathetically like a broken doll.
'Oh, SHI—'
***
A few months earlier, in Nephis's trial...
Changing Star found herself standing upon a lush green plain on an island floating in the sky. Her body was that of a radiant, luminescent creature with five pairs of wings, corresponding to her five soul cores.
Before she could look around to figure out where she was, a figure appeared beside her. Turning her head, she saw a young woman of exquisite beauty, with soft brown hair flowing like a curtain of fine silk and eyes like silver stars.
The beautiful woman was wearing a simple red tunic that left her shoulders bare, and wielded no weapons. Despite that, her presence was vast and permeated the whole island. It was as though the blades of grass bent slightly to be closer to her, and the rays of sunshine changed their path to caress her skin. It was as if she didn't exist in the world, but instead, the world existed around her.
"Oh, a creature of light. What a pleasant surprise," the woman said, approaching Nephis with an amused, melodious voice. Even her tone was captivating and mesmerizing. "Unfortunately for you, little Nephilim, you should have never invaded my lands. But fear not, I shall grant you a most glorious death! After all, I, Solvane, am nothing if not merciful…"
Changing Star soon learned that the "hospitality" offered by the woman named Solvane was anything but kind.
***
Back in Sunny's Nightmare, a few months later...
'May the dead Gods bless you, Saint, seriously!'
Unable to move or call for help, devoid of limbs and orifices, Lost from Light had summoned the Marble Saint to carry him.
The noble marble warrior had picked him up and was currently carrying him in her arms like a princess. In any other context, it might have been a touching scene—were it not for the absurd circumstances.
Saint walked along the streets and avenues of the Underworld city, cradling puppet-Sunny in her arms. As they passed, the inhabitants of the abyss greeted them politely or strolled right by as if nothing were amiss. Given the dim lighting and dark color palette of the Underworld, even as a creature of shadow, Saint blended in seamlessly.
To the other Stone Saints, she was simply one of their own carrying a broken puppet—most likely to use as a training dummy.
'Alright, let's assess the situation,' Sunny thought, scanning his surroundings.
Looking up at Saint, he noticed a flicker of subtle nostalgia behind the ruby flames of her eyes as she navigated the area. Perhaps it was a memory belonging to the life she lived before corruption claimed her.
'When time was rewinding, I saw a giant, dark, clawed hand reach down and snatch citizens one by one. Where exactly is that thing hiding—'
Before the thought could even finish forming in his mind, a colossal hand descended from the pitch-black sky above. The clawed appendage swept past them, snagged a Stone Saint walking just a few paces away, and dragged her up into the void.
"AAAAAAAaaaaaaah..." The captured Saint's desperate scream faded into the abyss, never to be heard again.
[A/N: Rip Jerry.]
Sunny, Saint, and the surrounding citizens instantly froze. They stood paralyzed, staring at the empty spot where their fellow citizen had just vanished, plunging the street into a breathtaking, tomb-like silence.
'...'
'...'
'So... let me get this straight!' Sunny thought after a long silence, still frozen in place like everyone else, staring at the exact same spot. 'I am supposed to kill that... thing. In a body with no hands to wield a weapon, no legs to run if things go south, and no mouth to curse right before I die?'
The question echoed inside the quiet temple of his mind.
'Great! Just great! Now... how could this get any worse? I wonder.'
Sunny shouldn't have asked that.
***
Meanwhile, a few months earlier, in Nephis's Nightmare...
Sbam!
[You have slain an Awakened Shadow, Nightmare.]
[Your soul shines brighter.]
[...You have received a Shadow.]
---
Shadow: [Nightmare].
Shadow Rank: Awakened.
Shadow Class: Terror.
Shadow Attributes: [Swift], [Dark Destrier], [Dreadlord], [Dreamwalker].
Shadow Abilities: [Flowing Shadow], [Mantle of Fear], [Nightmare], [Dream Curse].
Shadow Description: [This beautiful steed was tamed by the filthy Changing Star in the depths of a harrowing dream. The light and the shadow battled across countless nightmares, shattering them all apart; neither was willing to give up, so in the end, she defeated him in the vilest of ways. Truly fitting for a Nephilim.
Such a majestic horse, what a pity! It is wasted in the hands of a creature of light and the void.]
---
"Grrr!"
Nephis growled in frustration, lying flat on the ground following a brutal, seemingly endless battle. Reading the description of her new Shadow, it felt as though the Spell was deliberately mocking her.
