"Well, well, look who we have here. If it isn't my dear friend, Everlasting Gloom," Caster said, his voice dripping with a false, saccharine friendliness. He deliberately dragged out his True Name, weaponizing it as a thinly veiled insult.
The Legacy took slow, calculated steps toward Sunny, his relaxed gait radiating a heavy air of superiority. Around them, the other Sleepers closed ranks, tightening the noose and cutting off every conceivable line of retreat.
It was thirteen against one. Thirteen Sleepers staring down at him like proud lions who had cornered a helpless insect. Meanwhile, the surrounding shadows formed a second, outer ring, silently mocking the short-sighted beasts. Yet, through it all, Sunny remained an unyielding monolith.
'So, how many bones will I have to break today?' Sunny wondered.
He gave his right forearm a slow, counter-clockwise roll, flexing his wrist where the tattooed head of his Soul Serpent rested quietly against his skin. Sensing the imminent clash, his [Child of War] attribute flared to life, instantly shifting his mind into a cold, focused combat mode.
His eyes, voids of pitch-black shadows, darted rhythmically from left to right, meticulously scanning the crowd. Even though he was completely surrounded, his expression remained as calm and detached as if he were merely an observer reading a scene from a book.
It was a bold stance, but it wasn't just the presence of Myriad Shade—the Ascendant Beast concealed within his shadow—that gave him such absolute confidence. Nor was it the fact that the surrounding shadows were already laughing at the fools who dared challenge him, eagerly anticipating their downfall like a crowd of sadistic spectators.
What truly fueled his unwavering certainty was a fundamental difference in stakes. While the Sleepers surrounding him were only thinking of beating him like a cockroach or trying to intimidate him, Sunny was casually weighing the logistics of murder.
He wouldn't even need a massacre. A single corpse would suffice. Or, if he chose not to be quite so drastic, a bit of surgical mutilation—plucking out an eye or severing a few fingers—would easily do the trick. He just needed one volunteer. Caster would fit the bill perfectly; once you decapitate the hierarchy, the remaining cowards always scatter, utterly terrified by the raw brutality.
That was how things worked in the Outskirts.
'Ah. So it was you all along,' Sunny noted internally.
His eyes lingered on Caster, but his focus wasn't directed at the green-eyed Legacy standing in front of him. Instead, his gaze pierced straight through the crowd, locking onto the amber eyes of the viper hiding right behind his back.
'It's the first time I've seen him without his usual flock of girls. I almost didn't recognize him,' Sunny mused, a faint, defiant smirk tugging at the right corner of his lips at the sight of the hypocrite.
Sleeper Jayden. To the casual observer, he was a picture-perfect specimen: a young man with a flawless complexion, a soft mane of pale-blonde hair, and striking amber eyes. In the cafeteria, he was always swarmed by adoring girls who hung on his every word and devoured him with their eyes. But to Sunny, who possessed a far sharper eye for rot, Jayden was utterly repulsive. He was the very definition of a parasitic predator—a modern-day siren who used his specialized Aspect to subtly enthrall, exploit, and discard women just to satisfy his own twisted desires.
And it was this golden boy who, ironically enough, had spent the last few days spreading malicious rumors that Sunny was an incurable sex maniac and a pervert of the highest order. The sheer, unadulterated audacity of it was almost comical.
But Sunny already knew exactly what was driving this pathetic smear campaign.
Over the past two weeks, Sunny had caught Jayden staring at Yuki with disgusting, lustful eyes, coveting her the way a frenzied moth covets a lantern on a midsummer night. However, the ice beauty hadn't just rejected him—as she had done with dozens of other suitors—she had forcefully put him in his place with her bare hands when his advances crossed the line from persistent to predatory.
Seeing that Sunny was the only guy she actually spoke to and willingly spent time with, Jayden's fragile ego had cracked. Viewing him as a romantic rival, he had whipped the masses into a frenzy with false rumors, attempting to socially isolate Sunny and drive him away.
As the realization solidified, Sunny felt a low, feral rumble of rage swelling from deep within his chest.
