Sunny found himself standing on the floor of a vast, oval arena.
The ground was covered in coarse sand that had long ago been stained a dark, rusted red from all the digital blood spilled between these ancient walls. A merciless, illusory sun burned in an incandescent sky, and the air was thick with the smell of sweat and death.
'How... delightfully morbid,'
Sunny thought, wrinkling his nose beneath Weaver's Mask.
A little disturbed by the sensory accuracy, he looked around. Tall amphitheater stands rose high above the blood-soaked arena, packed with a cheering crowd. Their voices were a unified roar of macabre fascination, cruelty, and glee. Most of the spectators were illusions, NPCs dressed in archaic robes that left their arms and shoulders bare, their features contorted into bloodthirsty, demonic smiles.
But not all of them. Here and there, Sunny could spot a strangely clothed person sitting among the illusions, observing the fights with a less barbaric, more analytical expression. Those were the actual human observers.
You didn't need to be fully jacked into the Dreamscape network to spectate the duels, most people just watched the flat broadcasts on their communicators. But some overly dedicated fans actually paid extra to use their simulation pods just to sit in the stands and experience the feeling of maximum immersion.
'Lunatics,' Sunny grumbled internally. 'Those pods cost thousands of credits just to be powered, and they use them to sit in fake bleachers.'
Even though Sunny wasn't technically poor anymore, seeing such flagrant financial extravagance still gave him a phantom pain in his wallet. Shaking his head, he finally turned his attention away from the crowd and back to the arena itself.
Obviously, this particular environment wasn't very original. More advanced, high-tier Dreams had vastly different decorations, ranging from hyper-realistic modern cityscapes to completely unhinged fantastical floating ruins. But for this entry-level public lobby, the company running Dreamscape had chosen a basic, highly recognizable narrative.
It was an ancient coliseum. A place where desperate slaves had once fought to entertain their masters, usually to the death.
Sunny didn't like the aesthetic one bit. It hit a little too close to the bone.
However, the Colosseum was incredibly populated. Hundreds upon hundreds of warriors roamed the vast stretch of sand. Some were already locked in desperate combat, while others were pacing the perimeter, searching for an opponent.
Out here in the public lobbies, most of the participants were Awakened with just enough skill to be considered elite among amateurs, but not quite skilled enough to survive in the professional leagues. It was exactly what Sunny was looking for. Probably. While many of the duelists in Dreamscape were talented, flashy fighters, at the end of the day, there were very few true masters among them.
Real elites didn't waste time looking cool for a digital crowd. Real elites were busy bleeding out in the mud of the Dream Realm.
Commanding the Soul Serpent to assume the form of the fearsome odachi, Sunny let the massive, lusterless black blade rest casually on his shoulder and waited to be challenged.
In the back of his mind, he remembered Cielle standing in the basement a day ago, squinting at the exact same sword. She had tilted her head, looking at his arms, and said, half in awe and half in curiosity:
"It looks entirely too heavy for your body. You should be tipping over. "
He had told her that weight was relative, mostly because he didn't want to explain the mechanics of serpent. Sunny pities the poor serpent, cielle had almost bit him when they first met. But out here, in the simulation, the great blade felt almost weightless.
Unfortunately, due to his menacing onyx armor, the terrifying horned mask, and the fact that he was radiating an aura of absolute, silent hostility, people seemed very reluctant to approach him.
At least for a while.
Eventually, a young swordsman wearing striking, meticulously polished blood-red armor approached. He had a long, graceful espadon resting on his shoulder. He stopped a few paces away, gave Sunny a confident, camera-ready smile, and said:
"Haven't seen you around before… Mongrel? Are you new to the Coliseum?"
Sunny tilted his head, ignoring the man's face and studying the glowing digital letters that appeared hovering above the swordsman's head.
[Paradise in Red]
[Victories: 157]
[Defeats: 103]
Good enough, Sunny decided.
Lowering the odachi until the tip hovered just above the sand, Sunny let his Flaw twist his answer into something dramatic and entirely untrue.
"...I was born in the Coliseum," Sunny lied in a flat, even tone.
The swordsman chuckled, clearly thinking it was just edgy roleplay, and stepped forward into a combat stance. "Let me welcome you back, then."
The booming voice of the Dreamscape immediately thundered from the heavens, announcing the start of the fight:
"Paradise in Red has challenged Mongrel!"
They clashed on the bloodied sand, moving with enough speed to cause the artificial wind to howl against their armor.
Sunny had left one of his shadows coiled passively on the ground, and wrapped the other around the Autumn Leaf charm where it could provide absolutely no combat benefit. He didn't want to be too fast or too strong. The whole point of this exercise was to let his opponents feel confident enough to properly showcase their combat styles so he could steal them.