'A while ago, I said I wanted creatures under my command that could evolve like Sunny's. You know what? I changed my mind.'
The urge to burn that damned Spell grew stronger within her by the second.
Changing Star had spent the past two months enduring living hell. First, Solvane—a Transcendent and an immortal, no less—had captured her, ripped her wings off one by one while inflicting agonizing pain, and locked her in the prison of a Colosseum where she had to fight for survival every single day.
During her time in that wretched place, she had made an ally: a young man named Elyas. A month and a half later, Nephis had managed to break out of that slaughterhouse alongside him. But just as they were about to escape, the Priestess of War had caught up to them.
Elyas died right before her eyes, facing Solvane in a duel after she offered him a chance to fight—a feat everyone knew was impossible from the start. Afterward, the immortal Saint had grabbed Nephis by the neck, lifted her, plunged her hand into her chest to rip out her heart, and tossed her into the abyss below.
Thanks to the [Undying] enchantment on her armor, the [Undying Chain], Nephis had survived. Using her healing flames to regenerate her missing organ and white wings as she fell, she took flight and fled as far as she could, swearing vengeance on the priestess.
Changing Star flew for days without stopping. Later, she encountered a sorcerer—a man named Noctis—who offered to help her find her companions in exchange for a 'small, harmless favor.' Or so he had called it.
It consisted of entering a ruined, abandoned tower at night and sleeping there. The place was deeply eerie, but otherwise, the task hadn't seemed too difficult. That was until she closed her eyes, and a dark steed trapped her inside a labyrinth of endless nightmares, each worse than the last. Nephis had nearly lost her life for good, but at the ultimate moment, she resurrected using the exact same method that had allowed her to clear her First Nightmare.
She set herself on fire.
Upon waking, she was forced into a brutal battle against a shadow that gave her no quarter. It was so fast and elusive that she could barely land a single strike. The dark horse dissolved between shadows, avoiding her searing flames, appearing in her blind spots, and attacking from behind.
"Haa... haa..."
Everything hurt. Every bone and muscle in her winged body screamed in agony. She was covered in bruises, caked in dirt, and utterly exhausted on the ground.
There were so many things she wanted to do: find her companions, hug Sunny, punch Noctis in his smug face.
But right now, she was simply too exhausted.
Changing Star let go. Alone, lying on the cold ground of the glade, she surrendered to a deep, dreamless sleep.
***
As Nephis drifted into a fitful, pain-riddled sleep following her harrowing battle with Nightmare, a young woman clad in black walked through the lush grasslands near a temple where darkness reigned supreme. She wore a silk blindfold of the same midnight hue.
She was Cassie. Serenade of Doom.
Moving undisturbed within the body she inhabited for her Second Nightmare, she walked until she encountered a towering, mysterious figure. The entity was wrapped in a dense black cloak that seamlessly merged with the night sky. Upon its face rested a mask of dark wood carved into the visage of a three-horned demon, with two bottomless abysses where the eye slits should have been. Beneath its robes, eight long arms extended, each ending in a hand with seven clawed fingers.
Weaver. The Daemon of Fate.
"I was not expecting you, seer," the Master of Lies said, his gaze fixed on the sky above.
"Should you not address me as your Epigone?" Cassie asked softly, stepping closer.
From behind the mask, cold, detached laughter echoed—as if the treacherous Daemon had just heard a silly joke.
"You are not the heir we sought, nor the one we held dear to our name, seer. Your involvement in our plan and every one of your schemes were nothing more than a single step in the palm of our hand. We lost a bet, and now we are forced to share Sunless equally with Shadow."
Weaver spoke, looking down at his seven-fingered hand and clenching it into a fist. His tone was that of a father caring only for his true child—and that heir was certainly not her.
"Which is why you failed to absorb my phalanx, seer. Only one who possesses my blood may receive my bones. The bones can devour the flesh of the fruit containing a fragment of my soul; the soul can accommodate the flesh; the flesh can mirror the mind; the mind can conceive the spirit; and finally, when all six are united, only then can one claim my shadow and become... complete."
At his explanation, Serenade of Doom clenched her fists tightly at her sides until her knuckles turned white.
It burned. It was like waking up to discover that every choice she had ever made was nothing more than a move on a grander chessboard she couldn't even comprehend—a game where she was merely a pawn like all the rest, helpless to change her fate no matter how hard she tried.
Cassie gritted her teeth. "Then why?!" she shouted, her frustration spilling over before the Daemon. "Why did I betray the man I loved if, in the end, it was all for nothing?! I already knew he was destined for another, but at least..."
