It was a week later. Sunny took his time reaching Ravenheart. He culled Godgrave's abomination to increase his domain while simultaneously using his 'Will'. Unfortunately, Sunny couldn't tell if it had gotten stronger.
He ran a few experiments and found out a few things. The first one was quite surprising. It was that he could retreat his 'Will' into his soul sea.
That connected a lot of dots. Sunny was currently using 'Death Will' after his act of defiance, which was refusing to stay dead and therefore resisting the law of death.
If he could sharpen this 'Will' into a 'Semi-Concept', he might be able to kill enemies that seemed immortal. Which, honestly, was too many nowadays.
Taking a look from a few miles, Ravenheart came into view. It was snowing, and a light cover had blanketed the land, giving it a surreal look.
His breath created a small cloud outside his mask. Over the last two weeks, Sunny had been trying to deal with the rebellious shadow in his Soul Sea, and it was only yesterday that she had finally made the same deal as last time.
Now there were only a few steps remaining. The first one was way harder than the second.
It was to steal the Death Game. Last time Sunny entered the Jade Palace, it was Hel, one of the Song sisters, who was privy to revelations that found him in Kai's shadow, which was an amazing feat.
Admittedly, she said that she had "Smelled death," which wasn't wrong. However, this time around, he was wearing [Weaver's Mask], looking over the enchantment that said it hid the identities of the wearer. Sunny was confident he wouldn't be found out because any situation of being found would mean that they would know a bit of his identity.
The second step was to kidnap a Saint. It was Kai. Although Sunny was confident he would be able to beat this game, he was unsure about how they had defeated the Cursed Demon last time. So it was unknown how much Kai had truly supported against a Cursed Demon, but it seemed like the safest option.
Turning into a shadow, Sunny entered the city.
Nearly every Saint was in Antarctica, including the Sovereigns. The reason was obvious. They wanted to create an influx of Saints over the next few years and increase the population of the Dream Realm with refugees.
These were people without homes, and they had nearly all the tools to create a new home, they just needed help. Using the gates from the Waking world to the Dream Realm allowed the refugees to quickly come to safety. The Sovereigns were close but yet far away.
Now that they had shown themselves to the world, they couldn't stand idly by while the continent was getting swallowed by Nightmare Gates.
It gave Sunny the perfect chance to enter their citadels while they were far away. Opening a gate took concentration and time. Sunny was sure he could steal the board game and be gone by the time the gate opened if they even did spot him.
Ki Song wouldn't be able to catch up to Sunny either but there was one thing Sunny was unsure of. He knew he couldn't shadow-step within the Jade Palace, but he didn't know if he could shadow-step while carrying the stupid board game after he left the Jade Palace, which wouldn't be a problem, but it was good to be prepared.
Either way, Sunny was probably the fastest human alive. No one would be able to catch up to him.
That's enough thinking. It was time to act.
Night had arrived in Ravenheart. With it, an incalculable amount of shadows as well.
Taking a deep breath, Sunny shadow-stepped right before the Jade Palace. He was still a shadow.
He quickly glided through the halls. His speed was tremendous, even though he was a shadow. No, most likely it was faster. He had also wrapped all his shadows around himself, making his agility frightening.
In just three seconds, Sunny was already in the room where the board game was. This time he didn't look at the writing and commanded the shadows to wrap around the sinister board game.
Then he gave more commands and took a dollhouse as well. Seishan had used to trap the Cursed Abominations that left when Sunny took their spots. It was more than important.
With two large spheres floating, they merged and made a sort of hiker's backpack that was huge.
Sunny didn't care about appearances right now, but he had to admit that he looked like a sinister traveler.
Sunny ran through the corridors of the Jade Palace. There were a few masters this late at night. Sunny had passed by them extremely quickly on his way in using their blind spots, but there was no way they would miss him now on his way out.
However, before they could even register, there was another person, Sunny, who had incapacitated them. Using enough force to launch them without killing them. However, they have a lot of broken bones.
Currently, Sunny didn't have any of his shadow cohort with him. If he did, he would've just put them to sleep, but he had separated from them at the beginning of Godgrave, even before he had taken Slayer.
Saint, Fiend, Nightmare, and now Serpent joined them as well, hunting in Godgrave. There was to mostly increase the Strength of Nightmare and Fiend. It was easy now that Serpent had joined them. Using its sinister abilities, it killed enemies or put them in a mind hex for Nightmare to collect their dreams.
Taking a sharp turn, Sunny had exited the Jade Palace. His Shadow Sense was limited in there as well, but now that he was out, he was even faster. Taking a giant step, Sunny launched himself out of the city in two seconds.
However, there was one crucial fact Sunny never noticed. Since the Jade Palace nearly shut down his shadow-sense, it was that the shadows of the Ascended he had incapacitated didn't exist.
**
It happened in just less than a second.
Ki Song was in Antarctica. Currently, she was forcing back over fifty gates herself. Her massive consciousness was enveloping nearly half of the East Antarctic Center with thousands of thralls comprising all the Nightmare Creatures that were slain.
Whenever she found seeds leading to the third nightmare trial, she would send over a cohort she had hand-picked years ago.
Guiding them with the dead or sometimes even one of the seven sisters.
It was in a moment of subduing multiple gates when she thought she saw something in the corner of her eye. It happened too quickly. One of her pair of thralls in the Jade Palace thought they saw something in the corner of their eye.
However, she quickly dismissed it as though shadows were playing tricks on her.
But in the next moment. She saw something clear as day. A demon with three horns. Ki Song couldn't even raise the Ascended thrall's arms before the creature overpowered her thralls.
They were in a mess of limbs and hit the wall incredibly hard. The wall didn't break, but they did, the puppets could no longer move correctly.
Quickly contacting Revel, she wanted her to chase after the figure, but it was too late. One of the thralls, a crow, saw the demon leave the entire citadel in less than three steps.
Its speed was frightening. By the time Revel even exited the basement and left the Jade Palace, it had been a full ten seconds.
That creature could cover the entire citadel in less than 3 seconds, meaning it was at least 3 citadels away.
Ki Song already knew this, as there was a loose perimeter set up around the citadel. Small creatures, sometimes birds, sometimes little rats, even the smallest of insects were Ki Song's eyes.
It was nearly a web. That was why Ki Song already knew he had left. Already miles away.
"Revel" Ki Song said
"Yes, mother," Revel replied in her mind. It was not a memory used to contact her, but instead her blood.
"Sweep the palace with my puppets and look if anything is missing." Ki Song said.
"After that, I'm sending Moonveil back. I want you two to take shifts watching over the Palace." Ki Song finished.
"Understood." Revel sounded a bit flustered. After all, her mother left her to guard over the Citadel, yet there was an intruder who escaped with who knows what.