At first, the tunnel was entirely devoid of any features. Its walls seemed to have been adorned by masterful reliefs and engravings once, but now, they were all gone, erased by the merciless passage of time and the endless tides of the eerie white mist. The walls themselves were covered in a chaotic mess of jagged grooves and deep fractures, making Sunny wary of the unstable ceiling above.
In fact, there were several sections of the tunnel where the ceiling had collapsed, forcing them to squeeze between ancient rocks. Saint, who moved ahead in the darkness, had diminished her size a bit to fit through the cracks — seeing her in such a petite form reminded Sunny of their times on the Forgotten Shore, when the two of them were more or less of the same size. He almost forgot that Saint had not always towered above him. It seemed so long ago... well, of course it was. Sunny had been a Dormant Beast back then, while Saint had been a mere Awakened Monster. Now, they were both Supreme, having survived countless nightmares side by side.
‘Time flies...’
No, actually, it did not. If anything, time crawled like a snail. He had been sent to the Forgotten Shore what... thirteen, fourteen years ago? But it felt like four hundred years ago.
Honestly, four hundred years was an understatement.
As the three of them walked deeper into the tunnel, the scene in front of them slowly changed. Before, Sunny had attributed the fractured walls and the crumbling ceiling to natural erosion, but now, he was beginning to suspect that something else had caused this destruction.
Soon, something crunched beneath Saint's sabaton. Looking down, she studied the floor of the tunnel — it was littered by countless pieces of jagged rock, and under those rocks, there was a thin layer of white powder. Now, the source of that strange powder finally revealed itself... it was a small, broken piece of bone.
As they went deeper, there were more and more bones between their feet, until the whole tunnel was carpeted by them like a vast graveyard. The powder was bone dust, hinting that a great number of living beings had perished here once.
Sunny did not know what kind of slaughter had taken place in the tunnel, but its scale was truly terrifying, making him feel solemn and wary.
There were more of the rocks here, as well, their shapes smooth and strange. Judging by the state of the tunnel, which now looked like it was formed from molten lava, impossibly fierce flames had raged here once, melting the walls and incinerating everything trapped in the darkness.
Saint was studying the scene of devastation around them with her usual cold indifference. However, Sunny could feel a note of strange, mournful emotion hidden in her reserved silence.
They continued forward, eventually reaching a point where the tunnel opened into a colossal stone chamber, its vast expanse drowned entirely by darkness. Nephis raised the Blessing higher and poured more essence into its blade, making the radiance suffusing it almost blinding — but even then, the light failed to reach the opposite wall of the spherical chamber.
She did, however, see most of it.
Here, Sunny's previous suspicion was confirmed. It was hard to miss the signs of the daunting battle that had once taken place there — the skeletal remains of countless humans and enormous beasts, the broken weapons littering the floor, the ruined remains of makeshift barricades and defensive fortifications that had once barred the mouth of the tunnel...
Mostly, however, the floor of the chamber was littered with stone shards. They carpeted it entirely, piling here and there in tall mounds.
Up ahead, Saint's graceful silhouette was revealed in the darkness, standing among the rubble. She remained motionless for a long while, then took a few steps forward, stopping at the very edge of a vast circle of light, and silently got down to one knee. Reaching forward, she picked up an oddly-shaped piece of rubble and raised it to the visor of her helmet.
Perceiving the world through her eyes, Sunny was confused by what she was looking at for a few moments. The rock had three jagged sides and one smooth, uneven surface. It seemed unfinished, somehow, and strangely familiar.
It was only when Saint lowered her hand and gently placed the rock back on the floor of the chamber that Sunny realized what he was looking at.
It was a shard of a statue's head. The smooth line was the contour of the statue's brow; the recess below was where an eye would be, now closed forever. The elegant ridge was a broken remnant of a nose, and under it, the corner of the statue's mouth was parted slightly, almost lifelike.
Only, of course, the shattered head had not belonged to a statue.
It had belonged to a Child of Nether.
As Saint rose and looked around the colossal chamber, with its floor carpeted by stone rubble, Sunny's perception shifted, and he finally understood what that rubble was.
It was the remnants of countless Stone Saints, all shattered and broken, having turned to stone after their deaths.
He felt a chill run down his spine when trying to imagine how many of them had perished here.
And, at the same time, he understood what kind of battle had happened here once, thousands of years ago.
Back then... someone must have laid siege to the Underworld.
The gods did.
The bones belonged to the fallen warriors of the Divine Host. The jagged rocks were the Stone Saints who had died trying to defend the kingdom of their creator.
It was unclear who had won in the end, but both sides had suffered grievously in the terrifying battle.
And Saint...
Saint, the last of her kind, was standing among the corpses of her people.
She remained motionless for a while, observing the vast chamber — half of it illuminated by stark white radiance, half of it drowning in impenetrable darkness.
And then, the darkness moved, extending its tendrils toward her.