'You absolute piece of trash,' he thought, his fists clenching so tightly at his sides that his knuckles turned white.
Around him, the shadows reacted to his fury, shifting violently like rabid hounds straining against their leashes, ready to tear out the throats of everyone in the corridor. Sunny didn't just suspect what kind of monster Jayden was; he knew it as a factual reality. He had personally witnessed it through his shadow. He had caught Jayden in the secluded, dimly lit corners of the Academy where the golden boy thought no one was looking, treating his "adoring" girls like disposable, worthless objects once he was done draining whatever validation or subservience he wanted from them.
To Jayden, Yuki wasn't a person. She was just a high-tier prize. A rare, untouched trophy to break and conquer.
That was what truly infuriated Sunny. He couldn't care less about being slandered as the "Demon King of the Bedroom," but the thought of this human garbage laying a single finger on his friend made his blood boil with murderous intent.
"So, my dear friend," Caster spoke up, forcefully pulling Sunny's attention back to the front. His voice was smooth and his face wore a pleasant, practiced smile, but it was nothing more than a hollow, mask of courtesy. "Where are you heading off to in such a hurry?"
Sunny looked at Caster, but his mind was already utilizing his Shadow Sense to look at the silhouette crouching beneath Sleeper Jayden's feet.
'Is it mental manipulation? A mind-control ability? No...' Sunny analyzed coldly. 'His shadow looks like a grotesque, weaving spider, spinning thin, golden threads of essence and stretching them toward the people around him. It's not absolute control... it's subconscious suggestion. Is he literally whispering rot into their minds?'
Sunny mused. 'It didn't make sense. How had he managed to subjugate so many people at once being only a Sleeper? Could it be his Aspect Legacy? A legendary Memory bestowed upon him by his Clan? The specifics of his dormant ability?' None of it was clear, and one option didn't necessarily exclude the others, or even all of them together. But right now, Sunny didn't care in the slightest.
He ruthlessly suppressed the violent churn of his emotions. While his mind continued to monitor Jayden's parasitic threads, he subtly commanded his shadow to detach. It flattened against the floor, slithering silently around the perimeter and weaving around the boots of the thirteen Sleepers, searching for summoned Memories or possible hidden weapons.
His flaw was ruthlessly pushing him to answer. To buy it the time it needed, Sunny came up with a plan on the spot.
He blinked, letting his black, abyssal eyes widen in an expression of innocent bewilderment. He looked at Caster, tilting his head carelessly.
"In a hurry?" Sunny echoed, his voice suddenly light, savoring the Legacy's reaction beforehand. "Oh! You see? It's just that... I'm incredibly late for a very important appointment."
Caster raised an eyebrow, a condescending smirk playing on his lips. The surrounding Sleepers leaned in, their muscles still tense, ready to pounce. "An appointment? With whom, exactly?"
Sunny held his gaze, his face a mask of complete, deadpan sincerity. He let the silence stretch for a few seconds, as much as his flaw allowed it.
"With Joe," Sunny said clearly while shrugging.
Caster's smirk faltered slightly, replaced by a flicker of genuine confusion. "Joe? Who is Joe?"
"Joe Mama!"
"..."
The corridor plunged into a deafening, stunned silence.
Somewhere to Sunny's left, a burly Sleeper let out an involuntary, ugly snort. Then, two more guys started snickering, desperately slapping hands over their mouths to muffle their laughter. The imposing, wolf-pack dynamic they had carefully cultivated collapsed into a playground farce.
Even more satisfying, Sunny noticed Jayden's golden threads of mental suggestion violently snap and waver as his enthralled audience lost their focus to the sheer stupidity of the moment.
Menawhile, Caster's face didn't just fall; it turned a mottled, dangerous shade of crimson. The saccharine mask of the perfect, friendly Legacy shattered entirely, revealing the furious, humiliated boy underneath.
"You—!" Caster hissed, his fists clenching.