He had also completely abandoned both the flowing, relentless style Nephis had taught him, and the grounded, unyielding technique he had learned from Saint. Instead, he relied purely on Shadow Dance, making his body an empty vessel, reading the enemy's movements and mirroring them.
Paradise in Red was not a master of swordsmanship, but his skill level wasn't terrible. He was fast, and his strikes had a decent amount of weight behind them. Still, the young man wasn't a match for Sunny, even with Sunny actively handicapping himself and trying to adjust to the massive size of the odachi.
The material form of the Shadow Serpent was devastating, but because of its sheer size, it required a lot of adjustment. It demanded far more spatial awareness and strategy than a shorter blade. Any strike it delivered was instantly lethal, but every mistake left the wielder wide open.
Sunny deliberately prolonged the fight for as long as he could, dodging, parrying, and studying how his opponent shifted his weight and angled his blade.
In the end, however, the strain of the duel turned out to be too much for the amateur. The guy was entirely too flashy and had absolutely no concept of how to budget his soul essence. After about five minutes of high-intensity swinging, his speed and strength plummeted sharply.
Sunny sighed behind his mask. The lesson was over. He ended the duel with one precise, effortless slash of the Soul Serpent.
The great sword flashed across the enemy's neck, cleanly severing it. The swordsman's head flew into the air, spinning gracefully.
The beheaded corpse hit the sand in a violent spray of digital blood, lingered for a second, and then shattered into a stream of glowing sparks.
The voice of the Dreamscape thundered again:
"Mongrel has won!"
Too bad, Sunny thought, rolling his shoulder. Five minutes wasn't nearly enough time to truly absorb the essence of a battle style. However, Sunny was fairly certain he would run into another practitioner of this specific art eventually. There were only so many popular styles floating around the amateur circuits.
Attracted by the flashy, brutal victory, a few more challengers began to approach. Sunny flourished the Soul Serpent in a tight arc, stopping it abruptly midair. The digital blood instantly flew off the dark metal, leaving the blade perfectly, terrifyingly clean.
Beneath Weaver's Mask, Sunny grinned. Ah, that is so cool. Good thing I learned that trick from Saint...
***
"Argh! Are you even human?!"
Another Awakened fell to the sand, blood bubbling from his lips.
Sunny took a single, unhurried step forward and brought the Shadow Serpent down in a brutal arc, easily cutting straight through the opponent's light chest armor and splitting his digital body entirely in half.
The great sword was an absolute menace.
As the bifurcated corpse disappeared into sparks, Sunny cleaned the curved blade with a swift, practiced flourish and answered the dead man's question with a dejected, magically enforced lie:
"Human? I am not, and have never been, a human."
By this point, a rather large crowd of Awakened had gathered around his section of the arena, spectating the slaughter and waiting in line for their turn to challenge him. Hearing his edgy dialogue, one of the spectators laughed out loud.
"If you aren't human, man, then what are you?"
Sunny glanced at the spectator, the dark voids of his mask giving away nothing, and shrugged.
"A mongrel."
Internally, however, Sunny was currently screaming:
What the absolute hell is wrong with these people?!
In the past three hours, he had fought twenty-seven different people. And out of those twenty-seven fighters, twenty-five of them—twenty-five!—had been using the exact same battle style.
It was a practical, but incredibly simplistic martial art. It relied on straightforward, heavily telegraphed movements. In terms of energy expenditure, it was highly efficient, but for that very same reason, it was painfully predictable. In the hands of a true master, the style could have been dangerous. But in the hands of these talented amateurs, it was absolutely useless against anyone who possessed a tiny bit of clarity.
Several of the challengers had possessed highly unusual Aspects that had initially thrown Sunny for a loop, but he had systematically dismantled them all. By the twentieth fight, he had completely downloaded the essence of their shared sword style into his muscle memory. There was nothing left to learn from it.
These kids weren't entirely untalented, but Sunny felt the gap between them like a physical canyon. He had to keep reminding himself that, unlike him, these people hadn't spent a year fighting a losing war against the horrors of the Forgotten Shore.
Most of these young men and women had probably only experienced a handful of real, life-or-death battles in their entire lives. They had survived their First Nightmare, made it to a Gateway, and then likely spent the rest of their Awakened careers sitting safely inside heavily fortified Citadels, only venturing outside the walls in massive, highly coordinated cohorts.
They fought like people who knew they could respawn. Sunny fought like a man who knew exactly what it felt like to be eaten alive.
Disappointing, Sunny sighed.
Although the counter for the [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment had happily ticked up by twenty-seven victories, Sunny was intensely irritated. This was not what he had signed up for. He needed variety. He needed a diverse library of eccentric, unpredictable styles to make Shadow Dance truly dangerous. He would have rather fought saint or cielle in the basement.
