Sunny stood motionless for a while, feeling the ground move beneath him. Now that all seven of the chains were broken and the Ivory Tower became completely untethered from the rest of the Kingdom of Hope, it started to ascend. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, the island it stood upon soared into the sky, leaving the shattered land behind.
And as it did, Sunny felt the Nightmare coming to the end.
Slowly, he walked to the edge and looked down, at the burning city below.
The beautiful buildings of white stone were melting. The aerial bridges and elegant aqueducts were collapsing, unable to withstand the terrible heat. The streams of clear water were turning into scolding steam. All around, he could see nothing but an ocean of flame.
The wind brought with it the distant sound of human cries, smoke, and the smell of burning flesh.
Thousands of people — those who still lived — were drowning in the fiery ocean, turning into piles of blackened bones and ash.
The Ivory City was dying.
Was this what salvation looked like?
…In the thousands of years to come, the scorched islands were going to crumble into the Sky Below one after another, forming the Tear. The Twisted Rock would eventually be the last one to fall.
As the Ivory Tower rose higher and higher, the sight of the dying city did not encompass all of Sunny's vision anymore. Now, he saw further and wider. The landscape of the Kingdom of Hope was laid bare in front of him.
He saw the shape of a giant steel corpse swinging below a faraway island on a broken chain, and a shape of a shattered ship laying on the ground.
He saw countless islands, some of them verdant and green, some of them grey and desolate. There were forests and lakes, rivers and hills, human settlements… small and large. He saw people, cattle, beasts, and Nightmare Creatures.
He saw the chains stretching into the distance as they connected the islands together.
Looking up from the ground, Sunny saw numerous flying ships rushing toward the burning city. There were hundreds and hundred of them, some with white sails, some with red. The army of the fallen Chain Lords had arrived.
As the Ivory Island rose even higher, the sky around it started to change.
The change was subtle at the beginning, but as the Ivory Tower continued to ascend, it became more and more pronounced.
The invisible power that held the flying islands above the abyss of the Sky Below was shifting. As its heart climbed higher and higher, it was slowly becoming more and more overbearing. The giant enchantment was losing its balance.
Sunny shivered as he realized what was happening.
The Crushing… the Crushing was coming to the Chained Isles for the first time.
As he watched, it descended upon the shattered remains of the Kingdom of Hope in all its vicious might.
Across numerous islands, dust suddenly rose into the air. Ancient forests were flattened in an instant, tall hills broke apart, rivers boiled and change their course, settlements were turned into ruins.
Countless humans, beasts, and Nightmare Creatures were cruelly killed, not knowing what had killed them.
The flying ships were hit the hardest, every one of them instantly turning into a cloud of splinters, debris, and broken bodies. The mighty army was gone in a second.
The scale of the destruction was too large to comprehend.
Sunny watched as the Kingdom of Hope was turned into the Chained Isles, paralyzed by the inconceivable horror of that sight. For a while, all thoughts disappeared from his head…
Then, suddenly, his eyes widened.
'Uh… where is everyone else?'
Had they been caught up in the Crushing? Only March was accounted for, as she was only a few meters away from him.
'I'll deal with that later.'
If they died, he'd find out in the Waking World.
He took an uncertain step back from the edge, then turned around and ran to the center of the island.
Approaching the dead dragon, he hurriedly climbed over the beast's massive head and jumped down, landing near the gates of the Ivory Tower.
The ancient doors were closed shut, as if no one had opened them in a thousand years. Sunny gritted his teeth and pulled, putting the strength of all his shadows into it.
Hope… he had to see Hope!
Succumbing to the pressure, the gates slowly moved. Torturously slowly, one side of them slid forward, creating an opening.
Not wasting any more time, he pushed himself into the narrow gap and entered the Ivory Tower.
Soon, he saw the familiar great hall, its vast expanse bathed in light that streamed through tall windows. Seven chains sprawled from the pristine white floor, as if growing out of it, each ending in a broken shackle. The shackles were bleak and marred, their metal torn.
There was fresh blood on the broken shackles, suffused with a radiant golden glow.
And between them…
Sunny staggered and involuntarily fell to his knees.
Every passion, every desire, every emotion dwelling in his heart suddenly surged forward and ignited, breaking out of control.
In the center of the great hall, surrounded by a swirling hurricane of light and darkness, a vague and graceful silhouette towered above the broken chains. He couldn't quite tell where the light ended, and where her numinous body began… perhaps Hope had no body at all, and was instead made of pure radiance, pure darkness.