While the Legacy practically vibrated with rage, Sunny's shadow smoothly returned to his heels. None of them had any hidden weapon. They really were just a bunch of arrogant, unarmed fools relying on numbers to bully a single, ordinary Outskirts rat.
'Let the show begin, then!' Sunny thought.
Through his [Child of War] attribute, Sunny was already mapping out a dozen ways to bring the Legacy to his knees with a single strike, or how to counter in the split second Caster decided to make his move. As for the remaining twelve, if they dared to take a single step forward, Thene was ready to emerge from his shadow and lay them all out in an instant, regardless of their Aspects.
They didn't realize it, but Sunny had already won.
The shadow and the Legacy locked eyes. Both combatants radiated a visceral, suffocating hatred, a mutual respect for the danger they posed to one another. Caster's right fist, hanging at his side, tightened until the veins on the back of his hand bulged with pressure. From Sunny's sleeve, the faint, menacing hiss of the Soul Serpent seemed to echo—an invisible, dangerous sound. It was like standing between two landmines, both primed to detonate at the slightest provocation.
Yet... the clash never happened.
An instant later, a gust of freezing wind swept through the corridor, hitting them head-on. It shattered the tension, forcing them to blink and tear their eyes away from each other to scan the surroundings. The other Sleepers, who had been acting as the closing gate of the trap, were frozen still, as if turned into statues of ice.
Sunny shifted his gaze, his eyes darting from right to left until they landed back on Caster's emerald eyes. The Legacy's expression mirrored his own: sheer, bewildered confusion.
'HOLY S—!'
Sunny's mind didn't process the next few seconds as a fluid, high-definition video feed. Instead, it registered the events like the fragmented slides of a presentation on an ancient, malfunctioning office computer.
Through touch, he registered the displacement of air as a petite, delicate girl bypassed him with feline speed. His pitch-black eyes saw a hand—no larger than his own—clench into a fist with savage ferocity and slam into a solid object. His ears heard the sickening crunch of a jaw fracturing, followed by the heavy thud of a body being slammed against the floor. His sense of taste picked up the frigid air that had involuntarily rushed into his mouth, locking the words of surprise in his throat. Finally, his sense of smell registered the bitter stench of defeat—a high-ranking Legacy, utterly dismantled by a single, powerful right hook from the bottom-ranked Sleeper in the Academy.
'Wow!' Sunny thought, dazed. 'Well! I guess there's a reason they called her "Song of the Fallen."' He could have sworn he saw a pair of incisors fly through the air.
While he was still processing the sudden violence, Cassie spun toward him, her hair whipping through the air from the sheer momentum. Her eyes—two mirrors of clear, limpid blue—searched frantically for the pools of ink that were his eyes, even though she couldn't see them. Then, guided by an unerring instinct, she lunged forward, burying her face into his chest and wrapping her arms tightly around his waist in a gesture of profound concern and relief.
"Cassie?" Sunny whispered, feeling the blind seer tremble against him. It was the only word he could manage as the adrenaline—and the murderous instinct—slowly began to cool.
"Are you alright?" a delicate, crystalline voice asked from behind him.
Sunny turned to see Yuki approaching, with Nephis trailing closely behind her.
"Uh... yeah." He nodded, though he didn't mention that he hadn't actually needed saving. He didn't want to point that out right now. He tilted his head, his gaze locked on Yuki. "But, if you don't mind me asking... why are you here?"
"A vision," the girl with golden hair replied, still clutching him tightly.
"Mh?" Sunny hummed, prompting for an explanation.
Cassie tilted her head up slightly without loosening her grip, meeting his gaze for a fleeting second. "A couple of days ago, I had a vision. I saw Caster and the others conspiring against you... something about "cornering the rat."" She paused, suppressing a slight sob. "I was so afraid."
Cassie finished, leaving a heavy silence in her wake as she buried her face back into his chest.
Sunny felt his heart skip a beat. Cassie's shadow spoke clearly; the golden eye that characterized it was truly languid with tears. The realization that she—the very person destined to betray him on the Forgotten Shore a year from now—had felt genuine terror not for herself, but for him, twisted his heart into knots. A warm, unfamiliar sensation enveloped his chest. It wasn't the sweet, blind girl who was currently holding him like a lighthouse in a sea of darkness; it was the sheer surrealism of it all.