Instead, he was stuck fighting a conveyor belt of identical clones.
'I should just log out,' Sunny grumbled internally, shifting his weight. 'I need to check on the real world anyway. Cielle might have tried to interact with the microwave. Or worse, she might be trying to clean the kitchen again.'
Just thinking about it made him want to abandon the Colosseum entirely. He needed to figure out what to cook for dinner. She had eaten all the leftover chicken yesterday with the terrifying speed of a starving stray, so they were out of easy protein. He could probably make a stir-fry. Yes. Stir-fry. Chop the vegetables himself so she didn't accidentally burn the kitchen knife, use the new fridge's crisper drawer...
Just as he was about to mentally pull the plug on the simulation to go marinate some meat, a sudden wave of frantic whispers rippled through the digital crowd.
A dozen meters behind Sunny, a tall figure suddenly materialized out of thin air.
When the gathered crowd saw the new arrival, their eyes went wide.
Leo Striker had logged into the Colosseum. He looked around the dusty, blood-stained arena with a heavy dose of manufactured nostalgia. A few years ago, at the very start of his career, he had been a frequent visitor of this exact pit. This was where his legend had begun.
Times had certainly changed.
Using the brief few seconds before the crowd inevitably swarmed him, Leo flashed a brilliant, perfectly practiced smile to his invisible broadcast camera.
"Well, well, well. Did you really think that I would forget about Public Mondays, guys? Of course not! This is a sacred tradition! SACRED!" Leo pumped a fist in the air. "Some of the older Strike Force veterans in the chat might remember how I started right here in the dirt. And now that I am a brilliant, famous, and incredibly handsome celebrity, I have to return to my roots from time to time. You know… to stay humble."
There were currently around twenty thousand people watching his broadcast live, and the chat interface hovering in the corner of his vision immediately exploded with a flood of mocking, good-natured messages. Leo grinned and winked at the feed.
Leo Striker was not the strongest, fastest, or most extraordinary fighter in the Dreamscape. But over the past few years, he had built a massive, fiercely loyal following thanks to his flashy skill, his boisterous personality, and his constant interaction with his audience.
He was so popular, in fact, that thousands of younger Awakened had become entirely enamored with the specific battle style he and his duelist buddies practiced.
As a result, the Roaring Lion Strike had become an absolute epidemic among amateur duelists. His old mentor in the waking world was now flooded with a deluge of new pupils begging to learn it, a fact that genuinely warmed Leo's heart.
Leo spent most of his week participating in top-tier, highly competitive duels in the professional arenas. But on Mondays, he liked to visit a public lobby, chat with fans, beat up a few amateurs, and provide them with friendly pointers. It was good content, and good PR.
Looking around the Colosseum, Leo noticed a suspiciously quiet gathering of fighters a dozen meters away. He headed over, the whispers of the crowd picking up in volume.
"Hey… isn't that Leo Striker?!"
"No way… wait! It's him! I recognize the Azure armor!"
"Leo! Love you, man! Strike Force Roar!"
A friendly, practiced smile appeared on Leo's face. He waved at a few fans as he parted the crowd, his eyes landing on the lone figure standing in the empty space in the center.
Woah, Leo thought, coming to a halt. This dude has an aesthetic.
The man standing in the middle of the bloodied sand wore a beautiful, terrifying suit of onyx armor that radiated a heavy sense of solemn, dark menace. His face was entirely hidden behind a disturbing black mask, with three jagged horns rising from the wood like a corrupted crown. His hair was stark white, and his eyes were just two pools of absolute, impenetrable darkness.
His weapon of choice was a massive, curved odachi forged of lusterless black steel, resting lazily on his shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all.
The stranger looked less like a human duelist and more like a final boss that had accidentally spawned in the tutorial zone.
Leo let out a low, approving whistle. 'Is he a rival broadcaster? I don't recognize those memories at all.'
He quickly pulled up the system UI and checked the stats floating above the demonic warrior's head.
[Mongrel]
[Victories: 27]
[Defeats: 0]
A newbie… but a highly talented one, Leo mused. A perfect win streak? What a rarity down here.
Regardless of his skill, the guy was incredibly photogenic. A duel with him probably wouldn't be very mechanically interesting due to the massive gap in their experience levels, but it would definitely look stunning on the broadcast feed. Leo felt a tiny twinge of guilt about breaking Mongrel's perfect streak, but hey, the kid would get some excellent combat advice in return, and the exposure from fighting a pro would be huge for his profile.
Looking back at his invisible camera, Leo raised a charismatic eyebrow.
"What do you say, Strike Force? Should we go humble that dark, brooding guy over there?"