Her voice broke suddenly, dissolving into a torrent of tears she had kept dammed up for far too long. It was an agonizing pain she could no longer hold back.
Serenade of Doom dug her nails violently into her wrists, her skin breaking under the desperate pressure.
"At least I hoped... that even if I could no longer stand by his side as a woman... I could at least remain his friend."
The chill of the night froze the tears soaking her dark blindfold.
Finally, as the blind seer wept, Weaver stirred and turned his gaze to her. Extending one of his clawed hands, he offered her a gift.
"This is our eye. Take it, seer. Originally, it was meant to be your reward for guiding our Epigone toward the fragments of our forbidden lineage. However, the cards have changed now, and so has everything else."
Cassie wiped the tears from her face. Raising her head to meet the masked face of the Master of Lies, she asked softly, "Why are you helping me?"
"Because just as you love Sunless as a man, we love him as a son. Take it, and make good use of it. Our brother Nether will take care of him."
That was Weaver's answer.
Serenade of Doom lowered her head. Hesitantly, she slowly reached out a delicate hand and took the spherical object lying in the Daemon's palm. Lifting it, she rolled it gently between her fingers, examining it. Weaver's eye was cold to the touch, yet inside, a profound warmth radiated from it.
Cassie raised her gaze, but Weaver was already gone.
Lifting the edge of her silk blindfold with one hand, she pressed the Daemon's eye directly against her right eye.
Moments later, the blind seer's bloodcurdling screams tore through the night sky.
***
A few months later...
'I just had to ask if things could get any worse, didn't I?'
Sunny cursed aloud in his mind. Following that initial attack on the Underworld city, the situation had deteriorated rapidly.
The Stone Saints were on perpetual high alert, and the entire city had descended into open warfare. The inhabitants maintained strict combat formations at all times, weapons drawn, ready to battle the entity targeting their home. Tension was at an all-time high, morale was in the gutter, and the enemy's true face remained unknown. To make matters worse, as an Ascended Demon, his Saint couldn't step back from defending her kind.
'And the worst part is that I can't even dismiss Saint. Without her, I'm just a useless, limbless dummy.'
At the moment, the Marble Saint was stationed along the outer walls on defensive duty. Sunny was strapped tightly to her back like a makeshift backpack.
'You know what? This puppet body doesn't need to eat or sleep, and whatever that giant hand is, it's only targeting the native Stone Saints. In the worst-case scenario, all I have to do is recall Saint right before it grabs her, then wait for the hand to wipe everyone else out and leave. Meanwhile, I'll just sit quietly in a corner until the Nightmare finishes.'
Sunny carefully weighed his options—which, considering his current state, weren't particularly plentiful.
'Yeah, not a bad plan. I think I'll do just that.'
The very next second, the ground trembled violently.
'DAMNATION! DAMNATION! DAMNATION!'
Three curse words in a single breath was a new record even for him. Sunny suddenly felt an urgent need to expand his vocabulary.
The dark sky of the Underworld split open, as if welcoming a supreme ruler. Down in the city, every single Stone Saint—from the oldest and most powerful warrior to the smallest and most fragile—fell to their knees in unison.
'What is happening?' Sunny wondered in shock.
Both he and Saint turned to look at the city below, sheer disbelief etched into their faces.
High above, descending from the pitch-black sky, came a majestic, six-winged entity. The surrounding darkness seemed to bow, bending entirely to the sovereign's absolute will.
It was a True God.
The Daemon wore a cloak woven from pure darkness that wrapped around his pitch-black robes. He was imposing and tall, wearing a mask reminiscent of Weaver's, yet distinctly different. Instead of three horns, a crown of sharp, jagged spikes ringed his face like a fearsome lion mane.
Nether, the Daemon of Choice.
He landed directly in front of Sunny and Saint.
'Damn—'
The two froze, staring in terror, completely overwhelmed by the entity's terrifying presence—a boundless sea of suffocating darkness.
Before Sunny could think or move, the winged Daemon reached out, grabbed both him and Saint, and swept them up into the air. He whisked them far away from the city, leaving the remaining Stone Saints behind to face the dark horrors lurking in the depths of the abyss.
***
Nephis opened her eyes to find herself lying in a lavishly decorated bed inside an ornate bedchamber. On a nearby chair lay a set of pristine garments woven from immaculate red silk. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she rose and donned the robe.
