Chapter 3217 Lost Connection

Shadow walked through the white mist, feeling his self being slowly eroded and erased.

Nothingness was truly fearsome. All beings were equal in front of it — the gods, the people... even the terrifying creatures of the Void. Shadow did not know for sure, but he suspected that even the Flame itself was not immune to the subtle, insidious tides of nothingness.

He knew only one force that was indifferent to nothing...

It was fate.

Fate cared not for the white mist, just as it did not care to be burned by the Flame or tainted by the Void. So, Shadow assumed that beings with a strong fate were better suited to endure the eroding influence of the white mist.

There weren't many beings like that, though. Those who did exist all possessed a True Name, which was both an expression of their fate and a unique descriptor that distinguished them as individuals in its great tapestry.

There were myriad swords in the world, after all, but only one Excalibur. Excalibur was a sword, but not all swords were Excalibur. That was both the reason and the consequence of that singular sword's uniqueness.

‘Actually, there might have been two Excaliburs.'

Even assaulted by the mist, Shadow smiled faintly.

In any case, the mist eroded one's very existence, and to repel it, they had to tether themselves to reality — or rather, to fate. The easiest way to do so would be to concentrate on their True Name, which already served as an anchor of one's self.

The stupidest thing one could do was enter the white mist without a True Name and with only a tenuous connection to fate. Shadow did not know if such fools truly existed, but if they did, he struggled to imagine the sheer magnitude of their stupidity.

As for Shadow himself...

Did he possess a True Name?

He wasn't sure. He did, most likely, but did not care to remember. What complicated the matter even more was that he remembered myriad lives, and in many of those lives, he had been someone with a True Name. From that perspective, he had numerous True Names... but were those names truly his?

Shadow did not know.

Therefore, he had expected to suffer quite a lot in the white mist.

But, to his surprise, he was faring quite well. Nothingness had some effect on him, but it was minimal — not nearly enough to deal serious damage to his existence in a short span of time.

Perhaps it was because he carried the memories of myriad lives, and was therefore tethered to reality by myriad connections. Perhaps it was simply because his being was too vast, and erasing it from existence was no easy task.

But, most likely... it was because his fate was quite strong. His connection to fate had to be truly exceptional to explain why the white mist seemed so powerless to destroy him, though.

Shadow frowned, disturbed by that possibility.

It was still a relief to know that he did not have to worry about himself too much.

However, Shadow was concerned about Snuggle.

At the moment, she was hiding in his pocket, and he was covering the pocket with a hand in a protective gesture. Despite that, the radiant soul hidden in the little doll was being assaulted by the power of nothingness, too.

Snuggle was resisting the white mist surprisingly well.

Even if she had never shared her True Name with Shadow, she surely possessed one. Her sense of self seemed to be crystal-clear and as strong as a glistening diamond. Most of all, her desire to exist and attachment to the world were like a blazing flame that burned with daunting intensity.

Snuggle was unwilling to disappear, so she clung to existence with a desperate determination.

As Shadow observed, he could even sense Snuggle use her Will clumsily to reinforce her connection to reality. She was unable to sense the Will or consciously manipulate it, so it was merely an instinctual response... still, few Transcendents would have been able to achieve the same result.

All living beings possessed the Will, and all living beings used it to some degree before becoming Supreme. However, only Supremes were able to perceive the Will and wield it with intent. It wasn't that strange that Snuggle could subconsciously rally a few wisps of her Will as a Transcendent, and it wouldn't have mattered too much if not for the peculiar nature of that Will.

Her Will was not especially tyrannical or potent, but it was exceptionally pure. Infused with a firm determination to stay alive, it protected her from the eroding influence of nothingness quite well.

It was enough for Shadow not to worry about her in the short term, at least. Still, he had to hurry if he didn't want to lose his little companion, so Shadow hurried his steps.

"Shadow..."

Snuggle's squeaky voice was weak and trembling.

“This place is terrible."

