Sunny stared at the shifting runes floating in the air before him, invisible to all but his own eyes.
The spectral light of the notification painted his face in shades of pale blue and ghostly white, casting long shadows across the desolate ground of the Forgotten Shore.
Name: Sunless.
True Name: Lost from Light.
Rank: Dreamer.
Shadow Core: Dormant.
Shadow Fragments: [508/1000].
He was halfway there. Five hundred and eight fragments of essence, torn from the corpses of Nightmare Creatures and absorbed into his growing power.
The number pulsed in his vision, a silent testament to the four months of brutal warfare that had passed since his confrontation with Nephis in the shadow of the Dark City.
Two months since he had looked the Changing Star in the eye and told her that he was no hero—just a selfish man willing to become a demon to see his brother again.
Two months of killing.
Sunny dismissed the runes with a thought and rolled his shoulders, feeling the familiar weight of the Midnight Shard on his hands.
The tachi had tasted much blood lately. Too much, perhaps. But he had stopped counting the dead weeks ago. In the Dream Realm, morality was a luxury reserved for the strong, and Sunny intended to survive.
He closed his eyes and let his consciousness sink into the darkness beneath his feet.
His shadow stirred, responding to his will like an extension of his own nerves. Through it, he observed the campsite.
Effie was sharpening her spear by the fire, her movements economical and precise.
Kai sat nearby, basking in the warmth of the campfire. His shadow was slender, elegant, twitching with nervous energy.
Sunny traced the lines of it, understanding the archer's impatience.
Caster stood at the perimeter, ever the sentinel. His shadow was rigid, disciplined, shaped by Legacy training. He would hold the line, never retreating, never compromising. Valuable, but inflexible.
And Nephis...
Sunny's awareness hesitated at the edge of her shadow. It was unlike the others. Where their shadows were passive reflections, hers seemed to burn with an inner light, white flames licking at the edges of the darkness.
Even now, sitting still as stone while she cleaned her sword, her shadow moved with a restlessness that bordered on violent.
She was a wildfire contained in human skin, and Sunny knew that one day soon, that fire would either forge something magnificent or burn them all to ash.
He had been observing them for months now, ever since the dream.
The memory of it surfaced unbidden—the black marble hall, the seven pale flames, the young temple slave dancing with her shadows. The Shadow Dance.
The Aspect Legacy that had manifested in his soul after witnessing that ancient memory.
He had spent these two months not merely surviving, but studying. Watching how his companions moved, how their shadows mirrored their intent, how the dance of combat followed patterns as old as violence itself.
He was beginning to understand the rhythm of it. The flow. The way a shoulder dropped before a strike, how a hip pivoted before a kick, the telltale shift of weight that telegraphed a dodge.
He saw it all in the shadows, and he was learning to anticipate. To read the future in the darkness.
"You look like you're plotting murder."
Sunny opened his eyes to find Effie staring at him, the woman's expression curious rather than accuaatory.
"Always," Sunny replied, his voice flat. "It's called survival."
"Well, stop brooding and come warm yourself by the fire. We're discussing important matters."
Sunny rose and walked to the fireside, settling onto a flat stone with the grace of a predator. The heat felt foreign against his skin—he had grown accustomed to the cold of this place, the endless twilight and the salt spray of the dark sea.
But he allowed himself this small comfort, staring into the flames as the others gathered.
They were a ragged bunch now. Weeks of hard travel had stripped away the last vestiges of their former lives.
Only Nephis seemed unchanged, her white armor still pristine despite the blood that had dried in its grooves, her eyes still holding that terrible, distant light.
"We need to talk about what comes after," Kai said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. He plucked at his bowstring, producing a faint, musical twang. "When we get back. If we get back."
"If," Sunny murmured".
"Don't be morbid," Effie grunted, though her eyes were thoughtful. "We'll get back. We're too stubborn to die."
"Then what?" Kai pressed. He looked around the circle, his gaze settling on each of them in turn. "What does everyone want to do? In the real world, I mean. When this is all over and we're... free."