He felt as if her nebulous visage was almost human-like, but also inexplicably alien. The shapes and contours were both correct and wrong… both familiar and strange… both pleasing and revolting.
And beautiful…. so beautiful…
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
She was the most terrifying thing he had ever seen.
She was…
Divine, Unholy, unknown, unknowable.
…A Daemon.
And she was leaving.
Sunny couldn't see much, but he clearly understood that Hope was ready to disappear. Maybe she was already half-gone, and all he saw was an afterimage.
And yet, he had to… he had to…
The world around him suddenly grew warmer, reminding him of the threat outside the Ivory Tower.
His mind was scattered and empty, and he didn't quite remember what he wanted to do.
What he desired…
Sunny gritted his teeth, and then screamed, letting his desire dictate the question:
"Wait! Don't go! Tell me… tell me why the Lord of Light did this! Why did he imprison you, and not kill you?! What is Weaver going to do?!"
The Daemon of Desire paid him no attention. For a moment, Sunny thought that he would not receive an answer.
But then, something changed.
Hope moved, and was suddenly beside him. Her face, which was weaved of light and darkness, encompassed the whole world. Her radiant eyes peered into the deepest, most hidden parts of his soul.
And then, a voice that sounded like the rustle of countless leaves, like a myriad of prayers, like the wind that blew between the stars whispered into his ear:
"...Because we are their Flaw, you and I."
Sunny's eyes grew wide.
And then, feeling the searing pain of flames as his vision flashed with scarlet, everything became dark.
...The Nightmare was over.
***
[Your nightmare is over.]
[Prepare for appraisal…]
Once again, Sunny found himself in the space between dream and reality. The boundless black void was illuminated by a myriad of stars, with countless strings of silver light connecting them together to form an infinite, beautiful pattern.
Now that he had a nascent understanding of sorcery, Sunny saw the pattern differently. His old suspicions grew stronger, slowly turning into a certainty.
This was the inner sanctum of the Spell. And if the Spell had been created by Weaver… then what he was looking at was its weave.
The myriad of stars were the nexuses. The strings of light, however, were not the same as the threads of Essence he could create himself.
…Instead, the Spell was weaved from the Strings of Fate itself.
As that realization took root in his heart, Sunny shuddered. The scale of the cosmic weave of silver light and numerous stars that surrounded him had already been too vast to comprehend. Now that he glimpsed its true nature, it suddenly seemed even more inconceivable.
Yes, Weaver was called the Daemon of Fate… but harvesting its very fabric to create a titanic enchantment was too incredible, even for the firstborn of the Unknown.
For a Daemon…
Sunny shivered once again.
"We are their Flaw… what did she mean?"
Hope's answer had shaken him to the very core. The implications were too… unthinkable. He did not truly understand what she had meant, but felt as though he was at the precipice of a vast and terrible truth.
Sunny was still far away from grasping that truth, however.
Were the Daemons personifications of the Flaws that the Gods had shed? Is that how the Gods had become flawless? Or had the Gods been flawless before the Daemons appeared, instead?
And, in inheriting Weaver's lineage, did he become the supposed Flaw as well?
None of it made any sense. How did the Unknown, from whom the Daemons had come, fit into this? Was there a hint at who or what the Unknown had been… or was?
As always, there were too many questions, and almost no answers!
If there was one thing that became clear, however, it was that the relationship between the Gods and the Daemons was even more complicated than he had thought.
"How infuriating…"
Sunny had learned a remarkable secret, but had no way to understand it. He stared into the distance for some time, then sighed.
"Well, whatever. I'm too concerned about my existential dread. Is now a good time to freak out about it? Probably."
Sunny silently stared into the distance for a few moments, before suddenly seeming moments away from a relapse.
"What the— what the fuck?! How did Noctis know, how did Hope know… does everyone know I'm from the future!"
The message that Noctis had informed him to deliver Hope was very simple, one that he had somehow failed to deliver after being overcome with Desire.
'The Seeds were spreading too fast for the Realm of War to keep a stable balance. Nightmares are soon to envelop the remains of the future.'
Somehow, Noctis had been completely indirect, yet obvious at the same time. Terms that were only used after the descent of the Nightmare Spell were enough of a hint — though, Sunny wasn't quite sure what the Realm of War was. Was it something like the Shadow Realm?
Maybe it didn't refer to an actual place.
Either way, Sunny realized that the inhabitants of a Nightmare were able to be completely aware of their false existence!
But how? Why? Did this apply to all of them, or only certain key characters?