"Thank you, Cassie," he said, his heart sincere as he returned the embrace, resting his chin gently on her shoulder.
Nephis, who had remained a silent observer behind Yuki, finally stepped forward. She lowered her head slightly and spoke: "Sorry."
"Don't be," Sunny replied, meeting her gaze.
"But it's my fault," Nephis insisted, completely unaware that the true puppet master behind the ambush was currently encased in ice alongside his frozen henchmen. "I owe you an apology. I feel I owe you an explanation, at the very least." She looked mortified, holding back the reasoning behind the latter part of her sentence as if there were a missing piece of the puzzle that he had yet to see.
Sunny tilted his head, looking past her. He scanned the twelve frozen Sleepers, his gaze lingering on Jayden—who was currently chewing through his own soul in silent fury at the failure of his diabolical plan—and finally rested on the unconscious form of Caster. The Legacy's face was unceremoniously flattened against the floor, a small, dark pool of blood steadily leaking from his traumatized, broken mouth.
Next the unconscious body, the Jiminy Cricket perched atop his collar, poking Caster's head with its tiny cane. When it saw no reaction, it dramatically pulled its ridiculously oversized top hat over its heart and made the sign of the cross with its other hand.
'Caster is basically dead. But hey, who cares?!'
"Uh... right. Okay," Sunny replied, turning back to Nephis. "If there's something you really need to tell me, I'm all ears."
At that moment, he felt a light, cool weight on his right shoulder—a touch that drew his attention to Yuki. "Sunny... the date," she reminded him, visibly struggling to string the words together through the interference of her own Flaw.
"The date?" Cassie asked, pulling back to look up at him, her expression turning suddenly suspicious.
"Oh! Right!" Sunny exclaimed, slapping his forehead. He had been so preoccupied with calculating how many different ways he could rearrange the Legacy's facial features that the appointment had completely slipped his mind. "Yeah, maybe you didn't hear me mention it in the dojo earlier, but I have an appointment with a Master to pick up some Memories I commissioned. You remember, Cassie? I told you about Master Jet—the beautiful Ascendant from the government who looked after me back in the Outskirts."
For some inexplicable and absurd reason, Cassie's lips curled into a pout. She released his waist, immediately latching onto his left arm instead. She gripped his bicep with a surprising amount of possessive strength, her eyes narrowing in a sudden, sharp bout of jealousy. "I'm coming with you," she declared, her tone leaving absolutely no room for negotiation.
Sunny's jaw dropped. Before he could even attempt to protest, Yuki's cool touch on his shoulder reminded him that he was surrounded. He looked at the ice beauty, catching a rare, glinting amusement behind her mask of absolute stoicism.
"Yes," Yuki agreed, nodding with an imperceptible quirk of her lips, "they might... try again," she managed to articulate, her frame visibly shaking with suppressed laughter.
Sunny's left eye twitched. Yuki was openly mocking him, savoring the inevitable embarrassment this spectacle would cause when he arrived to meet Jet.
He darted his gaze between Cassie—who was clinging to his left arm with a jealous pout—and Yuki, who was now leaning slightly against his right shoulder, her hand covering her mouth as she made no further effort to conceal her mirth.
Seeing that there was zero room for negotiation, Sunny sighed in defeat.
"What a headache," he muttered under his breath.
With no other choice, the four of them began their trek toward the Academy's main exit, where Master Jet was waiting.
***
A light, wintry breeze swept across the evening, pooling before the towering outer walls of the Academy. It carried the sharp, earthy scent of the flowerbeds cultivated at the base of that colossal gray rampart. The night sky was clear and serene, the stars struggling to shine through the few artificial lights planted outside, as a young shadow walked with a forced, stiff stride toward his destination.
'What a headache!' Sunny sighed mentally.