A heavy silence fell over the camp. The question hung in the air, weighted with the implication that they might actually survive this nightmare. That there was a life waiting beyond the Dream Realm.
"I know what I'd do," Kai continued when no one else spoke. He smiled, though it was tinged with embarrassment. "There's this show. Avatar Singer. Ever heard of it?"
Caster raised an eyebrow. "The music competition?"
"Yeah. Singers perform using VR avatars—totally anonymous. The judges vote based purely on talent, not appearance or connections or..." He gestured vaguely at his own face. "Anything else. And only after they win do they reveal themselves."
Effie snorted. "Why would you want to hide that pretty face, Night? It's your best feature."
Kai flushed. "It's not about hiding. It's about being judged for what I can do, not who I am. And when I win..." His eyes grew distant, dreamy. "The reveal would be perfect. The media storm. The fans. I could announce my return to the world in a way that mattered."
"Vanity," Caster said, but there was no heat in it.
"Hope," Kai corrected gently.
"What about you, Effie?"
The huntress didn't hesitate. "Real chicken wings. The kind that come from actual birds, not synthesizers. I'd eat until I couldn't move." She patted her stomach. "Then I'd start preparing for the Second Nightmare.
Everyone stared at her.
"Are you serious?" Cassie asked, her blind eyes somehow conveying skepticism. "After all this, you'd go back in?"
"I have my reasons," Effie said simply. "For me, that's the only choice. Strength is all that matters in the end."
"Family," Cassie said softly, her voice barely audible over the crackling fire. "I would spend time with my parents. That's what I want most. Just... normal days. Meals together. Conversations that aren't about survival."
Caster nodded, his expression solemn. "I agree. Family is paramount. When I return, I will greet my father with pride, knowing I did not let our clan down. Then I will work to elevate our bloodline, to relieve him of his burdens."
"Nephis?" Kai asked, turning to their leader.
Changing Star was silent for a long moment, staring into the fire. When she spoke, her voice was quiet, almost fragile. "I would visit my mother."
"I thought she was dead," Sunny said.
"Technically." Nephis looked up, her grey eyes reflecting the flames. "She is one of the Hollow. Became Hollow while pregnant with me. So I never met her... just her body."
The silence that followed was heavy with the weight of inherited grief.
"My grandmother taught me to treat her as a corpse," Nephis continued. "But after Grandmother died..." She shrugged. "I found myself confused. I used what money we had left to place her in a care facility. When I return, I want to see her. To sit with her. Even if she can't hear me.
Sunny looked at her, at the cracks in her armor of certainty. He understood now, better than he had two months ago, why she hated the Spell with such consuming fire. It had stolen her mother before she was born, left her to grow up in the company of a soulless shell.
Death was one thing, but the Hollow were a mockery of life—a constant reminder that the Spell did not merely kill, it consumed.
"Your turn, Sunny," Effie said, nudging him with her boot. "What will the great Sunless do when he's back in the real world? Open a school for brooding? Become a professional miser?"
Sunny felt it then—the pressure behind his eyes. The familiar, hated constriction of his chest. His Flaw, stirring to life, reacting to the question like a beast roused from sleep.
Clear Conscience.
He could have lied. Should have lied. A smart man would have said something noble, something about protecting the innocent or fighting the good fight.
Something to inspire confidence, to maintain the image of the ruthless survivor who cared for nothing but victory.
But his Aspect would not let him.
The words poured out, raw and unvarnished, stripped of artifice by the cruel honesty of his curse.
"I want to own a shop," Sunny said. The simplicity of it hung in the air, almost laughable in its mundanity.
"A Memory shop," he continued, his voice sounding strange to his own ears. Small. "In a good district. Real walls. A real roof. I want to buy and sell Echoes and Memories, broker deals between Awakened. I want to become so rich that I never have to dig through the Trash Heap again."