Maybe that was why Noctis never seemed surprised by the summoning of Memories. But still… his emotions regarding the death of th Chain Lord of the north was too legitimate for someone who was aware everything was fake. The same could be said for his desire to make Solvane suffer.
Were they, to a certain degree, programmed to do and act in a certain way?
'…Ah, screw this. I have a power-up coming up.'
He was a Master!
Or rather, was about to become one.
As if answering his thoughts, the Spell finally spoke:
[Awakened— Dreamer! Your trial is over.]
It voice continued to resonate in the black void:
[A lonesome shadow came to a land of shattered dreams. It was captured and thrown into a cage, but escaped by weaving sorceries from its own soul. The shadow beheaded itself to take the slave collar off its neck, and lost its heart to win its freedom.
Leaving the coliseum behind, the shadow traveled far and got ensnared. It lived a hundred lives and died a hundred deaths within a dreadful nightmare, forgetting what it was and where it came from. The shadow did not break, and so, the nightmare broke instead.
Free once again, the shadow befriended a mad sorcerer, a feral child, a crippled sacrifice, and a living experiment. Together, they collected the deaths of the immortal lords and waged a war against the holy city.
The lords were killed, the city was Destroyed.
The shadow broke the chains of Hope, and set Desire free.]
[You have slain an Awakened…]
The Spell went on to list everyone and everything he had killed inside the Nightmare. Sunny felt that something strange was happening to time inside the black void, because it did not take too long for the Spell to finish with that part of the appraisal.
And there was a lot for it to list… Sunny had been busy in the Nightmare, after all. He had lost count at some point, but the number of his victims had to be somewhere between two and three thousand. He had slain a thousand enemies at the Red Colosseum alone…
A few of them stood out from the litany of names.
The Red Priest, Nightmare, the three War Maidens, a few high-ranking officers of the flying fleet, Solvane herself, and over a thousand humans and abominations of varying Ranks… that was the tally of his deeds. The Spell was not shy about showering him with praise, too.
Of course, his most dangerous battle had been the battle of wits against Mordret.
After a while, the Spell was ready to pass a verdict.
[...You have set free a Daemoness chained by a God.]
[Your achievements are remarkable!]
[Final appraisal: excellent.]
With that, it grew silent.
Sunny remained motionless for a few moments, then frowned.
"Wait… what?"
Excellent? Just excellent?
"What the hell, Spell?!"
It did not even bother to add a remark after the appraisal. He had killed hundreds upon hundreds of Awakened humans and Nightmare Creatures, including plenty of Fallen abominations and Masters! He had even killed a Saint!
He had learned true sorcery, won a battle against a whole army, caused the deaths of several immortals, and set free a daemon against a god's will! He had his head cut off and his heart ripped out, and still lived to tell the tale! Was it not enough to earn a better mark?
Not that it mattered, anyway… unlike the First Nightmare, the Second did not come with an additional boon. Sunny already had a True Name and an Aspect Legacy. All he was going to receive was the Ascension, which was the only reward he truly cared about.
But still…
Why was his performance in the First Nightmare appraised as glorious, but his performance in the Second Nightmare as just excellent? Both achievements seemed equally improbable, but this one was without a doubt much more impressive.
Suddenly, an idea entered his mind.
Sunny's eyes widened.
"Can… can this be true?"
If it was…
His heart suddenly skipped a bit.
What was the difference between what he had done in his two Nightmares?
Yes, his deeds in the Kingdom of Hope were astonishing and bordering on impossible. But almost all of them repeated the events of the original past. They had followed the current of fate…
The Temple of the Chalice had been destroyed, Sun Prince had lost his arm and ended up with his chest torn open, hanging from the Shipwreck Island with his leg tangled in a broken chain. Lord Sevras died wrapping his dragon body around the Ivory Tower.
The only substantial change he had achieved was killing Solvane instead of letting her suffer for an eternity in the grasp of Wormvine. Even Noctis was driven to do certain actions despite his self-awareness. It wasn't until the very end when things had somewhat diverged that he took an action expected of his position.
In the First Nightmare, however… Sunny was not sure how the true temple slave fared, but he suspected that their paths diverged quite a lot.
In other words, he had carved his own path through the Black Mountain, overcoming the current of Fate to a much larger degree.
But what did all of this mean?
Sunny forgot to breathe.
…Was that what the Spell truly valued?
Was that what its true purpose was?
Had Weaver created it… because he wanted to create…
[End of Volume Three: Fate Breakers.]