A heavy sense of unease, mixed with the kind of crushing teenage embarrassment that only a nightmare could cultivate, pressed against his chest. He felt like a man walking toward his own ruin, forced forward by the grim, inescapable realization that certain catastrophes simply cannot be avoided.
Sunny glanced to his left. Cassie was gripping his arm firmly against her chest, her expression challenging anyone—anyone at all—to dare take a step toward him. It was a rather unsettling sight, given that she was, quite famously, blind.
He rolled his eyes to the right. Yuki had been forced to move her hand from his shoulder to his right hand, not out of affection, but because her own body temperature was so glacial that she was effectively cutting off his circulation. Her delightful face, usually a mask of unyielding glass, now carried a rare, faint smile—a silent testament to how much she was enjoying his impending, socially awkward doom when he finally met Master Jet.
Finally, he cast a glance over his shoulder. Nephis was trailing them for reasons best known only to her. Changing Star walked with a steady, calculated gait, perhaps because she felt she owed him those explanations regarding what happened before with Caster, or perhaps simply because she didn't know what else to do. It was easier to pass a camel through the eye of a needle than to discern the thoughts hidden behind those silver-white eyes.
From an outsider's perspective, the optics were undeniably, spectacularly ambiguous.
'Well... I suppose those rumors about the "Demon King of the Bedroom" weren't so far-fetched after all,' he mused, his black eyes staring straight ahead—the only direction he could look without feeling like the protagonist of a low-budget romantic comedy.
Sunny hadn't forgotten that when he last bid Jet farewell at the Academy gates, he had joked that he would greet her next time with a beauty on each arm. Well, not only had he kept his word, but he had even thrown in a bonus.
'You know something, my dear Cricket?' Sunny said, addressing his Flaw.
<
'This wouldn't be a bad moment for a certain Forgotten God to wake up from his eternal slumber.'
The evening air was crisp and clean. The asphalt beneath their feet was smooth and sterile as the group made their way toward the meeting point a few meters from the Academy's main entrance.
And that was when Sunny saw her.
There, near a tree planted at the center of a circular sidewalk and leaning casually against a government-issued PTV, stood a young woman in her early twenties.
She wore a deep blue jacket that left her graceful neck exposed, paired with black jeans that hugged the curves of her legs. Her arms were crossed over her chest in a relaxed stance, her piercing blue eyes fixed on the horizon as if contemplating something of great importance. Her short, raven-black hair was gently tousled by the wind, making her snow-white complexion seem almost ethereal.
She was simply beautiful.
Seeing her in person after two weeks, Sunny's heart warmed, and his lips curved into a genuine, melancholic smile.
Stopping a few paces away, Sunny caught her gaze. His mind momentarily drifted, captivated by the brilliance of those piercing blue eyes.
"Pfffft..." Unfortunately, his preoccupation made him forget everything else. "BWHAHAHAHA!!!"
The moment Jet saw him, she buckled over. She slammed one hand against her knee, clutching her stomach with the other as she erupted into a fit of raucous, uncontrollable laughter.
"AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
The laughter was long, mocking, and entirely unchecked. The magical atmosphere of their reunion had been vaporized in a heartbeat.
"Hi, Jet," Sunny said in a resigned tone, his eyebrows knitting into a single, flat line of defeat. He accepted his humiliation with what little dignity he had left, watching the Ascendant—who had now completely abandoned all pretense of composure—howl with laughter.
Beside him, Yuki had turned away, bowing her head slightly and burying her face in her hands to hold back her laughter. Nephis stared at her in bewilderment; the Ice Maiden was visibly trembling, her shoulders shaking like a telegraph key gone haywire. Had anyone been fluent in Morse code, they would have deciphered a repetitive, rhythmic message: "A-H-A-H-A-H-A..."
"Well, little Devil," Jet wheezed, finally trying to compose herself as she wiped a tear of mirth from her eye. "I see you took my advice about finding good companions quite literally."
Her grotesque, failed attempt to suppress her amusement held about as much weight as the silent, solemn vows Myriad Shade had made the night before—vows promising not to use Sunny as a shadow-shaped teddy bear while he slept.