Stepping out of the chamber and walking down the long, majestic hallway, she eventually crossed paths with the enigmatic sorcerer who had dragged her through living hell just the night before—Noctis.
"Ah, greetings, Nephilim!" the handsome Transcendent called out in a friendly, theatrical tone the moment he spotted her, waving a hand. "I trust you slept well?"
At those words, Changing Star was a hair's breadth away from marching over and punching the arrogant smile right off his face.
"Do you like the robe? Naturally, I tailored it myself! After all, I am the man with the most refined and exquisite taste in the entirety of Hope's Realm."
Noctis was eccentric, blatantly arrogant, and vain beyond belief. Yet beneath that flamboyant exterior—she had to give credit where it was due—he was an extraordinarily powerful and knowledgeable Saint.
"I fulfilled my end of the deal, sorcerer," Nephis said, sitting down across from him and intertwining her fingers over the refined wooden table. Skipping all pleasantries, her aura made it abundantly clear that she was utterly unamused. "Now it's your turn to honor ours."
In response, Noctis raised both hands high in the air in a playful show of surrender. "Good heavens, such urgency, my dear friend! Why not relax and enjoy a goblet of fine wine first?"
He motioned to a nearby wooden doll carrying a silver tray laden with fresh fruits and vintage wine, ordering it to approach.
"Here, please, help yourself! No hard feelings, and don't be shy—it's on the house. After all, I, Noctis, am nothing if not the most honest and generous man in all the Realm of Hope."
Changing Star narrowed her eyes, keeping her gaze locked on the sorcerer. Her silence spoke volumes.
Noticing her intense, unblinking glare, Noctis's smile faltered slightly. He brought a clenched fist to his mouth and faked a cough.
"Ahem... cough! Cough! Right then. We shall drink later."
He adjusted his posture, settling into his chair with a slightly more serious demeanor—though it barely differed from his usual playful self.
"So, you asked me to help you find your companions. But tell me, who exactly are these friends of yours?" he inquired.
Nephis opened her mouth to speak, only to recall a crucial detail: just like her, her companions had been placed into different vessels at the start of their Second Nightmare. Distinguishing facial or physical features were completely useless.
All she could give him were personality traits and core habits that persisted regardless of the body they inhabited.
"One of them is blind and a seer. Another is a bow-wielding singer with a pair of angelic wings like mine—though he only has one pair. The last one has a ravenous appetite and is a master of the spear."
Noctis stared at her for a full minute, digesting the bafflingly scarce amount of information he had just received.
"Erm... and what do they look like?"
"I... don't know?" Nephis answered awkwardly.
"You don't know?" The sorcerer raised a skeptical eyebrow, beginning to question her sanity. "Well, do you at least know where they were the last time you... saw them?"
"I don't know," Changing Star replied, shaking her head again.
"Any distinctive marks?"
"No idea."
"Any other defining characteristics I could use for a search?"
"None."
A long, heavy silence fell over the room. Finally, the sorcerer tapped a finger against the table and summarized:
"So, let me get this straight... you want me to locate your companions, without knowing their physical appearance, their faces, or their locations, based entirely on a few generic traits you just rattled off?"
Nephis visibly shrank back into her wings. At that moment, she desperately wished Sunny or Cassie were there in her place to handle the conversation so she wouldn't feel so socially inept.
Noctis let out a dramatic sigh. "Fine! Let us begin the search then! Who cares? I shall honor my promise and find your companions in the blink of an eye, Nephilim! After all, I, Noctis, am the cleverest and most brilliant investigator in all the Realm of Hope!"
A short while later, a young woman clad in black with a dark silk blindfold arrived at the gates of Noctis's temple. Accompanying her were a young girl and a crippled man. They were Cassie, Effie, and Kai—with Mordret lurking quietly somewhere within a reflection.
The flamboyant sorcerer, naturally, took full credit for his boundless genius and unprecedented investigative skills in locating them so quickly.
***
Meanwhile, back with Sunny...
Lost from Light had made the acquaintance of Nether, the Daemon of Choice. Over the past few months, Nether had taken him under his wing as an apprentice at the request of a mutual acquaintance, teaching him things Sunny could never have even imagined before.
'Hell! I can't believe a dead, dark deity who turns out to be my uncle is treating me better than almost anyone I've ever met before.'
The beginning, however, had been far from pleasant. His abrupt abduction from the Underworld city and the revelation of his innate connection to Weaver and Shadow—who had effectively forged his existence millennia ago—had felt like a freezing cold shower.
