Shadow Slave novel Chapter 1359

Chapter 1359 See no Evil

Sunny suddenly paled.

'Wait. No way...'

The runes describing the Shroud of Graceless Dusk resurfaced in his memory...

[There, they found solace, safety, and shelter. In time, the voices of the gods grew silent one after another, leaving behind only a vast and dreadful silence. That was how the sybils embraced the Estuary, and that was how they fell.]

He looked at Cassie somberly and said, his voice slightly hoarse:

"The... Defilement?"

The blind girl nodded sadly.

"Yes. The Defilement spread from the Estuary, consuming Verge, the city of the Seekers. And from there, the Defiled slowly moved upstream, threatening to devour all other settlements on the Great River. The sybils and their people waged a war against them for a long time. Eventually, most of their cities fell - some fell to the Defiled... but not all."

Her beautiful face looked forlorn for a moment.

Cassie sighed.

"The sybils were truly formidable at the height of their power. It was no coincidence that they had managed to guide their people through the horrors of the Doom War and enter the Tomb of Ariel unharmed. Even the Defiled found it difficult to conquer the cities reigned by the sybils... how would they not, if the defenders knew the secrets of the future?"

She paused for a moment and took a small sip of the wine.

"But the very thing that gave the sybils power ended up becoming their undoing. The most stalwart cities... they fell to the sybils themselves. Because they were corrupted by the glimpses of the Estuary and succumbed to the Defilement, letting the rot spread from within."

The blind girl sighed again, then shook her head.

"A year ago, there were three sybils in Fallen Grace. One was already Defiled, and entombed in her temple. Of the other two, Dusk was the junior. The senior sybil... she had hidden the signs of Corruption from everyone until it was too late. The day she lost control was the day I took Dusk's place."

She lingered for a moment and gestured to the city below.

"This is what I managed to preserve. I was able to rally the defenders of Fallen Grace and slay the Defiled sybil. But, by then, much of the city had already been lost. Much worse, the seals containing the other Defiled had been broken. And she... she was a much more terrifying creature than the other one. All I could do was abandon the contested island-ships and evacuate the remaining ones as far upstream as I could."

Cassie smiled faintly and raised her hands, allowing the golden chain to ring.

"Hence, these shackles. And the deaf guards. I am the ruler of this city, but at the same time, I am a threat to it... or so the River People think, since they don't know that I am not truly Dusk. I was afraid that my own affinity to revelations would place me in the same danger the sybils had been exposed to, but funnily enough, I turned out to be immune to it. Can you guess why?"

Sunny and Nephis looked at her silently, not knowing what to answer. Sunny was a bit confused.

'I get why Nephis is not in danger of becoming Defiled. Her soul is incorruptible... but how can Cassie be immune, as well?'

He shook his head.

"I'm not sure."

She chuckled, then pointed to herself.

"It's because I'm blind."

Her beautiful blue eyes gazed upon the world, unseeing. Cassie sighed softly.