He took a breath, feeling the weight of their stares pressing down on him like physical force. But he couldn't stop. The truth demanded exit.
"And I want to take care of my little brother," Sunny said.
The fire seemed to quiet. Even the wind stilled.
"I want to buy him a house. A real house, not some government allocation that can be taken away. I want to fill his room with books—actual paper books, not data chips. Warm clothes that fit properly. Food that doesn't come from a synthesizer. I want to pay for tutors, for combat training, for whatever he needs. I want him to wake up every morning knowing he doesn't have to fight to survive. That he can just... live. Without worrying. Without being afraid."
Sunny looked down at his hands, at the scars that crisscrossed his palms like a roadmap of suffering.
"He's all I have," he whispered.
"He's the only reason I'm here. And I want to give him everything."
The silence that followed was absolute. Even the flames seemed to hush, crackling softly in the hearth like a held breath.
Then Kai let out a long, low whistle. "Damn, Sunny. That's... that's actually really sweet."
"You have a brother?" Effie asked, her predatory grin softening into something almost gentle. "You never mentioned."
"I don't talk about him," Sunny said, pulling his mask of indifference back into place with desperate fingers. "He's not... this isn't sentiment. It's just a goal. A practical goal."
"For him," Sunny corrected. He met their eyes, defiant.
"Everything else is just means to an end. The shop, the money, the power—it's all so he never has to know what it's like to starve. To freeze. To be alone."
Cassie was smiling, her blind eyes seeming to see right through him. "He must be very special."
"He's a gloomy pain in the ass who barely talks and glares at everyone," Sunny said, feeling a reluctant smile tug at his own lips despite himself. "But yeah. He's special."
Nephis turned from the fire. For a long moment, her expression was unreadable—that terrible, calculating mask she wore when deciding whether something was useful or expendable.
Then she nodded, once. A gesture of acknowledgment that carried more weight than any words.
"I understand," she said quietly.
And somehow, Sunny knew that she did.
The journey resumed three hours later, under the cover of the eternal twilight that passed for dawn on the Forgotten Shore.
They moved in silence, each member of the cohort lost in their own thoughts, their own private reckonings with the future Sunny had revealed.
He didn't regret it. Not really. The Flaw had forced his hand, but perhaps it was better this way. Let them know what drove him. Let them understand that Sunless was not a hero, not a martyr, not a savior. He was a weapon aimed at a single target: survival, for himself and for the boy waiting in the real world.
The terrain grew more treacherous as they approached the canyon. The ground sloped sharply downward, black stone giving way to jagged ridges that plunged into the churning darkness of the sea below. The air grew thick with salt and the ozone scent of impending storm.
"The bridge is gone," Cassie said, her voice tight with strain. She pressed her fingers to her temples, her seer's gift struggling to pierce the veil of possibilities. "Destroyed centuries ago. But... there's another way. A path through the water itself."
"Through the water?" Caster asked skeptically. "The dark sea devours anything that touches it."
"Not anything," Cassie corrected. "There's something coming. Something... big. It walks the bottom of the canyon. I see it in my visions—a stone giant, wandering, searching. If we can reach it, if we can climb onto it..."
"It will carry us across," Nephis finished.
Sunny stared into the depths of the canyon, his Shadow extending into the darkness. And there, moving with ponderous, eternal patience through the lightless water a hundred meters below, he felt it. A massive shape, vaguely humanoid, carved from stone and animated by some ancient, forgotten purpose.
"The colossus," Sunny whispered.
They waited on the cliff edge as the water level began to rise—a tide coming in with supernatural speed, black and hungry. The wind howled, tearing at their clothes, spraying them with freezing saltwater.
"Down," Nephis commanded. "We climb down to the waterline. Now."
The descent was nightmarish. The stone was slick, crumbling in places, threatening to send them tumbling into the abyss. Sunny moved with the others, his shadows extending to grip the rock, anchoring himself and occasionally catching Kai when the archer slipped.