As the chat flooded with overwhelming approval, Leo unsheathed his blade, stepped into the clearing, and gave Sunny a friendly, shining smile.
"Hey there, friend. That is a very big sword you got there. You sure you even know how to use it?"
Teasing the opponent was a sacred tradition of the Dreamscape broadcast, and Leo was an absolute master at it.
Mongrel shifted slightly, the heavy armor completely silent as he turned to face him. The terrifying wooden mask stared blankly at Leo, causing a completely irrational, ice-cold shiver to run down the pro's spine.
"No," Mongrel said. His voice was utterly flat.
Leo laughed, shaking off the weird chill. "No? You don't know how to use your sword? Well, buddy, would you like me to teach you?"
The demonic warrior just stared at him. He didn't shift his stance. He didn't raise his weapon.
"No," Mongrel repeated.
What is up with this dude? Leo thought, his smile straining slightly. Does he not know any other dialogue options? Come on, man, work with me here! I am trying to make this entertaining!
With a theatrical sigh, Leo stepped forward, dropping into the familiar, highly effective opening stance of the Roaring Lion Strike.
The viewers exploded with hype, and the voice of the Dreamscape announced:
"...Leo Striker has challenged Mongrel!"
***
Goddammit, Sunny thought, staring at the young man in the flashy azure armor. Are you kidding me?
He cursed his luck. Why couldn't this idiot take a hint?!
Even though Sunny couldn't say a single word of truth while wearing Weaver's Mask, he had actively tried to communicate his absolute reluctance to fight this guy by being as boring as possible. It had not worked.
Sunny didn't have anything personal against this new challenger, what did the system call him, Leo?. But there was one massive, glaring problem.
Just from the way the young man had stepped forward and lowered his center of gravity, Sunny could instantly tell that he practiced the exact same damned Roaring Lion battle style that everyone else in this arena seemed to be obsessed with.
And Sunny had absolutely, definitively had enough of that specific sword style for one day. He wasn't learning anything new, and it was cutting into his grocery prep time.
Ugh, Sunny groaned internally.
His time in the pod was limited. He needed to log out. He needed to check on the real world, make sure Cielle hadn't accidentally set the house on fire, and get started on the stir-fry before she woke up and decided to eat an entire jar of candied plums for dinner.
'Whatever. Let's just get this over with quickly.'
Abandoning his self-imposed handicap, Sunny mentally commanded the happy shadow resting on his Autumn Leaf charm to snap back and wrap itself tightly around his own body. His physical strength and speed instantly multiplied, the world around him slowing down. He lowered the Shadow Serpent, dropping the tip to the sand.
His opponent, meanwhile, smiled warmly.
"Alright, friend. Let me teach you the first lesson of the arena. You should always—"
'—wear a helmet into battle, you absolute idiot, 'Sunny finished the thought for him.
Sunny didn't wait. He didn't bother to watch the guy's footwork or study the his blade. He dashed forward, crossing the distance in a fraction of a second. He moved so fast the sand barely registered his footfalls.
Leo's eyes widened in shock, his blade coming up to block, but he was entirely too slow. Sunny effortlessly slapped Leo's parry aside with the flat of the odachi, continued the momentum of the massive swing without losing a single ounce of speed, and drove the black blade cleanly through the center of Leo's unprotected face.
The eloquent young man's body instantly went rigid, hovered for a second, and then disintegrated into a heavy rain of crimson sparks.
Sunny didn't even pause to watch him disappear. He flourished the odachi, cleaning the non-existent blood from the steel, walked back to his original spot, and indifferently rested the heavy sword back on his shoulder.
'I swear to the gods,' Sunny thought, glaring at the stunned, silent crowd around him.' If the next person to step into this ring uses that Lion style... I am going to log out and go chop vegetables.'
***
Leo Striker found himself standing alone in the boundless, pitch-black loading void of the Dreamscape.
His mouth was hanging wide open.
His broadcast chat, which had been moving at a blinding speed just five seconds ago, was currently completely, uncharacteristically silent.
One strike... Leo's brain short-circuited, trying to process the absolute, terrifying violence he had just experienced. 'He killed me in one strike? I didn't even see his arm move!'
He lingered in the void for a few long moments, waiting for his heart rate to slow down. Finally, he turned back to the invisible camera, forcing out an awkward, slightly hysterical smile.
"Well. That was… uh… that was really unexpected, right guys?"
Then, his smile shifted, growing wide, manic, and incredibly sincere.
"That, Strike Force, is what people in the business call finding a diamond in a pile of… well, a pile of dung! Incredible luck! Just absolute, terrifying luck!" Leo laughed, running a slightly trembling hand through his hair. "Oh, man. By the way... please tell me someone clipped that?"