Shadow Slave

Sunny let out a long sigh and tossed the broken communicator away.

'I see.'

He felt a strange mix of profound relief and tense apprehension.

The reason for being relieved was obvious. Sunny did not know how many cycles it had taken them to conquer the Nightmare, but from what he had seen in the Estuary, it was at least thousands. Therefore, he had been secretly afraid to return to the waking world only to find out that humans there had gone extinct thousands of years ago.

That Rain, and everyone else he knew, were long gone.

Alternatively, the strange nature of the Great River could have resulted in them leaving the Nightmare in the time corresponding to where they were in relation to the Estuary — namely, in the Age of Gods. Which would have been terrible in its own right.

So, the fact that their Third Nightmare had taken no time at all, from the point of view of the waking world, was one of the best possible outcomes.

However...

It also meant that Sunny and the other members of the cohort had been sent to a continent where an unknown number of Great horrors were currently roaming freely.

Now that they were Saints... did they stand a chance in a battle against the terrifying creatures that had entered the waking world during the Battle of the Black Skull?

That was the reason Sunny felt tense.

'I wonder if we'll meet Skinwalker again...'

He smiled somberly, and then dissolved into shadows once more.

'At least I didn't miss years of Rain's life.'

Sunny continued slithering through

After a while...

finally reached

on the slope of a vast crater, under a stormy grey sky. Even though the situation was more than a

privilege many people never thought about, to have a familiar sky above

embrace of shadows at the top of the tall mound formed by the crater. Standing there, he looked around, at what he had expected

To his surprise...

did not look

there were signs of destruction here and there, with a few buildings having collapsed... but Valor's stronghold seemed to have sustained the worst damage.

this scene, two details

shaking him to the

the center of the city, where a large park sprawled. There... a giant Gate pierced the sky, dwarfing

'Here, too? But why...'

he noticed that there was something strange about the giant

was entirely,

looked like tears in reality, revealing nothing but vile darkness in their depths. But this one was different. ŽĘXØŞ. Not only did Sunny not feel an

see to the other

the fracture of the Gate, a beautiful lake sparkled under bright sunlight. And from that lake... rose a magnificent

It was Bastion.

when he noticed something else. There

He shuddered.

'That... that is impossible...'

could enter. It was a door that only opened one way — from the Dream Realm into the waking world. Therefore, anyone trying to pass through a Gate from that side was destined to fail. More than that, approaching a Gate was lethal... Sunny had briefly brushed against one himself, in Falcon Scott, and

be passing through

a Nightmare

answers to these questions were, perhaps, connected to the second detail Sunny had been stunned to