By the time they reached the narrow ledge ten meters above the surging tide, the stone colossus was visible—a headless giant of black granite, walking slowly through the canyon, its shoulders breaching the surface like an island in the dark.
"There!" Effie pointed. "The platform on its neck! That's where we land!"
The colossus drew closer, walking with inexorable slowness, cutting through the black water with its massive chest. The circular platform where its head should have been swayed with each step, slick with spray and algae.
"Jump on my signal," Nephis ordered, white flames flickering to life around her fists. "And hold on. If you fall into that water..."
She didn't need to finish. They all knew. The dark sea did not forgive.
The colossus passed beneath them. Sunny leaped, his shadow lashing out to pull him through the air. He landed hard on the stone platform, rolling to absorb the impact, and immediately extended his shadows to catch the others as they followed.
Effie landed like a cat. Caster hit hard but held his footing. Cassie floated down, with Kai buoying her descent.
Nephis came last, landing in a crouch, her sword drawn.
The stone giant walked on, indifferent to its new passengers. The water rose higher, submerging the colossus's shoulders, then its chest. The platform began to descend toward the waves.
"Hold on!" Sunny shouted.
The cold, salty water crashed over them like a hammer. The world went black.
Sunny clung to the stone with desperate strength. He couldn't see—his eyes were useless in the lightless depths—but his Shadow Sense painted a picture of chaos. Kai was unconscious, floating free, saved only by the golden rope that bound him to Cassie. The blind girl held both their weights, her fingers white-knuckled on a crack in the stone. Effie and Caster were pinned by the pressure, struggling to breathe.
And Nephis...
She was burning. Even underwater, her white flames flickered, illuminating the nightmare around them in strobes of ghostly light.
Sunny's lungs began to burn. His chest spasmed, demanding air that wasn't there. He counted the seconds, waiting for the colossus to climb, to rise, to break the surface.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
Just as his vision began to darken, the pressure suddenly increased tenfold. The colossus was climbing, hauling itself up the canyon wall with devastating force. The platform lurched, slamming Sunny into the stone, and then—
Air.
They burst from the water with a sound like thunder, the colossus throwing itself upward, landing on the far shore of the canyon with an impact that shattered stone.
Sunny gasped, dragging oxygen into his screaming lungs. He crawled to Kai, checking the archer's pulse. Weak, but steady. The golden rope had saved his life.
"Everyone accounted for?" Nephis demanded, water streaming from her armor.
"Here," Effie groaned.
"Present," Caster coughed.
"Cassie?"
The seer was pulling Kai to safety, her small frame trembling with exhaustion. "We're here. But..."
She turned her head, her blind eyes staring at the dark water dripping from the platform's edge.
"Sunny," she whispered. "What is it?"
Sunny followed her gaze, his Shadow Sense extending downward. And he felt it—a presence, clinging to the underside of the colossus. Something had ridden up with them from the depths.
Something hungry.
Sunny's hand went to the Midnight Shard. His voice was dreadfully grim as he spoke the words that would shatter their brief moment of relief:
"...We have a passenger."
Time Skip:
They ran.
When they finally stopped, collapsing against the cave walls, Sunny took stock of their situation. They were deep underground, in a network of tunnels that seemed to predate the Spell itself. The air was stale, thick with dust and the scent of ancient decay.
"The colossus," Effie panted. "What was that thing?"
"A guardian," Cassie said, her voice hollow. "Or a prisoner. The Forgotten Shore is full of them."
"We're close," Nephis said, consulting a mental map. "The First Bright Lord's cohort came this way. They were searching for something in the mountains beyond—the Unassailable Mountains."
They rested briefly, then pressed on. The tunnels led upward, emerging at the base of a mountain range that stabbed into the bruised sky like broken teeth. The Unassailable Mountains. But between them and the peaks lay the Death Zone—a stretch of land shrouded in silver mist that moved with unnatural sentience.
The Devouring Mist.