He smiled faintly.

If she was in the mood to complain, things weren't too bad yet.

“Naturally. Of all the terrible places, this might just be the worst."

After a few moments of silence, Snuggle mumbled quietly:

"I am glad Noctis did not come..."

She did not speak for a while after that, then asked in a curious tone.

"What is the second-worst place you've been to?"

Shadow's smile widened a little.

"Well. It is probably where we are heading next — the Underworld.”

Snuggle groaned in dismay.

Shadow stopped for a moment, looking around with a wary expression, then made a turn and continued walking through the swirling fog.

A short while later, he asked:

“What about you? What's the second-worst place you have visited?"

Snuggle sighed.

"Easy answer..."

She trembled in his pocket, as if overcome by dread, then said gravely:

"Middle school."

Shadow chuckled.

The sound of his quiet laughter was suffocated by the mist, disappearing as if it had never existed.

"Really? What kind of terrifying realm is that?"

He continued chatting with her, using his voice and their conversation to anchor her in reality a little more.

At the same time, though, Shadow was concentrating on his senses.

It wasn't easy to find his way in the sea of nothingness, and it was even harder still to avoid things that hid in the white mist. The Hollow Mountains were home to few Creatures of Corruption, but every Nightmare Creature that could endure living in the white mist was bound to be terrifyingly powerful.

The Creatures of Corruption were not the true peril hiding in this eerie land, though. It was the beings born from the mist that Shadow was truly wary of.

He wasn't the Demon of Imagination, after all, so he had no way of dealing with them. All he could do if they ever encountered one was turn around and run — but even then, running from a Creature of Nothingness was an act of acknowledging its existence. And acknowledging those things was no different from making them stronger.

It was quite a pity, therefore, that all of Shadow's senses were useless here in the Hollow Mountains. Surrounded by nothing, he couldn't sense anything.

None of his five senses were of much use, and his shadow sense stayed quiet as well. So, all he could follow was his intuition. Luckily, his intuition was abnormally potent.

As Shadow explored it, he came to the conclusion that what he assumed to be intuition was, in fact, an innate ability to sense the minuscule vibrations of the Strings of Fate.

He had known about his affinity to fate, but he had never been forced to face it.

Here in the Hollow Mountains, all of his other senses were cut off. More than that, only now that he had lost it, Shadow realized how deep his connection to the world ran.

All those myriad years spent in a state of fusion with the lands surrounding his cave had left a mark on him. Now, wherever Shadow went, his vast being was deeply connected to the world around him, brushing against the fabric of universal laws governing it.

Since it had become natural for him, he had never been consciously aware of that connection. But now that the white mist replaced the world and the connection was cut, he realized its absence.

People were not usually aware of their breathing, after all. It was only when they consciously decided to concentrate on it or when their air supply disappeared that they realized the fact that their lungs had been contracting and expanding all along.

‘Curious.'

Now that Shadow felt disconnected from the world, he was only connected to one thing — fate.

Fate loomed above him like a gargantuan monster, unfathomable and endless in its eldritch immensity.

Shadow was daunted by its scale, but also confused as to why he was able to sense fate so easily.

Despite his confusion, he did not mind using that inexplicable connection to his advantage.

Following his intuition, Shadow traveled deeper into the Hollow Mountains, eventually reaching a deep gorge between two towering, jagged peaks.

The gorge had appeared when one of Beast God's harrowing fangs tore the molten fabric of the world, so it was frighteningly deep.

Shivering slightly at the memory of how the Hollow Mountains had been born, Shadow summoned a pair of raven-black wings and glided to the bottom of the gorge.

There, a deep fissure ran through the weathered rock, nestling with impenetrable darkness.

"W—what's that?"

Snuggle's voice sounded a little timid.

Shadow sighed.

"This is where the Void Creature's blood flowed into the depths of the world, a long time ago."

It was an entrance into the Underworld.

Now, all Shadow had to do was take a step forward and plunge into the darkness.