Accepting the humiliation, Sunny scoffed and casually crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, obviously," he said, adopting a tone of offended dignity rather than embarrassment. "What? Did you think I was going to spend my whole time moping around like some lone wolf?"
"Tsk, tsk," he clicked his tongue, shaking his head slightly as he prepared to reveal one of his grandest exploits to turn the tables in his favor. "Let me tell you, my dear, that I once befriended the Temple Guardian of a long-forgotten God right after spending the previous night drinking with a one-armed, deranged brute."
Jet raised an eyebrow, momentarily perplexed and unable to retort to what she assumed was a blatant lie, blissfully unaware of the fact that the boy literally couldn't lie.
Sunny brought his left fist to his mouth and cleared his throat. "Ahem! So, allow me to make the introductions. Jet, I believe you already remember Yuki, right? As for the others, this is Nephis, the princess of the Immortal Flame clan, who suffers from severe mood swings that usually end in malicious acts of arson." He gestured toward Changing Star behind him with a slight nod.
Nephis shot him a highly offended glare, but before she could even open her mouth, he plowed on: "And this little darling permanently attached to my arm is Cassia." He concluded the introductions by gesturing to the blind seer still clinging tightly to his left bicep.
"Nice to meet you all," Jet said, greeting her new acquaintances.
"The pleasure is mine," Nephis replied composedly.
"The pleasure is mine," Cassie echoed, tightening her grip on Sunny's arm. Her tone, however, closely resembled the hiss of a territorial cat warning a stranger away from its property.
"Hello, Yukino," the Soul Reaper added, turning her attention to Yuki.
"Hi," Yuki replied, bowing her head slightly, having managed to fully compose herself after her laughing fit.
Jet scrutinized the members of the little group one by one, her gaze finally landing heavily on Sunny. It made him shudder as if he were trying to hide some heinous crime.
"So," she drawled in a highly suspicious tone that he didn't like one bit. "Tell me! How exactly did this little brat convince you to become his friends? Did he seduce you into a swoon, or is there some sort of blackmail I should be aware of?" She placed her hands on her hips, ready to dig up the dirt.
"What the—" Sunny spread his arms in dismay. "Who the hell do you take me for, Jet?"
"Because if it's the latter, just know I won't hesitate to beat him back into line," the Master continued, completely ignoring him, though her probing blue eyes remained fixed on the culprit in question.
At those unjust accusations, Cassie's pout morphed into a frown. "Pft... no. Sunny has helped me a lot these past few days. He's my first friend," she said with absolute sincerity.
'May the dead Gods bless you, Cassie,' Sunny thought, exhaling a mental sigh of profound relief.
Then came his utter ruin. The Ruin.
"Me too," Nephis chimed in. "Sunny taught me many things I didn't know, actually. Like how to make babies," She said with the innocence of someone who doesn't understand what she's just done.
Sunny's blood instantly froze in his veins. It was a sheer, paralyzing terror that not even the blood of the Daemon of Fate could thaw. He slowly turned his head toward Nephis, his pitch-black eyes wide with absolute horror.
'Okay, that's it! I'm leaving her to rot on the Forgotten Shore. I've decided.'
As if that wasn't enough, Yuki decided to drop the final nail in the coffin.
"Me as well," she added, stifling a massive, treacherous grin at the last second.
"What?!" Sunny whipped his head toward the Ice Maiden with renewed terror. Yuki had just sold him out completely, solely for her own amusement.
It was true what they said: the saddest thing about betrayal is that it never comes from your enemies.
Behind him, Sunny heard the menacing, deliberate crack of knuckles. Turning back to Jet, he saw a lethal little smile plastered across her face—a slight curve that strongly resembled the blade of a scythe—as she casually warmed up her fists.
"Oh, really? Well, well, little devil. It seems to me that you are really asking for a beating."
Feeling incredibly small before the looming shadow of the infamous Soul Reaper, Sunny swallowed hard, his eyes pleading for a mercy he knew he wouldn't get.
