Chapter 160: Ivory Tower
"Saint... come look at this..."
Sunny sat on the soft grass, enjoying the sunlight and the cool wind. He had not even known how much he missed them... missed everything, really. Looking back, it was hard to imagine that he had endured more than a month of utter nothingness without losing his mind. His experiences in the Dark City, it seemed, made him far more resilient.
...The shadow of the Ivory Tower was slowly moving closer as the evening approached, marking the passage of time. It was peaceful and quiet on the green meadow of the heavenly island.
Answering his call, the taciturn demon appeared nearby and stood silently, observing the magnificent white tower. Her ruby eyes, however, did not show any emotion.
He sighed, his cheeks puffing outwards slightly as he glared at the Shadow.
"...Well, I think it’s lovely."
The soaring island was not very large, so Sunny could more or less see its edge not too far away, surrounded by floating slates of shattered marble. There was a meadow on this side of it, a grove that rustles under the wind, and a graceful gazebo built of the same white material as the Ivory Tower itself. The stone arch inside of it was also white, and empty. The portal was gone.
Some distance away, connected to the gazebo by a stone path, stood the magnificent great pagoda that had once belonged to the Daemon of Desire. If it’s copy in the Sky Below was somber and ominous, the original was the complete opposite. It was beautiful, graceful, and slightly surreal, as if too sublime to exist in the mortal realm.
...In a sense, it did not.
Something about the Ivory Tower made Sunny uneasy, however. He couldn’t quite describe the feeling, but it was as though he simultaneously felt pulled toward it and threatened by it. The sensation did not come from his intuition, but more so from the deepest corners of his soul. It was rather strong.
And there was also something strange in the shape of the tower itself.