"We can't go around," Cassie said, her voice trembling. "The mist covers everything. It... it eats memories. Thoughts. People who enter forget who they are, forget how to walk, forget how to breathe."
"Then we don't breathe," Sunny said.
He stepped forward, his shadow stepping inside the white mist.
"I can guide us," Sunny said. "My shadow can map the safe paths. The mist is thin in some places, concentrated in others. If we move quickly, stay close, and trust my directions..."
"You'll get us killed," Caster said flatly.
"Stay here, then," Sunny snapped, his patience worn thin by exhaustion and the constant, gnawing worry for Megumi. Every day in this place was another day his brother waited alone, another day of uncertainty. "Rot in the cave. I'm going."
He walked into the mist.
The others followed.
It was worse than he had imagined. The mist didn't just obscure vision—it pressed against his mind, whispering lies. You are no one. You have no name. There is no one waiting for you. There is no brother. Give up. Lie down. Sleep.
Sunny gritted his teeth, focusing on the image of Megumi's face—those dark, serious eyes, the way he stood so still, like a shadow given form. He held that image like a shield against the mist's erasure.
"Left," he commanded, his voice sounding distant even to himself. "Three steps. Now forward. Run."
They ran through the fog of forgetting. Kai stumbled, his eyes closed, forgetting why he was running. Sunny grabbed him.
A lonely shadow was there. Lost and forgotten. It was most probably one of the members of the first lords cohort.
Sunny embraced the lost shadow in his soul sea, ending it's nightmare.
They soon emerged from the other side gasping, clutching at their heads, their memories intact but frayed at the edges. Before them, on a ledge high above the death zone, lay the corpse of the First Bright Lord's.
At the center sat the First Lord himself, a skeleton in rags with a crow a top it's head.
The Dawn Shard.
Nephis took it reverently.
"We have it," she said, her voice filled with wonder. "We actually have it."
"Good," Sunny said, checking the surroundings with his shadow. "Because getting back is going to be harder."
The truth about the Shard Memories came to Sunny in the darkness of the Hollow Mountains. They were not merely rewards for slaying powerful Nightmare Creatures, he realized, but tied to something far more specific: each headless statue possessed a Nightmare Champion, bound to it by invisible bonds. Defeat the champion after touching the statue, and the Memory would summon itself from oblivion.
"Keep it, if you want," Nephis said when Sunny questioned what would happen if he—not her—claimed the next Shard. Her indifference made him uneasy. She was either certain that the Shards would find their way to her regardless, or she knew something he didn't.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Sunny said, shaking off his unease. "You didn't really expect any of us to stay behind while others fight, right? Let's go and hunt this monster."
They found the guardian in a vast obsidian cavern, large enough to swallow the entire Bright Castle. In its center stood a massive pillar of dark stone, an unfinished statue carved from it—a armored giant straining to free himself from the rock, his head already missing. And at its base, waiting in the black sand, crouched the Nightmare Champion: a Spire Messenger, pale as a corpse, with six limbs and a jagged black beak that could pierce steel.
"Messenger!" Sunny yelled as the abomination lunged.
The battle was savage. Even empowered by the Crown of Dawn, the cohort was outmatched. Effie's shield cracked under the beast's beak, then shattered entirely, her arm breaking with it. The Stone Saint fought with berserker fury, abandoning defense to inflict bleeding wounds. Kai's blood-drinking arrows pierced the creature's wings, and Nephis's incandescent sword bit into its pale flesh.
Sunny fought with calculated desperation. Using the Dark Wing and Prowling Thorn, he turned his own momentum into a cannonball strike, crippling one of the Messenger's wings. Then, while the creature shrieked in fury, he ran.
"Damn! Faster!"
He wasn't fleeing—he was racing to the statue. Until someone touched the stone and dealt the killing blow, the creature would never truly die. But as Sunny reached the pillar, Caster appeared in a blur of motion, already bloodied, a strange hourglass amulet at his throat. The Legacy slammed his palm against the stone, gave Sunny a dark look, and blurred back into combat.
