Shadow Slave

After a while, shrouded in darkness, Elyas suddenly spoke, addressing Sunny in his usual one-sided manner.

In the past weeks, the young Awakened had developed a habit of sometimes speaking to his demonic partner, even though the frightening creature could not respond with anything more than an occasional nod, a shake of the head, or an indifferent shrug. Talking to Shadow was not much of a conversation, but...

Perhaps this was one of the few things that were keeping him sane.

…Sunny could understand why the youth had to do that, since his own inability to talk was one of the things that were driving him mad, that was robbing him of even more of his humanity.

"Hey, demon. Do you… do you think it's true? About the wooden sword…"

Sunny stared at the young man, then shrugged. He had no opinion on that topic, since he didn't know what the wooden sword was.

Elyas sighed.

"Before the Warmongers captured us, I had heard of their cruel Trials. Everyone back home has, really. The horrors of the Red Colosseum is something every parent tells their children, to make them behave."

He grew silent, and then continued after some time, his voice even:

"...But they also say that there is a way to escape this terrible place. If one is brave enough… if they are righteous enough… then they would eventually be given a wooden sword, and earn the right to fight for their freedom."

Sunny shifted slightly, tilting his head.

'What a nice fairy tale…'

The poor kid was deceiving himself if he thought that the worshippers of War were going to just let them go. Bravery, righteousness… these concepts were alien to the insane zealots.

Or rather, they understood it all differently.

Sunny had spent enough time observing the Warriors — or Warmongers, as Elyas called them — to understand that they were not evil people, or at least did not consider themselves as such. Their worldview was twisted and ruthlessly cruel, but more or less simple.

They believed in struggle, and glory. One had to struggle to achieve glory, and the struggle itself was the most glorious thing. That was why they were happy and joyful when watching their new favorite, Shadow, slaughter his way through the arena, no matter who or what he was killing — Nightmare Creatures or their own friends and family.

...Because dying while struggling against an overwhelming foe was the highest form of glory. Dying by his hand was a privilege and an expression of virtue.

The only thing more righteous than being killed by a stronger enemy… was to kill that enemy instead.

In their mind, the Warriors saw what they were doing to the slaves not as a cruel injustice, but as a benevolent gift. The slaves were not forced to slaughter each other for the entertainment of the crowd. Instead, they were generously given a chance to walk the path of righteousness and strive toward glory...

That was why Sunny didn't think that any of the slaves would ever be allowed to walk free of the colosseum. Doing so would be the greatest sin, a shameful offense that the Warmongers, in their perverse benevolence, would never visit upon their prisoners.

To them, that would have been the vilest form of cruelty.

'Damned lunatics…'

Sunny was not sure that all followers of War God were this bizarre. In fact, he was pretty certain that this murderous sect had been born here, in the Kingdom of Hope. The slavers he had met in the First Nightmare worshipped the same god, but were nothing like these battlesworn zealots…

The Kingdom of Hope was a very strange place throughout, from what little he had gathered from Elyas's words.

Sunny now knew that he had been sent into a time period around a thousand years after the destruction of the real kingdom by Sun God. Now, only the name remained. People inhabiting these lands did not even know who the Demon of Desire was, really, only that she had been punished by the gods and imprisoned in the Ivory Tower.

And that their duty was to guard her prison.

In this duty, the people of the kingdom were led by seven lords. Or rather, five, since two had already perished.

The Ivory Tower itself had not been separated from the rest of the isles yet, and remained at the center of the region, surrounded by a large city — the beautiful city of aerial bridges and white aqueducts that he had seen rebuild itself from ashes at the start fo the Nightmare. Elyas's home.

The Ivory City was populated by the followers of Sun God, and protected by two of the remaining five lords.

The west of the region belonged to the second most populous faction of the Kingdom of Hope, the followers of War, and this was where Sunny had the misfortune to find himself. He had seen the statues of War God here and there in the arena, even though they did not resemble the one he had witnessed on the strange island that a circular river flowed through.

These statues of the God of War, as well as of life, progress, technology, craft, intellect, and humanity all depicted him as a mighty warrior in heavy armor, wielding a bloodied spear and a cracked shield.

The Warriors were also led by one of the lords — a beautiful priestess of War whose name was...

Solvane. The dazzling beauty was one of the rulers of the Kingdom of Hope.

The followers of War God and Sun God seemed to be in conflict with each other, and so were the lords leading them. That was how Elyas and his family had ended up captured and brought into the arena, to serve as slaves fighting in the Trials.

The remaining two lords were neutral and of no consequence, since their factions were much smaller and wielded no real power. One resided far to the north, and the other somewhere in the east. Elyas did not know much about them, and so Sunny didn't either.

…He just knew that the five lords were, without a doubt, the eternal shackles mentioned in the description of the Undying chain. Immortal jailers created by Sun God to keep Hope imprisoned in her tower, chained… forever.

What had once been a suspicion of his now turned into a certainty. There were just too many clues, some of which he had collected before venturing into the Seed, and some that he had picked up from the young man's words.

And maybe… just maybe… that knowledge could help him gain freedom.

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