Shadow Slave

1487 The Source
Sunny stared at the distant Great River, frozen in place. His face was motionless.
However, there was a storm raging in his mind. Fragmented truths that he had
learned, witnessed, and experienced in the Tomb of Ariel were moving, colliding
with each other, and clicking in place with a dreadful noise. The inconceivable
truth of their Nightmare was slowly revealing itself.
From start to finish... it was all...
He was suddenly overcome with fear.
Shifting his gaze slightly, Sunny studied the beautiful ribbon that twisted on itself,
forming an infinite loop.
Deep crimson, vibrant azure, soft lilac... the seven suns shining in the darkness...
It was like a dream.
“How can this be? How can the Great River flow in a circle?"
But then again... of course, it could.
In hindsight, it made so much sense.
There had always been a paradox in how the Great River was described.
Because it was always described as "endless"... Sunny had not paid it much
attention before, assuming that the word was simply there to provide flavor. But
he should have known better. The Spell was always deliberate with its choice of
words.
The description of the Stifled Scream read:
[...a great river was contained within it, flowing endlessly from the future into the
past.]
But how could a river of time be endless? The past wasn't infinite. If the Great
River really flowed into the past, anyone sailing it would reach the point beyond
the origin of time eventually — so, by definition, it could not flow endlessly.
Only it could. Because its estuary was also its source... within the Tomb of Ariel,
the past was connected to the future, creating a single whole. The proof was right
in front of him.
There was a reason why the Nightmare Creatures populating the Great River
were most powerful in the far reaches of the past, near the Estuary, and in the far
reaches of the future, where Sunny had initially come from. The two were one
and the same.
He frowned, then shook his head.
“No, wait... that doesn't make sense.’
If the Great River was an infinite loop, and the past turned into the future, having
no end... then what about the Estuary? The existence of the Estuary was also
undeniable. Not only was it mentioned in the descriptions of the Stifled Scream
and the Shroud of Graceless Dusk, but it was the reason why the Seekers of
Truth had come to the Tomb of Ariel, as well.
They had come to find the secrets that the Demon of Dread had hidden in the
estuary of the Great River...
The hideous truth he had wished to be free of.
And when Aletheia, the First Seeker, had finally found it, the Defilement was
born.
The whole purpose of the Great River was to reach a point before time existed —
before the gods were born, and therefore outside their control. At least that was
what Sunny and Nephis believed.
So how could there be no Estuary?
“There is. The Estuary exists."
Shifting his gaze, Sunny studied the length of the beautiful ribbon. From this
distance, he could not really see the current of the Great River, but he did see a
few things.
For example, a stretch of it was shrouded in boiling clouds, which gave birth to
immense cyclones. That was the area of the river that corresponded to the end
days of the Doom War, while the cyclones were the time storms it created.
The colossal whirlpool where Aletheia's Island had been situated was hidden
from view, but Sunny saw a tiny speck on the crimson layer of the twisting ribbon.
That was Fallen Grace. He thought he saw another city on the lilac layer. That
had to be Twilight...
The second most noticeable anomaly, though, was a spot where the surface of
the Great River was obscured by mist. The mist was absolutely impenetrable,
covering a considerable length of the river. The flow of time near it seemed
restless even from a distance, which meant that it was absolutely devastating up
close.
Sunny suddenly felt cold, realizing that not only was there an Estuary...
“No, that is... that is impossible.
...But he had already brushed against it.
Something seemed to explode in his head.
won
'Of course..."
Looking at the distant Great River, Sunny took a shaky breath.
He was remembering the first few days he had spent in the Nightmare, drifting on
a piece of flotsam in a place shrouded in mist
Back then, everything about the situation had seemed strange and bizarre. So,
he had never properly questioned where that place was. However, now that he
thought about it... even considering the general weirdness of the Great River,
those first days were especially odd.
The mist, the piece of flotsam, and what had happened next...
Actually, Sunny had never seen his makeshift raft sailing out of the mist. Instead,
he simply heard the water roaring and was thrown underwater when the
suddenly furious current overturned the piece of flotsam. By the time he
resurfaced, the seven suns were shining above his head.
Most importantly, the mist was nowhere to be seen — upstream or downstream.
All around him, there was only the sparkling, dreamlike expanse of the Great
River, as if the mist had never existed at all. There were also the demented runes
carved into the underside of his raft.
...It was almost as if he had been sent there through time and space instead of
simply being carried downstream by the current.
And now, Sunny felt almost certain that that was exactly what had happened.
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That misty place where he had spent
the first few days of the N ol shalg
was the gytecondaly of the
Ebulary’ It was also the source of the
Great River. The content is on
popsnovel.com! Read the latest
chapter there!
Visit popsnovel.com to read full content.
It was a place between the past and
the future, where the laws of time
were twisted and broken. ThéO I

re
eptrancelioXite true Estuary — the
space that existed beyond time,

LL : I

containing Ariel's secrets — was
hidden somewhere in the mist. The
content is on popsnovel.com! Read
the latest chapter there!
Visit popsnovel.com to read full content.
Aletheia had found it, but Sunny
simply drifted past, being carried by
the current. When the piece of ot
flotsam Le of the
Sbutte, he was expelled from it,
appearing in the far reaches of the
future — in the area of the Great River
corresponding to the point in time
where the person whose role he took
had entered the Tomb of Ariel. The
content is on popsnovel.com! Read
the latest chapter there!
Wait..."
Sunny was suddenly covered in cold sweat when he remembered a few more
details about his time in the mist... in the Boundary.
Hadn't he been tormented by nightmares of madness, despair, and dreadful
obsession there? Hadn't he screamed, waking up...
“No, no... not again... please..."
Hadn't the Sin of Solace inexplicably become perfectly complete and real out
there, in the mist?
And the Great River... was a loop...
Sunny shuddered.
A terrible premonition grasped his heart with icy claws.
Sitting on the deck of the Chain Breaker, he gazed at the distant river and
whispered:
"The Six Plagues... are not the future versions of ourselves."
Sunny closed his eyes.
"...They are our past. They are us from the previous revolution of the Great
River."