Chapter 361: Crimson Sky
Sunny did not know much about astronomy. However, due to being born during a solar eclipse, he knew a thing or two about eclipses... a useless piece of knowledge he had never thought would become so vital one day.
After being devoured by the shadows, the moon had turned red, which seemed like a sign of its return. However, in reality, it just meant that the moon was now fully submerged in the deepest, darkest part of the planet’s shadow.
But the moon had been crimson earlier as well, reflecting the light of the artificial sun.
So... did Noctis get his power back? Had he grown more powerful than ever, even? Or was he currently the weakest he had ever been?
Was the damn Dream Realm even a planet?!
Sunny did not know, and had no time to wonder. He was being destroyed from the inside by the Broken Oath, and relentlessly attacked by the warriors of the Ivory City at the same time. No matter how many he killed, their tide did not seem to wane...
Well, in that case, he just had to kill even more.
Jumping back, Sunny braced himself, and then put his shoulder behind the Patient Avenger. In the next moment, a fiery explosion boomed on the deck of the ship.
...Far away, on a desolate island bordering the Ivory City, Sun Prince raised his hand and aimed the gargantuan javelin, his gaze locked on the ferocious battle between Noctis and Solvane that no one except for him was able to see. His emotionless face glistened with crimson light, reflecting the radiance of the blood moon.
’Damnation!’
Thrown down by the detonation of the flames contained within the kite shield and surrounded by a red haze, Sunny rose shakily and stared at the steel colossus, his heart growing cold. Noctis... the bastard had to be aiming at Noctis...
If the sorcerer died, they were going to die with him.
Powerless to change anything, Sunny just gritted his teeth and watched.
That was why he saw a massive hand claw its way from the darkness of the Sky Below, the figure it was connected to slowly revealing itself.
That was why Sunny felt like his brain was about to explode, and why tears of blood streaked down his face.
That was why his limbs seemed to dissolve into teal plasma, while his pitch-black eyes shone with a radiant gold.
***
Seele stood amidst the chaos, her borrowed body trembling faintly beneath a cloak of dust and crimson moonlight. The Ivory City burned in silence — or perhaps it was simply that the noise had grown so constant that silence seemed louder. All around her, the towering spires of the white metropolis shone crimson, reflecting the dying glow of the blood moon.
Her current shell — a fair-haired woman with cold blue eyes and hands too steady for her own liking — had once belonged to an ex-cultist of the Red Priest. Those zealots had worshipped war and the idea of the mirror beyond the sky, a ’branch’ to alternate timelines that existed beyond both the Dream Realm and the Waking World. Their rituals had been... elaborate. Mostly fatal.
It wasn’t exactly comforting to be walking around in the body of someone who’d die to meet her other selves... who weren’t exactly her, but also were at the same time.
Beside her stood Sparkle — or at least, the illusion of her. Her current vessel was that of a black-haired woman draped in silk, her skin faintly perfumed, her eyes like drops of polished ink. A fortune teller. Third-rate magician. Professional scammer. Even now, Sparkle carried herself with the lazy grace of someone pretending to be exactly what she wasn’t. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft and distant, as though muffled through smoke.
"...Well. I suppose this is what happens when everyone is being drugged by a godlike being."
In the distance, the ship that Dan Heng piloted was visible through the haze — a dark silhouette cutting through the radiance of the burning city. Their only chance of salvaging a victory from all the chaos.
They had been waiting for hours for an opening. Just one moment when the guards, the chaos, or the sky itself would give them a clear path.
And then — the blood moon pulsed. The ground shuddered again. A sharp pressure, almost physical, brushed against Sparkle’s mind. Her spiritual intuition screamed.
"...Don’t look."
Seele frowned.
"What—"
Sparkle’s hand shot out, covering her eyes.
"I said don’t look."
Seele froze, her breath hitching as a low, inhuman sound rippled through the air — like a mountain grinding its teeth. The ground around them grew hot. Something vast was climbing onto the island, its molten silhouette briefly visible through the blood-red haze. Burning giants, their bodies half-formed from flame and symbols that hurt her head to think about, pulling themselves from the Sky Below.
Seele tried to struggle, but Sparkle held firm. Her voice trembled slightly now, her calm tone cracking under the weight of what she’d just felt.
"That is... a lot of Corrupted Saints."
"...Excuse me?!"
Avoiding even catching a glimpse of those molten figures, Sparkle looked towards the artificial sun.
"Well, they aren’t immortal, at least. I’m sure they’ll be gone soon enough."