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Sunny saw the mosaic depicting the events of the past.
The seven heroes are using the lives of their people to fuel the Crimson Spire, to form the artificial sun forcing the dark sea below the gigantic tower. They even sacrificed themselves.
'Truly noble heroes...' Sunny thought with sarcasm.
After the heroes perished to create the artificial sun, everything was fine for a while. But then, maybe after a few decades, or even hundreds of years, the light of the sun began to dim.
So the people of the Dark City had to make a new sacrifice. Perhaps, the second time, only seven people had been killed to renew the power of the Spire.
But then it happened again, and that time, seven was not enough. So they sacrificed fourteen. And when it happened again, they sacrificed a few dozen.
And eventually, hundreds of people were being slaughtered every year to keep the sun burning. Because of the simple fact that the seven heroes and their people… all of them had terribly mighty souls. But their descendants, who didn't have to grow up in utter darkness and fight terrible monsters to live through the day, did not.
And at some point in this vicious cycle, the vessel that had been imprisoned in the Spire and served as the anchor for the bloodthirsty sun was corrupted. Whatever kind of conscience it had left had been completely shattered.
The nameless goddess of the Dark City became the Crimson Terror of the Forgotten Shore.
All that pain, all that rage, all that blood exploded from the Spire and infected the very land itself, growing into an endless labyrinth of the strange crimson coral. The seven seals came undone, releasing that darkness that had been imprisoned underground for hundreds of years.
This was what Cassie had seen in the vision.
The darkness and the fury of the newborn Terror fell on the humans of the Dark City like a tide and wiped them all out, erasing even the memory of them from the face of the world.
…This was how the Forgotten Shore was born.
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Sunny also realized that the Shards were keys to lock the dark sea under the Crimson Spire. The answer was all this time in the description of the Midnight Shard; he just didn't see it before.
Sunny slowly exhaled.
The seven seals that kept the all-consuming darkness locked underground came undone, but they weren't destroyed. If one had all the keys, it was still possible to seal the cursed sea once again. That was what the seven heroes had left behind.
…And with the cursed darkness locked away, the Spire would lose its most deadly line of defense.
Finally, everything became clear.
Sunny remained motionless for a long time, looking at the bloody images beneath his feet. After a while, he sighed.
There was a bitter taste in his mouth.
"...Sick. I am sick of this place. So sick of all of this."
Cassie's vision showed her fire and rivers of blood?
Good.
It could all burn to the ground.
He didn't care anymore.
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Sunny turned to leave the Library, eager to escape the suffocating weight of the truth he had uncovered.
But as he stepped away from the mosaic, he noticed something—or rather, someone.
Lysander was sitting quietly on a flat stone a few meters away.
The First Bright Lord rose slowly as Sunny noticed him.
"You found what you were searching for here, young man?" Lysander asked as he approached.
Sunny was not surprised.
His shadow had already sensed the moment Lysander entered the Library.
"I… I think so," Sunny replied after a moment.
Lysander studied him for a brief moment before speaking again.
"Your leader, Changing Star, is quite a clever one," he said calmly. "To discover something that required the long efforts of my cohort and me to uncover."
Sunny shook his head slightly.
"She had help," he said. "Cassie is an oracle."
For the briefest moment, something like regret flickered across Lysander's face.
"Ah… yes," he said quietly. "If I had possessed an oracle in my own cohort, perhaps things would have been simpler."
Sunny could not help remembering the dark maze beneath the river.
The only reason they had survived that horrible walk was because Cassie had seen the correct way to cross it.
Lysander's companions had not been so fortunate.
The First Bright Lord fell silent for a moment, then turned back toward Sunny.
"May I share something with you?" he asked.
Sunny blinked, surprised by the question.
Then he nodded.
Lysander stepped closer to the mosaic and rested his fingers gently against the ancient stone.
"Your judgment of the Seven Heroes is not wrong," he said slowly.
He traced one of the images with his fingertips.
"They killed their own people to fuel something meant to protect the rest. A human being was forced to become the vessel for a greater power. Even if the first volunteers accepted their fate willingly… those who followed them likely did not."
His voice softened slightly.
"And that poor girl… to endure such a burden."
He shook his head faintly.
"From our perspective, it is difficult not to see it as something inhuman."
He paused for a moment.
"I will not defend their actions," Lysander continued. "They were morally wrong."
His gaze lingered on the mosaic.
"But sometimes," he said quietly, almost in a whisper, "people believe the end justifies the means."
Lysander withdrew his hand from the stone.
"They believed that was the correct... no, the only solution," he said. "And unfortunately for them… it failed."
Then the First Bright Lord turned and began walking toward the exit of the ruined Library.
Just before he stepped beyond the threshold, he spoke again without looking back.
"Sunny," he said calmly.
Sunny looked up.
Lysander's voice echoed softly through the silent chamber.
"Would you have done better?"
And just like that, he left.
Alone among the ruins and the weight of the past, Sunny remained standing there with the words of the First Bright Lord lingering in the air.
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Probably in 5 chapters, I will have finish the POV of Sunny, and we will enter the Forgotten Shore's Arc of Lysander.