The frozen jungle crackled beneath their feet like a living being wounded to death. Each step Shade took broke the layers of ice that the Winter Vestige had woven over the crimson leaves, transforming that infernal forest into a landscape of red crystal and eternal frost. The sound was sharp, almost musical, like the lament of something that could no longer complain.
Shade walked in silence, watching how his dark creatures —shadows with teeth that moved among the trees like fish in black waters— cleared the path. They were nightmare beings made of liquid darkness, born from his titan core. The small abominations that managed to survive the cold were devoured instantly, their bodies dissolving into fragments that floated toward Shade like black stardust.
"Are you going to summon your dragon, or are you just going to let your pets do all the work?" asked Scarlet, walking beside him with her hand on the hilt of her sword. Her reddish hair contrasted with the white and crimson landscape, a splash of fire in a world of ice.
Shade smiled. He raised a hand, and the darkness in front of them opened like a wound in the fabric of reality.
The black and gold dragon emerged from the void with a roar that shook the frozen trees. Its wings spread, sweeping the jungle canopy and sending shards of ice into the air like a storm of diamonds. A hundred meters of scales, claws, and contained fury. Its golden eyes glowed in the twilight, and when it opened its mouth, a river of black flames burst forth, incinerating everything in its path.
The abominations that had managed to hide from the Winter Vestige stood no chance. The dark fire reached them where they hid —among the roots, under the rocks, inside cracks in the bone— reducing them to ashes in seconds. The soul fragments rained down on Shade like a silent storm, a constant whisper in his mind.
"Now that's a show," murmured Scarlet, watching the dragon as it began to advance, opening a street of fire and death through the jungle.
Shade whistled softly, and another crack opened in the air.
From it emerged a figure radiating an almost unbearable pressure. The dark knight. Its black armor seemed to absorb light itself, and in the slit of its helmet glowed two red points like dying embers. It wielded a sword so black it hurt to look at, a blade that seemed made of solid night. Each of its movements was precise, economical, lethal.
The creature knelt before Shade, and the ground beneath its knees cracked.
"Rise," Shade ordered calmly. "Accompany the dragon. Don't let anything near us."
The dark knight rose without a sound, despite its massive armor, and began to walk toward the front. Its presence was so overwhelming that even Shade's own dark creatures moved aside as it passed.
Scarlet whistled, admiring the figure. "It's always impressive every time it appears."
"He likes to make a grand entrance," Shade commented, watching how his dark creatures created a great shadow sword and threw themselves against the abominations that were still alive, the few that had survived the initial freezing. The combat was fast, brutal, efficient. There were no prisoners in Godgrave.
Shade and Scarlet continued their walk through the dense jungle. Around them, the world creaked and groaned. The dragon roared in the distance. The dark knight reaped lives in silence.
"So when do you plan to challenge the Third Nightmare?" asked Shade, breaking the silence.
Scarlet glanced at him. "Soon. A few weeks ago we found a seed that's connected to the city. We're gathering information to challenge it." She paused briefly, organizing her thoughts. "I want to take at least ten Ascended with me into the Third Nightmare. That way, some of them can become Transcendents." She looked directly at him. "And you, Shade?"
"I'm going to challenge my Third Nightmare soon too. I'll become a Saint."
Scarlet raised an eyebrow. "And what does Uriel think?"
"He quite agrees," said Shade.
Beside him, the air distorted and Uriel appeared. The young man had a half-asleep expression, as if he had just been woken from a deep nap. He blinked several times, adjusting to the dying light of Godgrave.
"Ah, hi, Scarlet," Uriel greeted, looking around curiously. The frozen trees. The cloud-covered sky. The enormous skeleton of the dead god in the distance. "Seriously, Godgrave?"
"Yeah, it's the fastest way to recover our titan core and get information," Shade replied.
"Alright." Uriel shrugged. And with that, he disappeared as abruptly as he had arrived.
Scarlet shook her head. "You're definitely weird."
Shade let out a dry laugh. "Tell me about it."
---
The landscape gradually changed. The crimson jungle began to give way to stone structures, first isolated —broken columns, collapsed arches, what were once plazas and markets— and then more concentrated. The frozen roots of the trees tangled among walls that must once have been majestic, embracing them like ice serpents that refused to release their prey.