So had the Daemon's "surgical intervention" to construct a functional body capable of movement and speech.
"Hold still, nephew. This will only take a moment," Nether had told him, pulling out a rather bizarre and terrifying contraption.
With the press of a button, what initially appeared to be a simple chisel transformed into a massive rotary drill lined with jagged teeth and various miniature carving instruments attached around its rim.
FIZZZZZZZTH!
With a deafening whine, the drill spun to life alongside all its attached blades.
'No! No, no, no, no, NO!'
The Daemon brought the lethal tool down onto Sunny and began reshaping his stone body.
That day, a sharp, distinctly unmanly scream echoed through the dark, unfathomable depths of the Underworld.
When the work was finished, Sunny had to admit the results weren't half bad. Alongside a mouth to speak and two legs to walk, he now possessed four functional arms—a feature he adapted to with shocking speed.
"By the dead Gods, having four arms is amazing! Why does everyone settle for two?!"
Afterward, Nether had handed him what looked like a golden finger bone belonging to some ancient entity. Driven by a primal instinct buried deep within his bloodline, Lost from Light swallowed it without hesitation. The agony that followed was pure, unadulterated hell.
From that act, he acquired a new attribute, [Bone Weave], which fused with the [Blood Weave] already circulating in his system. However, during the process, Sunny lost his Shadow Lineage. Traits like [Prince of Shadows] and [Harbinger of Solace and Death] remained alongside their benefits, but [The Shadow] was gone, replaced by a strange, glitched attribute that even the Spell couldn't read properly.
---
Attributes: [Fated], [Flame of Divinity], [Prince of Shadows], [Blood Weave], [Harbinger of Solace and Death], [Bone Weave], [–Unknown–].
[–Unknown–] Attribute Description: [-#&@%-#@%..
---
Where its description should have been lay only a meaningless string of garbled symbols and broken runic text.
Sunny couldn't explain it, but deep within him, he felt that losing the Shadow Lineage was a far more devastating sacrifice than he could currently comprehend.
Nevertheless, assimilating [Bone Weave] marked the beginning of his training in the art of Weaving. Even Nether lacked complete mastery over this ancient sorcery, possessing only fundamental concepts. As a result, Sunny had to procure actual materials on his own.
How? By hunting in the Underworld, of course.
The Spell rewarded him with a new Memory every now and then, and he used soul shards—both from his hunts and those supplied by the Daemon—to practice weaving spell weaves. In the beginning, he struggled immensely, limited to analyzing enchantments on existing Memories and trying to transfer them from one item to another. His experiments frequently cost him a finger or two, and numerous Memories were destroyed after exploding in his face. Yet, with his divine uncle's guidance, his progress accelerated at a staggering pace.
His advancement in Weaving was slow, methodical, and steady. Fortunately, Sunny had the bright idea to craft a simple tool to ease his labor—[Weaver's Needle]—with which he finally succeeded in creating his very first custom Memory.
[You have received a Memory.]
---
Memory: [Shadow Chair].
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Tier: I.
Memory Type: Tool.
Memory Description: [An ordinary chair that the treacherous Lost from Light felt the need to turn into a Memory... apparently, his abysmal taste is not limited to his wardrobe.]
---
"..."
Sunny's eyes went wide with absolute disbelief, his jaw literally dropping. He couldn't believe it. The Nightmare Spell was deliberately mocking him!
"What the hell do you mean, you wretch?!" he erupted, screaming his fury at the top of his lungs. "For your information, my sense of style is utterly sublime! What do you know, huh?! I lost seven fingers crafting this chair! Uncle Nether had to reattach them! Just because you've been doing this job for millennia doesn't give you the right to insult me!"
He made several more strides. He managed to transform the [Ordinary Rock] into the [Marvelous Rock] by transferring the [Lie Detector] enchantment from another Memory. He fulfilled the requirements to bind the [Mantle of the Underworld], revealing it to be a Soulbound Memory. He even managed to Ascend to the rank of Master naturally, without relying on the Spell's assistance.
Yet, the time spent with Nether remained the most intriguing aspect of his stay. The Daemon of Choice taught him an incredible amount, yet always seemed strangely distant. It wasn't entirely surprising—after all, Sunny was merely an Ascended while Nether was a divine deity. Were it not for their blood tie, their paths would never have crossed. Still, Sunny felt there were unspoken truths being kept from him. Why would a Daemon bother to take him under his wing, even at his brother's request?
