Chapter 972 — 972: Soulbound

Sunny zoned out for a little, not paying attention to Samara and the MWPs discharging their weapons from time to time to pick off the most stubborn of the pursuers. The rate of their fire was slowing down, anyway, meaning that the bulk of abominations had either fallen behind or were already killed.

The [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment and its dreadful counter of vanquished foes… gods, he had been stuck with that thing for so long. Despite the fact that Sunny had inherited the onyx armor with some of it already filled, it still took him years to accumulate six thousand victories.

Come to think of it, the whole Mongrel debacle had happened because of his desire to increase the number on the counter somewhat.

'I can't believe I've finally done it.'

Curious to see what changed, Sunny looked at the runes. He was a bit tense… after all, the description of the [Prince of the Underworld] only said that the armor would be growing stronger the more foes he vanquished, and it had — over the years, the cost of keeping its active enchantments running had diminished slightly, and their effects had become a little more pronounced.

The description said nothing about the Mantle receiving an upgrade after the counter was filled. That was just his assumption.

'Come on…'

Concentrating on the name of the Memory, he read:

Memory: [Mantle of the Underworld].

Memory Rank: Ascended.

Memory Tier: VII.

'...Oh.'

The Mantle seemed to have grown from a Tier Six Memory to a Tier Seven one. That was… not bad, but it did leave Sunny a little disappointed. He had hoped that it would increase in Rank, instead.

He sighed, then continued to study the runes, turning his attention to the enchantments.

The [Living Stone], [Feather of Truth], [Stalwart], and [Underworld Armament] enchantments remained exactly the same. None of them received any enhancements. The [Prince of the Underworld] had not changed, either, except for the fact that the counter now showed a pleasant [6000/6000] as the number of vanquished foes.

...There was a new enchantment at the end of the list, though.

[Soulbound Relic].

Sunny blinked a couple of times.

'Huh?'

Suddenly excited, he concentrated on the enchantment to read its description. The description, however, left him largely confused. It did not provide any information about what a soulbound relic was, or what powers that title entailed.

Instead, the shimmering runes simply stated:

[Bind the relic?]

He was probably supposed to answer "yes" or "no".

However, Sunny lingered.

He had no idea what binding the Mantle of the Underworld to his soul meant, and how it would change the onyx armor… or his soul, for that matter. Of course, the effect was most likely meant to be beneficial, since it was a reward for achieving an amazing feat.

The Spell often had a very strange notion of what "beneficial" meant, though, which did not always coincide with what a human would consider such. Take his own Aspect, for example… its innate Ability, [Shadow Bond], had become the bane of his existence, and yet the Spell clearly thought of it as a precious boon.

Further still, the Mantle of the Underworld was not even the Spell's creation. Rather, it was a Memory of an artifact created by Nether, the Demon of Destiny, most likely for one of his stone children. Sunny suspected that it had once belonged to the Stranger, one of the seven heroes of the Forgotten Shore, who had been of Saint's tribe and possibly her previous lord.

So… what would actually happen if he bound that artifact to his soul?

'Huh…'

He hesitated for a while, then dismissed the runes. Not because he had decided against activating the new enchantment, but rather because his shadows had noticed something strange on the road ahead — the tail of the caravan.

The caravan, for whatever reason, had stopped.

'Damn it.'

That was outside the scope of the action plan he had established. Luster was not supposed to stop the Rhino unless something truly drastic happened.

Sunny prepared himself for the worst, but then relaxed a little after discovering the reason for the unexpected turn of events.

It was honestly hard to miss.

Slightly ahead of the convoy, beached on the cold shore, the mangled battleship that had helped them break through the horde of Nightmare Creatures towered like a vast mountain of metal. Up close, the damage done to it looked even more dreadful. Its hull was full of holes, and most of its cargo holds seemed to be full of water.

It was obvious that the proud vessel would never sail again.

People were emerging from the breaches in the hull, looking like tiny ants as they loaded into lifeboats and headed for the shore. Some of them had already reached land, and were now talking to a small crowd of soldiers from the caravan.

Sunny let out a relieved sigh, told Samara to establish a perimeter around the rear of the column, and jumped off the vehicle, turning into a shadow.

Gliding to the front of the caravan did not take him long. Returning to his human form near the Rhino, Sunny dismissed the helmet of the Mantle and headed toward the welcoming party.

'I should really thank whoever is… was in charge of that battleship. They saved our skin back there.'

As he neared the small crowd, he heard a pleasant, but strained voice asking a question.

"... your commanding officer, then?"

One of the soldiers responded:

"Oh, that would be the Devil. Uh… I mean Captain…"

The representative of the ship interrupted him, sounding surprised and a little tense.

"Your commanding officer… is a devil?"

The soldier grunted.

"Not a devil. The devil. But don't worry, sir, it's just a nickname… I think…"

At that moment, Sunny finally reached them and saw the speaker. His eyes widened a little.

Tall, handsome, with black hair… and eyes of an unusual, beautiful indigo color. No wonder the voice sounded familiar...

"...Naeve?"

The Nightwalker seemed a bit ragged and worse for wear, but it was unmistakably Master Naeve of the House of Night, his temporary pal. Hearing Sunny's voice, Naeve looked away from the soldier he had been talking with, then lowered his gaze a little and smiled in surprise.

"Sunless? Wait, is it really you? How are you here?"

Sunny coughed awkwardly, then glanced at the talkative soldier with murder in his eyes.

"Ah. That's me, actually. I'm the Devil… in charge of delivering these fools from hell…"