siege of the Crimson Spire (16)
As the Dreamer Army was drowning in the rising waters of the cursed sea and the insatiable tide of monsters, Sunny approached the crimson tower.
Far away from the rest of them, completely alone, submerged in roaring darkness, he struggled against the seething mass of black waves and the hurricane winds to cross the last few meters that separated him from the shining star sigil engraved into its gates.
Finally, his hand touched the cold surface of the ancient stone. Wiping the rainwater off his pale face, Sunny stared at the radiant shapes of the seven stars.
'This better work…'
Summoning the first of the Oauth Keys, he lingered for a moment, and then carefully inserted it into the black chasm of the keyhole.
***
Separated from him by the vast expanse of the swelling sea of darkness, the surviving Sleepers desperately fought the advancing horde of monsters. The black water had already reached their waists, making it hard to move. The army was trying to retreat up the slope of the crimson coral, but the pursuing sea was much faster than them.
Changing Star was still slaying one monster after another, her radiance only growing brighter in the tenebrous hell of the furious storm. Raindrops were evaporating as they touched her brilliant skin, its incandescence making even arching bolts of lightning seem pale and bleak.
…Suddenly, an almost imperceptible ripple ran across the surface of the black water. A gust of cold wind blew over the Forgotten Shore, sending a shiver running through the hearts of countless creatures.
***
Moving on to the next star, Sunny summoned the second key and put it into the lock. Nothing terrible happened, so he struggled through the water to reach the third one.
'Terrible… what would that even look like? What can be more terrible than my current situation?'
As if to answer his question, somewhere behind him, a black tentacle suddenly rose out of the seething waves and blindly whipped through the air. Crashing into a mount of coral, it easily shattered it. A rain of debris fell into the water.
Just a moment later, countless others followed the first one.
Noticing this new development through the eyes of his shadow, Sunny cursed.
'Me and my big damn mouth!'
Luckily, the tentacles were some distance away, somewhere near the remains of the seven golems he had slain. But as the sea rose, they started slowly moving in his direction.
Hurriedly inserting the third key, Sunny dashed to the fourth star. Another Oath Key slid into its lock.
The water was now even higher, forcing him to struggle against its weight. A strong gust of wind hit Sunny in the back, almost causing him to crash headfirst into the stone gates.
As he put the fifth key into the keyhole, the tentacles were already alarmingly close.
'Curse it all!'
Sunny inserted the sixth Oath Key into the lock and dove into the black water, swimming toward the last one.
Just a few moments before the mass of twisting tentacles descended on him, he found the last shining star and drove the seventh key into its center.
Suddenly, the world shuddered.
***
The whole Forgotten Shore trembled.
Out on the battlefield, the surviving humans froze for a second, startled by the sudden change that rippled through the world.
The furious onslaught of the wind died down. The torrential flood of rain stopped. The continuous, deafening roar of the thunderstrikes grew quiet.
The terrible storm seemed to have ended as suddenly as it had appeared, dissipating into nothingness like a fragile mirage.
Even the Nightmare Creatures attacking them stumbled and paused for a moment, staring at the sky.
…And then, the dark veil of clouds was broken by a blindingly bright ray of sunlight.
As soon as it happened, the restless black water stopped rising, and then flowed in reverse.
The cursed sea was retreating.
***
"Crap!"
As soon as Sunny put the last Oath Key into the seventh lock, the whole Crimson Spire shuddered. An indescribable sound came from its depths, echoing through the darkness of the storm like a heavy, mournful sigh.
And then, the gargantuan gates opened. The giant slabs of ancient stone moved for the first time in thousands of years…
…The problem was, the gates opened outward, slamming into Sunny and dragging him through the mass of black water with terrible speed. The unexpected blow threw him off his feet and almost caused him to drown. Not to mention the fact that it hurt like hell.
The opening gate brought him away from the damned tentacles, at least.
After a while, Sunny was thrown onto the slope of a tall coral mound. Coughing a few times, he tiredly crawled a few meters up, then fell on the rough surface of the coral and turned around.
What Sunny saw made him blink, then open his eyes wide and stare in disbelief.
The dark sea was being sucked into the Spire.
The black water was flowing in reverse, rushing into the enormous doorway. The twisting tentacles and the harrowing creature they belonged to were carried away by that current, disappearing into that blackness, too.
The strange thing was, the amount of water entering the Crimson Spire was much larger than what should have been possible. Sunny expected to see it fill the cyclopean tower, but instead, it simply flowed inside and seemed to… disappeared.
As if swallowed by the Spire and banished into the depths of the earth.
Just a few moments later, the lever of the dark sea began to fall.
The storm died down, and the impenetrable veil of clouds was torn apart, allowing sunlight to illuminate the world once again.
And in a few minutes…
The cursed sea was no more.
Sunny stared at the clear surface of the crimson coral, which had been covered by the black waves not too long ago.
The bottomless dark ocean was gone without a trace. Even the black whirlpool that had surrounded the island was not there anymore, revealing a deep, uneven, empty semblance of a moat.
Then, Sunny stared at the sky, where a furious white sun was hovering right above the tip of the Crimson Spire.
A stunned thought entered his mind…
'Did we… did we do it?'
...Did he actually destroy the dark sea?