Sunny crashed into the pillar a second later. That counted as touching it, he thought desperately. Had to.
He turned back to the melee. The Messenger was hemorrhaging from dozens of wounds now, covered in dark blood, but still lethal. Sunny commanded his shadow to flow onto the Midnight Shard, stacking the augmentations of the Dawn Shard and the Blood Blossom's bloodlust into one devastating strike.
Launching himself forward, he slid beneath the massive creature and thrust upward.
The tachi bit deep, gutting the abomination. Entrails spilled onto the black sand. But the Messenger didn't die—it only grew more ferocious. As it fell, its corvine eye locked onto Sunny, and the terrible beak shot forward to impale him.
'Too risky.'
Changing Star stepped between them. Her sword lashed out, deflecting the beak slightly, but not enough. The weapon pierced her shoulder, nearly severing her arm, and threw her aside in a rain of blood.
Time slowed. Caster was seconds away from finishing the creature, his sword glowing with ghostly green light.
But Sunny was closer. The Prowling Thorn flashed through the air and sank into the Messenger's eye, penetrating deep into its brain. He pulled the string, wreaking havoc inside the skull. The beast convulsed, its eyes glazing over, and crashed dead onto the sand.
[You have slain a Fallen Monster, Cursed Herald.]
[...You have received a Memory.]
The cohort lay scattered and broken. Effie's arm was shattered, bones piercing skin. Caster bled from four deep gashes. Kai hovered on the edge of unconsciousness. Nephis's arm hung by threads of flesh.
Only Sunny and Cassie remained whole.
Lying on the sand, Effie laughed weakly. "I was thinking whether we are legendary heroes now or just... fools of legendary proportions."
"You do know how one becomes a mythical hero, right?" Sunny said, moving to help the others. "It's really easy, you just have to do something outlandish and then die. The death part is the key, actually."
He reached Nephis, who was trying to sit up despite her ruined shoulder. "...Are you stupid? Why did you do that?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you get between me and the Messenger? Look at the state you're in."
"I can heal myself, remember?" she said with a shrug. "You can't."
"I also remember that my armor is two whole tiers above yours. Chances are, I wouldn't be even wounded that terribly."
She was silent for a long moment, then said simply, "...Too risky."
Sunny laughed in disbelief. "Gods! I just don't get you. You are so morbidly cunning sometimes, but other times, you are so stupidly naive. It doesn't make any sense."
Changing Star stared at him, her expression flat. "Right back at you."
Three months later, a group of six battered humans appeared from the sea of crimson coral and approached a magnificent white arch. Moving with the precision of experienced predators, they swiftly slaughtered a few transient creatures that hid in the deep shadow cast by the ancient structure, stripped them down for meat, and swiftly climbed up.
Against all odds, the cohort had survived the journey back to the Dark City.
…If only barely.
Looking north from the top of the marble arch, Sunny saw the distant grey wall. His gaze lingered on it, full of exhaustion, triumph, and dark apprehension.
Finally, they had returned.
The past three months had been an endless bloody nightmare, with countless horrors and battles leaving their marks on him. And yet, they had also been an anvil against which he was tested, tempered, and made stronger as the result.
Sunny didn't have a mirror, but was sure that his appearance changed a lot. He could tell just by looking at other members of the cohort.
Changing Star's white armor was now covered by numerous scratches and tears that even the restorative effect of the Soul Sea couldn't heal. Her silver hair was longer, reaching to the middle of her back. The ivory face of their leader had grown thin, with dark circles visible under her striking, burning grey eyes.
Caster changed even more. The neat and dignified young scion was nowhere to be seen: instead, a man with disheveled hair and a short scruffy beard stood in his place, his face dark and grim. Sometimes, Sunny thought that he could even see a grey hair or two in his luscious mane.
Kai was still beautiful and elegant, but most of his charm was hidden under layers and layers of dirt, dust, and dried blood. The stylish armor he had worn was now long gone, destroyed in one of the vicious battles they had fought, and replaced by a rather unflattering garment that seemed to be woven out of bluish seaweed.
