Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2555

A heavy silence settled in the council room. No one spoke for a while, considering her ominous words. Eventually, Effie leaned back and rubbed her temple.

"How troublesome." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

She sighed.

"What about us? We all know his name — are we infected, as well?"

Cassie shrugged.

"It is difficult to tell. From what I have been able to observe so far, not everyone is susceptible to his influence equally. The more powerful a person is and the more mental fortitude they possess, the less frequently they mention the name — which can be seen as them resisting infection. However, there is a difference between resistance and immunity. We also don't know if they are resisting the infection itself, or merely a symptom." Effe grimaced, dissatisfied with the answer.

"And that's the problem, isn't it? We just don't know enough — we hardly know anything, really. Ki Song and Anvil were too thorough in eradicating any and all knowledge about As... about the Dreamspawn from the world. Hell..."

She looked around the room and said in a somber tone:

"We don't even know why his name being known to people is dangerous. Does the Dreamspawn draw power from those who are infected by the idea of him? Is he rebuilding a foundation of his Domain that way? What happens when the virus reaches critical mass?"

Effie shook her head.

"How are we supposed to fight an enemy we know close to nothing about?"After another bout of heavy silence, Kai spoke in a hesitant tone:

"Still... how dangerous can that man be? Sure, he is a Supreme inheritor of a divine lineage — maybe even several of them, if Mordret is to be believed. But he is not a wielder of a Divine Aspect, unlike Nephis and Sunny. More than that, he has been sealed on the Moon for two decades. It is already a miracle that he has survived for that long, so how powerful can he still be?" Even though the question was not directed at Sunny, and his Flaw did not force him to answer, he still responded:

"Let's not get careless. It does not matter how powerful we are — power is merely a weapon. And just like a weapon, it won't save you unless drawn and pointed at the enemy."

Truthfully, Sunny did not think that Asterion could contend against him and Nephis in terms of power — either of them, let alone the two of them together.

However, raw power was not a universal answer.

One had to express the power they possessed shrewdly to make use of it — even then, one second of complacency could spell disaster. And further still, there was always someone or something that countered your ASpect in the vast and dreadful world of the Nightmare Spell — a bad match-up could bring down even the strongest beings, Awakened and Nightmare Creatures both.

Sunny knew all this better than most because he had triumphed over numerous foes who were far more powerful than he and should have utterly crushed him.

So, he was not going to underestimate Asterion.

Especially not after seeing how spooked Mordret was by his former... caretaker. Calling the Dreamspawn his guardian would have probably been too big a stretch.

Sadly, that did not change much in the current situation.

Effie frowned.

"So what now? What can we even do?"

Cassie remained silent for a while, then said:

"One option is to do what the Ki Song and Anvil did. Find a way to identify everyone infected by the Dreamspawn... then cull them all. Naturally, that would be a slaughter of horrifying proportions."

Nephis shook her head.

"No."

He looked at them and said in her even, dispassionate voice:

"We are not going to slaughter thousands, or maybe even hundreds of thousands of innocent people. If we do, we would be no better than Song and Valor. What was the point of overthrowing them, then?"

Sunny studied her silently.

Behind Neph's calm facade, she was actually a person burning with passion — more than anyone he knew, perhaps. Nephis wanted to conquer all Nightmares and destroy the Nightmare Spell with a passion so fierce that it bordered on obsession... so, it was easy to overlook the rest of her behind that blazing ambition.

But Nephis herself was never blinded by her incinerating desire. Even though she was pursuing it with obsessive persistence, for her, the end never justified the means. Sunny had learned it many years ago, near the crumbling Gateway of the Crimson Spire — that Nephis did not simply want to destroy the Spell, but also did it in a way that she considered right, without compromising her values.

It was just that her personal sense of right and wrong was so strange that most people often failed to recognize her intentions.Sunny knew, though.

So, he knew that Nephis would never order a massacre of thousands of innocent people to prevent her enemy from growing strontiger. She might send them into a bloody battle against a tide of Nightmare Creatures, since that would fit her understanding of what was right and righteous, but she would not simply sacrifice them to further her goals.

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