It was time to get answers. Soon, Lost from Light intended to speak with Nether directly.
***
The pale moon shone softly in the night sky over the Chained Isles. Elsewhere, a winged creature sat alone in the crucible of her thoughts, staring up at the stars, searching for a single familiar shadow among them.
"Does something trouble you, my friend?"
Noctis's voice broke the silence, pulling Nephis back to reality.
Changing Star turned her head, surprised to find the sorcerer sitting beside her—and slightly less surprised to see a pitcher of vintage red wine in his hand.
"I was just thinking," she replied with a quiet sigh.
Nephis had just reunited with Cassie and the others. She and her companions had spent the evening recounting their ordeals in the Second Nightmare up until their meeting, enjoying a fleeting moment of camaraderie that made them forget their heavy burdens, briefly returning to the days of their journey across the Forgotten Shore. Yet Sunny was not there with them, and the deep fracture within the cohort remained as raw as ever.
Tomorrow, they would launch their assault on the Ivory City guarded by the ancient dragon, fighting three powerful Saints to break the seals on Hope, the Daemon of Desire. The battle would be long, grueling, and deadly. Yet that was not what tormented her most.
"If something troubles you, you can always share it with me," Noctis offered, raising his wine goblet in a gesture of warmth before adding, "The night is young and crisp; it would be a shame to spend it without company."
Changing Star turned back to him, her wings drooping beneath the weight of her guilt over betraying the man she loved.
"In that case, Noctis... may I ask you a question?" she began.
"You just did."
"May I ask another?"
"You just did."
"When?"
"Just now."
"..."
Nephis's eye twitched subtly. Ignoring his silly antics, Changing Star voiced her deep burden.
"There is someone... very dear to me. But I did something terrible to him, and I... I simply don't know what to do to earn his forgiveness."
Noctis listened quietly. Taking a slow sip of his red wine, he carefully weighed her words.
"Did what?"
"Huh?"
"My dear, if you don't tell me what you did, how can you expect me to help you solve your problem?"
At his words, Nephis let out a long sigh before speaking softly.
"I betrayed him."
"Oh!"
The sorcerer certainly hadn't expected that.
"I loved him," she added quietly. "Yet in a moment of weakness, I chose the easiest path. I used a certain power I held over him and betrayed him, abandoning him to his fate while I ran toward freedom."
Noctis stroked his chin thoughtfully, reflecting on her confession. Finally, with a nonchalant shrug, he offered his advice:
"Well, my dear friend, you strike me as a trustworthy person, and I have no idea what terrible circumstances forced you to abandon him. But if you want my honest advice... if you ever cross paths with him again, you ought to do the only rational, selfless thing left: let him go."
"What?"
Nephis snapped her head toward him, unable to believe her ears.
"Well, yes. What do you expect? For him to swear eternal love to you? Certain mistakes simply cannot be forgiven, my dear. You may have had a moment of weakness—as humans often do—but even if he manages to turn the page, I severely doubt he will ever return your feelings. If you truly care about him and don't wish to see him suffer any longer, then do the only sensible, selfless thing."
He paused for a second, his gaze growing distant, as if an ancient wound had been reopened—one that time could not heal nor alcohol erase.
"Sometimes, loving someone means knowing when to let them go."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell between them. Nephis pondered the sorcerer's words, feeling a crushing weight press against her heart.
She hadn't just hurt Sunny; she had stripped away something far too precious to speak aloud. Yet Changing Star loved him—she loved him with the blinding intensity of a thousand burning suns.
And as Noctis said, sometimes loving someone meant knowing when to let go.
'Will I truly be capable of doing that?' Nephis asked the moon silently, staring ahead into the dark. 'After all, as stubborn as he was, even he managed to perform a selfless act once.'
The memory of their bitter exchange in the Dark city echoed in her soul, squeezing her heart like a vice. Her nails dug deep into the wooden bench; her hands clenched violently into fists.
'No!' she said to herself. 'I will bring Sunny back, no matter the cost... and I will find a way to earn his forgiveness.'
Changing Star had already lost too much. His Clan, his family, his grandmother.
She refused to lose him too. She would never give up on Sunny.
'After all, if this is my will... who dares to stop me?'
Silver flames burned fiercely within her grey eyes—an unyielding, ominous blaze in the quiet night.
Little did she know that her feelings and emotions were being distorted by the will of Hope, the Daemon of Desire. Her presence, vast and boundless as the abyss below, was slowly consuming her mind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~