Sunny almost managed to direct his endless fall toward the tiny gap between the remnant conflagrations of the divine flame, but on that incredible scale, even the smallest mistake was bound to take him many kilometers away from the goal.
…A mistake that he had inevitably made, since there were no lessons on navigating eternal voids, especially without any tools except for his own two eyes.
'Damn it!'
Right below him, swiftly approaching, was an ocean of obliterating light, heat, and fire.
The conflagrations themselves were rather small, no larger than a dozen meters in diameter, and chaotically scattered in the void at a considerable distance from one another. Each looked like a furious, undulant orb of dancing white flames.
The space between them, though, was not safe. It was permeated by immolating heat that nothing could withstand… at least nothing Sunny had at his disposal.
As the adamantine wood of the treasure chest started to slowly catch fire, he hesitated, then glanced at the empty darkness of the distant rift in the ocean of light. Whether by accident or by design, there was a point in the field of false stars where no conflagrations remained. A roughly circular breach was torn through them, promising him safe passage.
But how was he supposed to reach it?
If Sunny jumped off the plummeting chest right now, he would probably be able to glide all the way to the rift… the distance was just right. However, he was pretty sure that the Dark Wing would be instantly turned to ash by the terrible heat of the remnant vestiges of the divine flame.
Not to mention that he himself would probably get thoroughly cooked inside the Mantle of the Underworld if he remained corporeal for that long.
With a mental sigh, Sunny left the comforting embrace of the shadows.
A kneeling figure in an intricate onyx armor appeared on the lid of the smoldering treasure chest.
'Argh…'
Despite the protection of the [Stalwart] enchantment, the air he breathed in was thin and scoldingly hot. It almost felt as if he was inhaling fire. Other than that, however, the Mantle of the Underworld did a good job of keeping the heat at bay... and yet, Sunny could feel it starting to slowly get warmer. He didn't have a lot of time.
Standing up, he raised the Cruel Sight, turned it into a spear, pulled his arm back, and gritted his teeth. Then, sending a thin trickle of Essence into the muscles of his shoulder and back, he strained his body and threw the reflective spear.
The Cruel Sight shot into the darkness with incredible speed, instantly becoming illuminated by a blinding radiance. It was strange… the void was full of light now, but with nothing to reflect it, the Sky Below still appeared black and empty. Only when something entered the emptiness did the light become visible.
A couple of moments later, reflective surface of the spear began to glow like a pure beacon of light. However, that didn't affect it's flight. The spear pierced the darkness and turned into a distant spark, covering almost an entire kilometer in just a few seconds. Then, however, it slowed down considerably, and its shaft began to smolder.
It was time to move.
As Sunny felt flame licking his greaves, he held his breath… and used Shadow Step.
The Cruel Sight was wrapped into one of his shadows. As the shadow unfurled itself from the igniting shaft, Sunny shot out of it as if launched from a giant slingshot. As soon as he left the shadow, it instantly wrapped itself around his body as he dismissed the Ascended weapon.
'Crap!'
Sunny found himself flying through the darkness with nothing to support or shield him from being directly exposed to the immolating radiance. The Mantle of the Underworld suddenly shone in the torrent of light, instantly growing considerably warmer. It wasn't burning his skin yet, but he suspected that there was not much time left before that happened.
Especially because his momentum was not only horizontal, but also vertical, and was becoming more so with each moment. He was still plummeting toward the ocean of flames, approaching it with terrifying speed.
The closer he got, the more obliterating the heat would become.
Twisting as he fell to orient himself in the void, Sunny realized that he would not have enough time to summon another Memory to throw. He hadn't planned to use the Cruel Sight to teleport himself in the first place, so he had nothing else on hand.
The rift was still multiple kilometers away.
'Fuck!'
The glossy black surface of the Mantle of the Underworld was starting to glow, slowly turning incandescent. He was still fine inside, though. For now. If a little hot…
Sunny really wished that he had thought things through a bit more. If he had a few more Memories, he could have repeated the process…
However, maybe… just maybe… he wasn't going to have to.
Finding himself falling directly into the sea of stars, Sunny made a desperate effort…
Using the Preservation, he immediately felt a passive resistance to all kinds of damage… with an even greater resistance to fire. Sunny suspected that this would apply to even flames that burned the soul, but he had precautions even if it didn't.
The Mantle of the Underworld's defensive enchantments also improved, which meant that the heat had less of an effect on the onyx armor.
Gritting his teeth, Sunny summoned the Lance of Preservation, which hardly required any time to call upon, and cast a shield on his soul and body. He already had some resistance to soul damage thanks to the Mantle of the Underworld, so he evenly split the entirety of his defenses between the physical and the metaphysical.
He used most of his Shadow Essence to create the barriers, so he sincerely hoped that they could withstand the divine flames for even a few seconds.
Sunny sent both the Gloomy and Happy shadows to reinforce the Mantle of the Underworld and threw his hands and legs to the sides. He was trying to create as much surface area as possible to utilize the resistance of the air in his favor.
He was well-versed in all kinds of falling and gliding thanks to using the Dark Wing so often, so this was not something new to him. Granted, he had never done it in a heavy armor.
Speaking of which…
Sunny hesitated, then directed some of his remaining Essence into the Mantle of the Underworld to activate the [Feather of Truth] enchantment and make the armor as heavy as possible. He felt himself fall much faster than before. He wanted to shorten the time he spent going through the stars of divine flame.
Then, all he could do was endure the growing heat and wait and watch as the obliterating ocean of flames approached him at tremendous speed.
Now, his life depended on whether or not he would burn.