<
***
Once the misunderstanding was cleared up and Sunny's life was spared, the five of them fell into an easy conversation. It was a pleasant exchange, filled with lighthearted moments and genuine laughter. It felt like a long time for someone who had just survived an imminent catastrophe, yet far too short for a shadow who secretly wished, from the bottom of his heart, that this fleeting moment of warmth could last forever.
About twenty minutes later, Nephis, Yuki, and a very reluctant Cassie excused themselves. They wandered over to sit on the circular bench near where Jet had parked her vehicle, allowing the Master and Sunny a moment to speak in private.
[You have received a Memory.]
[You have received a Memory.]
...
After transferring the promised Memories, Jet let go of Sunny's hand. Looking at his face, she caught a grin stretching from ear to ear on the usually gloomy boy—a smile that promised absolutely nothing good.
"What are you thinking about?" Jet asked, noticing the bizarre way Sunny was staring at his own hand, looking as if he had just found the One Ring to rule them all.
Sunny wiped the sinister look from his face, replacing it with a softer, much more genuine smile. "Oh! Nothing much. I was just thinking about how much I love you," he said with a straight face while meeting her gaze.
Jet crossed her arms and gave him a wry smirk. "How much you love me, huh? Well, if I had had a Master looking after me and handing out Memories on demand, I would have fallen in love with them too," she joked.
The two of them laughed. Jet's joke hadn't been incredibly funny, but inevitably, they both found themselves chuckling. It was a quiet intimacy that belonged solely to the two of them, a bond forged through their shared past in the Outskirts—a place that turns those it doesn't kill into monsters.
Sunny paused, simply watching Master Jet laugh. The joyous melody of her amusement echoed in his ears like the delicate chiming of a silver bell.
A myriad of thoughts crossed his mind in that moment, and just as many things he wanted to say aloud. But above all, the one truth he found himself repeating internally was this:
'People call her the Soul Reaper. They define her as a ferocious killer. The government parades her as one of their prized hunting dogs, the Great Clans view her as a blunt instrument of execution, and the readers who simply consume this history without truly understanding it only see a badass, beautiful woman.
Jet is beautiful. There is absolutely no debating that.
However, what truly makes her beautiful isn't the way she unleashes hell on the battlefield, slaughtering hordes of Nightmare Creatures like it's nothing. Nor is it the ethereal, natural beauty one acquires every time they Ascend in Rank.
The real reason is that Jet is, above all else, kind. She is a genuinely kind person—perhaps far too kind for this world destined for ruins. And to me, she was the first true, pure light I found since this miserable life began.'
Sunny's eyes grew glossy for a fraction of a second, a single blink during which his memories flashed by as rapidly as the shutter of a camera.
He remembered the early years of his life in this body all too well. The tragic death of his mother, the crushing reality of never being adopted at the orphanage, the grueling time spent just trying to survive in the Outskirts. For someone who had been a young man trapped in the frail body of a starving child, it was pure, unadulterated hell. Sunny remembered how desperately he had wanted to curse the heavens in those days, yet found himself unable to, realizing the sheer futility of the act and hindered by the gnawing hunger that constantly sapped his strength.
He had promised himself back then that he would show the world. He would return the favor to whoever had forced this life upon him—sevenfold, just to stay true to this world's lucky number. He had sworn to become a ruthless, unhinged bastard, to weaponize his knowledge of this world's history to plunder it and do exactly as he pleased. He was on the path to becoming a piece of scum far worse than Jayden.
The one who had pulled him out of that darkness was none other than Jet, three years ago.
At the time, Sunny hadn't yet realized that the tapestry of Fate had been rewritten. He simply thought she was the catalyst for his change of heart.
Jet gave him a home when he had none. She showed him compassion and welcomed him into a world where such acts were practically unthinkable. She trained him for his First Nightmare and showed him a life he hadn't even realized he was missing out on.
'You might not realize it, Jet... but your cold, lifeless body radiates more warmth than any star in the sky.'