The archer also wielded a new bow, this one long a powerful, fashioned out of two curved horns that had belonged to a creature that Sunny would rather not think about. Suffice it to say, this Memory was of the fifth tier and truly deadly.
Effie was much the same, except for the fact that she had become even leaner, her robust musculature not covered even by a gram of fat. The huntress wielded two Shard Memories, both responsible for sending dozens upon dozens of Nightmare Creature to their deaths. Her archaic bronze armor was dented all over, but somehow still held together
Cassie was the youngest of them, so the changes that had happened to her were perhaps the most pronounced. By now, she had lost most of her childish softness and had turned into a beautiful young woman that looked to be on the cusp of adulthood. She had three Echoes tied to her core now, one given to her by Nephis, the other one by Kai.
With the help of her Echoes and the Dark Wing, Cassie was now able to move and participate in battles almost as if she was not blind.
…Almost.
And then there was Sunny himself. He was perhaps even more beaten and battered than the rest of them, the Puppeteer's Shroud almost coming apart at the seams. His hair was long, messy, and in desperate need of a good wash.
Sadly, his skin was still as pale as that of a corpse. He was also unable to grow even a bit of scruff, let alone a real beard.
But, oh well… why care about the little things?
Sunny fought like a demon. He was getting more accustomed to Shadow Dance, becoming something fluid and terrible. He moved through the darkness like a ghost, striking from impossible angles, using his shadow to fight blindly. He was no longer the scrawny outskirts rat who had entered the Dream Realm. He was Sunless, Lost from Light, and he was ruthless.
When a pack of Carapace Scavengers ambushed them near the Dark City outskirts, Sunny didn't hesitate. He slipped into their midst, his Midnight Shard drinking blood. He felt no pity, no remorse. Only the cold calculation of survival.
And through it all, he thought of Megumi. Every kill, every step closer to home, was for him.
Summoning the runes, Sunny found a particular cluster and glanced at it.
The runes shimmered in the twilight of the approaching night.
Shadow Fragments: [988/1000].
A dark smile appeared on his lips.
More. Just a bit more...
Two days after their departure, Sunny's cohort returned to the Dark City—unmolested by Gunlaug's forces, who seemed content to wait for them to come to him instead. They scaled the grey wall at evening and spent the night in a tower, just as Sunny, Nephis, and Cassie had done long ago.
The ruined streets felt strangely like home. After months in the Labyrinth, the monotone colors of dark stone and crimson moss seemed almost comforting. Sunny caught himself feeling sentimental about this "cursed, ancient prison" and thought: "What weird creatures we humans are. Truly, there is nothing we can't get used to."
Effie, who had survived years on these streets, had once called the Dark City "a paradise... the only kind that humans deserved." Sunny disagreed. He believed humans weren't meant for paradise—if they found one, they'd turn it into hell. Just as the trapped humans of the Forgotten Shore were doing now.
They reached the ruined cathedral where the Black Knight waited. Sunny had spent two days teaching his cohort everything about the devil's fighting style. Before they entered, he turned to them with a grim expression:
"...Remember — I must be the one to deal the final blow. It is very important to me."
Kai sighed, looking troubled. "Why are you so obsessed with killing this devil, Sunny? Won't it be better to leave that creature be? I just don't understand this whole endeavor."
Sunny smiled darkly. "Have you ever been gutted, Kai? And I don't mean emotionally. I mean literally, with a sharp piece of metal?"
Kai shivered. "Uh… no. Were you?"
The smile vanished from Sunny's face. "Yes. I was. That bastard over there cut me open with his big sharp sword and left me bleeding to death in a ditch. So… it's only fair that I do something similar to him, is it not? I don't know how it works with you citizen folks, but out in the outskirts, you don't let things like that go. Simple as that."
When Kai asked how he survived, Sunny turned away. "A combination of good Attributes and powerful Memories. That's how I survived. Well… most of me did."