Shade raised a hand, and the dragon stopped. The dark knight turned its head toward him, waiting for orders. Even the dark creatures froze, their shadowy forms trembling slightly in the twilight.
"Ruins," murmured Scarlet, observing the buildings around them. Her voice was lost among the black stone walls. "This wasn't in the reports."
"No one has gotten this deep," Shade replied, advancing cautiously. His eyes scanned every shadow, every crack, every possible ambush. "The crimson jungle is lethal for most. We only got through because the Winter Vestige freezes everything in its path."
They walked among what were once temples. The black stone walls were covered in inscriptions that glowed faintly with a dull red light, as if the blood of something had been carved into the rock millennia ago. The figures depicted scenes of worship, of war, of sacrifice. But they all had something in common: the sun was always present, and the sun was always watching.
Skadi, who had gone ahead during the fight and was now waiting beside a particularly large wall, called them over with a gesture. The Supreme looked small in front of the twenty-meter stele, but her presence was equally imposing.
"Come. This is interesting."
The wall was a stele nearly twenty meters tall, carved with figures of human beings kneeling before a radiant sun. But the human figures had distorted faces, mouths open in silent screams, and the sun... the sun had eyes.
Eyes that wept black tears.
"What does it say?" asked Scarlet, approaching. Her hand was still on the hilt of her sword.
Skadi scanned the inscriptions with her gaze, her gray eyes moving slowly over the ancient symbols. For a moment, something like unease flickered in her expression. Shade had never seen Skadi uneasy. That, more than anything else, put him on alert.
Then, she began to read aloud.
"Year —" The inscription was crossed out, the number erased by time or by design. "— of the Sun's reign, sanity abandoned the house of the chosen. The Emperor, who had been light among mortals, began to hear voices in the radiance. Voices that whispered to him that his subjects hated him. That his children were plotting against him. That the only true loyalty was that which was ripped out with fire and sword."
Skadi's voice was flat, devoid of emotion, but the words she spoke carried a weight that made the air itself grow denser. Shade felt his dark creatures retreat slightly, as if afraid of being heard.
"And the Emperor believed the voices. He ordered the execution of his council. Sent his most loyal generals to the stake. Poisoned his wife and children while they slept. And when the capital rose in arms against him, he invoked the power of the Sun to burn the entire city."
Shade felt a chill run down his spine. It wasn't physical cold. It was something deeper. An echo of something that had happened before, that might still be happening somewhere.
"But the Sun did not answer. Because the Sun was already dead. What the Emperor invoked was not the light that gives life, but the darkness that hides within every flame. And that darkness devoured him and his city, and turned them into what now dwells in the depths."
Skadi stopped. Her eyes scanned the last lines of the inscription, and when she spoke again, her voice was even lower.
"Flee, if you still can. He who reads these words is already doomed. The shadow of the dead Sun sees everything. The shadow of the dead Sun remembers everything. And when it finds you, it will ask you to return what was stolen from it."
Silence.
The icy wind of the Winter Vestige whistled among the ruins, but now it sounded like a lament. The crimson trees creaked like complaining bones. Even Shade's dark creatures had stopped, as if something in the atmosphere had put them on alert.
"What does all that mean?" asked Scarlet, her voice barely a whisper.
Shade slowly shook his head. "I don't know. But I don't like it."
He observed the figures carved into the stone, the sun with eyes weeping black tears, the humans with faces of eternal agony. Something about that image was disturbingly familiar. As if he had seen it before, somewhere, at some time he couldn't remember.
"Whatever it is," he finally said, looking away from the stele, "Godgrave is a dangerous place for us right now. If we plan to go deeper inside, we'll need an army of Ascended and Transcendents."
Scarlet nodded. "So, we retreat?"
Shade hesitated. His seventh core awaited him somewhere in the depths. But the inscriptions spoke of something lurking in the darkness. Something that had devoured an entire civilization.
"We don't retreat," he said finally. "But we'll proceed more carefully. Skadi, stay close. Scarlet, don't leave my side. And if something moves..."
His hand closed into a fist, and the darkness around him grew denser.
"...we kill it before it can kill us."