Chapter 3235 Bitter Fate

Light, darkness, and nothingness...

If one had to list the three hardest elements to shadow, these three would take the top spots. Light was difficult to master because a shadow reshaping itself into radiance was somewhat paradoxical, having become its own source. True darkness, meanwhile, was by far the hardest — it was, after all, the opposite of both shadows and light.

And nothingness... nothingness was antithetical to all elements, so shadowing it was meant to be impossible.

Nevertheless, the Mad Prince effortlessly reshaped himself into beings that wielded all three of these elements — and at the same time, no less, each manifested through an independent incarnation. Shadow was not sure that he was capable of doing the same.

Blinded and weakened, robbed of all senses and assaulted by nothingness, he felt a peculiar emotion for a brief moment.

It was shame.

‘Was that madman right?’

Had he truly wasted an eternity doing nothing but wallow in self-pity, to a degree that a Titan no more than a few thousand years old could best him not only in swordsmanship, but also in the mastery of shadows?

Sure, the Mad Prince might have used some cunning trick to channel true darkness and nothingness... perhaps his four-pronged attack was not what it seemed. But that didn't change the fact of what it had achieved.

It made Shadow feel that he was in danger for the first time since the beginning of their battle... for the first time in centuries. Shadow had not known it before, but it seemed that he had some measure of pride. And his newly-found pride was wounded now.

He could not see, he could not sense the movement of shadows, he was reeling under the eroding influence of nothingness...

But he could still think.

And that was why he knew that the jade blade was already aimed at him, a moment away from piercing his flesh.

'What to do?’

In an instant, he conceived of a thousand solutions. Some of them had a high chance of being effective, others less so. A few all but guaranteed success.

With all his senses turned against him, he could only rely on his mystical intuition. And in the absence of all distractions, his intuition — his sensitivity to fate — had suddenly become sharper and clearer than ever before.

Shadow moved his sword and blocked the jade blade a millimeter away from his neck, using the force of the impact to push himself back and create some distance between himself and the Mad Prince.

At the same time, he turned the dark torrents of shadow essence flowing through his nebulous existence into brilliant rivers of light, and reshaped himself from a Shadow Creature into a being of pure, fiery radiance.

His eyes, which had been like two bottomless pools of darkness before, suddenly blazed with blinding white flames. His skin ignited with a soft radiance, which then swelled and turned into an incandescent halo.

His light washed over the towering beast made out of true darkness, burning its flesh away. At the same time, the figure woven out of pure radiance could not blind him anymore — only nothingness remained, sapping him of the Will.

The Mad Prince's laughter resounded from the chaos of clashing elements.

“Why can't you pity yourself?"

His ghastly voice turned dark and sinister, and all four incarnations lunged at Shadow with flawless, deadly cohesion.

“Because solace... is... a sin!"

The spirit of light raised a hand. In the next moment, an obliterating ray of white flame cut the fabric of reality apart, reaching Shadow almost instantly.

The dissolving beast of darkness lunged forward even as its body was crumbling, its terrifying maw threatening to pin him in place.

The suit of obsidian armor animated by an endless mass of white mist raised a hand, the spikes of its heavy gauntlet barreling toward Shadow's temple.

The human swordsman was already thrusting the jade jian forward.

Shadow smiled darkly.

His shadow split into three, which then rose from the sand.

One became a colossal serpent that swallowed the wounded beast of darkness; the other turned into a grotesque creature whose body was cast out of ice, emanating a sense of lethal cold. A chilling wind blew across the Shadow Realm, bringing with it the smell of snow. The ice creature shielded Shadow from the torrent of flame, swallowing it as parts of its body melted and were vaporized.

The third one assumed Shadow’s original form, slamming a fist into the mist knight's breastplate and sending it staggering back, partially shattered and spilling torrents of mist.

Shadow — the incarnation of him that was currently shining like a radiant sun — raised his obsidian sword to meet the jade blade. The two swords clashed in a bind, and for a moment, he came face-to-face with the Mad Prince.

“This sword of yours. I really don't feel like being cut by its blade."

The Mad Prince laughed.

“Ah... no need to worry. I never hoped to cut you, to begin with."

Shadow frowned, sensing that something was amiss.

That he had let his foe deceive him, somehow.

In the next moment, the Mad Prince leaned forward and whispered, his insidious voice flowing into Shadow's ear before he could react.

And as it did, Shadow reeled back with a stifled cry.

His agonized scream drowned in the Mad Prince's demented laughter.

‘W—what... what did he...’

But Shadow did not need to guess. The harrowing words whispered by the abominable lunatic were not something human language could define or describe — because they were the names of things that were innately alien to all of existence.

To the Flame.

They were the True Names of the terrifying Creatures of the Void.

And as soon as Shadow fathomed them, his soul bloomed with the seeds of Corruption.

"Argh!"

He staggered back, gritting his teeth. The Mad Prince observed him with an amused, satisfied smile.

"See? I might have never reached the heart of the Estuary, but I did take a walk in that damned corridor. I read the runes left on its walls by Ariel — some of them, at least. That is how I was defiled... so isn't it only fair for you to experience the same? Since you refuse to remember, that is!"

He froze for a moment, then raised an eyebrow.

“Huh? I am still here. I really expected Torment to erase me from existence by now..."

As Shadow stared at him darkly, the Mad Prince grinned.

"How curious. Does she really not care which one of us survives? Or..."

His grin dimmed.

“Or did she assume that you won't be in danger?"

At that moment, the incarnations of Shadow, which had been reeling in agony, regained their vigor. The beast of darkness was entirely destroyed, while the spirit of light turned to ice and was shattered into a myriad of shards. The suit of armor was dismantled and torn apart in an instant, the white mist encased by it dispelled by the wind.

The original incarnation of Shadow was suddenly in front of the Mad Prince, the obsidian sword piercing his chest.

His gaze was cold and full of furious, obliterating white flames.

"Corruption?"

Shadow twisted his sword, causing the Mad Prince's smile to falter for a moment.

“A valiant attempt, but the river of Corruption you unleashed cannot drown my soul. I have braved an ocean of it once, after all; I have lived hundreds of thousands of lives, and most of them were the lives of abominable creatures like you. If these feeble seeds could consume me, I would have been gone a long time ago."

And indeed, the seeds of Corruption planted into his soul by the Mad Prince were failing to take root. Shadow's soul was already suffocating them, and would soon destroy them without leaving a trace. Perhaps if the Mad Prince had walked deeper into the corridor, things would have ended differently.

Shadow kicked him in the chest, sending the madman flying back.

The Mad Prince let out a startled laugh as he fell.

"Is that so..."

The three incarnations of Shadow fused back into his original body, and the flames burning in his eyes were extinguished. Back to his usual self, he walked toward the Mad Prince with unhurried steps.

“But that poses the question... that forbidden knowledge you keep locked in your head — it is a source of Corruption that most living beings in existence would never be able to resist. So, even if Smile of Heaven cleanses your soul, you'll just be corrupted by that knowledge all over again. That doesn't really bode well for your little plan, does it?"

The Mad Prince groaned as he rose to his feet, staring at Shadow with a crooked smile.

“Well... it's just another unfortunate obstacle. What's so terrible about knowledge, anyway? Now that Torment is Supreme, she can just erase it from my head... as long as she wants to. As long as she doesn't have another choice. She is not simply the one who carries the memories of the fallen, after all. She is also the one who can give the living the sweet gift of oblivion."

Shadow froze for a moment.

‘The gift... of oblivion?’

But in the next second, everything inside him suddenly tensed.

That was because the Mad Prince, who had been leaning on his jade sword before, suddenly underwent a subtle change.

It was his one remaining eye. His eye had been like onyx before... but now, it reflected the approaching figure of Shadow like a polished mirror cast from liquid silver.

The Mad Prince smiled.

“You managed to kill half of me, you know? Not bad at all."

And just like that...

He was gone.

The Mad Prince vanished, as if he had never been there at all.

But Shadow already knew where he had gone, though — he felt it.

Startled, he did something he had not done in this life yet.

He dove into his Soul Sea.

There, a vaguely familiar, but alien landscape met him.

An endless expanse of still water. A boundless, lightless sky. Seven black spheres hanging above him like dark suns... and a few sparks of light orbiting them like planets.

The silent sea was empty, with only two figures standing on its surface — one of them was Shadow, the other was the Mad Prince.

The latter was looking up at the seven black suns, as if watching for signs of growing Corruption.

Not noticing what he wished to see, the Mad Prince sighed.

“Oh, well."

Turning to Shadow, he glared at him with scathing contempt.

“No choice but to be a good boy and follow orders, it seems... for now. Such is the bitter fate of a slave."

With that, he grinned and suddenly crouched, plunging his hand into the dark waters...

Grabbing the reflection of one of the sparks of light that orbited the black suns.

When the Mad Prince pulled his hand out of the water, he was firmly grasping a small lantern carved out of dark stone.

Shadow frowned.

‘What is...'

But before he could react, it was already too late — the Mad Prince reached with his other hand and opened the gate of the stone lantern.

"You've been summoned by the Oracle of Thetis, worm!"

His laughter shattered the still silence of Shadow's soul.

And in the next moment, Shadow felt an overwhelming force dragging him toward the lantern.

Into its gate.