He shook off the memories. "Enough talk. You all know the plan… so let's get it over with."
Inside the tenebrous cathedral, darkness reigned—until Nephis raised her sword and a wave of brilliant white light tore through the shadows. There, revealed before them, stood the Black Knight, his greatsword already falling like "a vertical tear in reality."
Effie met the blow with the Dusk Shard. The shield held. The floor beneath her did not.
The devil turned with terrifying speed toward Nephis, but a boulder the size of a human crashed into him. Through the dust walked the Stone Saint, ruby flames burning behind her visor, striking her sword against her shield in challenge.
There was something eerily similar between the two armored titans—yet where the Stone Saint's stonelike armor was a masterpiece, the Black Knight seemed a crude imposter. And despite being vastly outmatched in power, the Saint regarded the devil with nothing but contempt.
The battle erupted. Caster struck the greatsword with his jian, slowing it just enough for the Stone Saint to close the distance and strike upward at the pommel, then bulldoze into the devil's abdomen with her shoulder—cracking her own pauldron in the process. The opening allowed Nephis to drive her flame-wreathed sword deep into the Black Knight's breastplate.
For a moment, victory seemed possible.
Then the Black Knight simply didn't care. He swiped his sword down, throwing Nephis to the ground, backhanded the Stone Saint into the air, and turned on Nephis again.
"Plan C!" Sunny screamed.
Plan C was simple: Sunny had predicted the devil would prioritize killing Nephis above all others, since her light was the perfect counter to his darkness. What better bait than the perfect counter?
As the Black Knight pursued Nephis with terrifying speed, Sunny and Caster fought to slow him. They stuck to the devil like glue, using his own massive sword's unwieldy length against him. Sunny scratched the elbow joint; Caster thrust at the helmet—both barely surviving the counterattacks.
Then Kai's arrow struck true.
A black shaft plunged into the crack of the devil's visor. The Black Knight's head jerked back. And Kai staggered, groaning from backlash—Sunny's suspicion confirmed: there was no flesh beneath the armor, only darkness. The Blood Arrow had nothing to drink.
But the momentary disorientation was enough. Effie slammed the Dusk Shard into the devil's thigh, staggering him. Yet the Black Knight simply brought his fist down on her, caught Caster with his pommel, and turned on Sunny—unstoppable, unyielding, merely annoyed by their efforts.
Nephis lay on the ground, her silver sword out of reach, blood flowing from her mouth. The white flames extinguished, darkness crept back.
"Neph! Run!" Sunny screamed.
White flames ignited in Nephis's eyes. Her breastplate blazed like a furious star, repelling the darkness. She twisted away from the falling guillotine of steel, rolled to her feet...
...and ran.
The Black Knight pursued, faster than any creature his size should be. Sunny ran too, desperate to catch up. Nephis was halfway across the grand hall, the statue of the nameless goddess in sight, when she suddenly stopped, turned, and raised her sword as if for a final, suicidal stand.
Sunny grinned savagely. "That's my girl!" [AN: You mean OUR girl]
She wasn't desperate. She was perfect.
Changing Star danced with death itself, predicting the devil's strikes before they came, moving not by reaction but by understanding—just as she had against Caster in the Academy dojo. She couldn't last. She only needed seconds.
A crack of breaking stone resounded through the cathedral.
The Stone Saint had vanished during the chaos by design. Now she crashed into the base of a damaged pillar—the one Sunny knew was unstable. A net of cracks spread through the massive column. It toppled with majestic slowness, then devastating speed.
The Black Knight turned. He was a second too late.
As Nephis dashed away, countless tons of stone crushed the devil beneath them.
Sunny dove into the dust, savage joy burning in his heart. But the pillar... was floating. The Black Knight stood beneath it, holding the crushing weight on one shoulder, his breastplate fractured to reveal living darkness within, his arm hanging useless, his helmet dented and cracked.
Then he simply threw the pillar into the air.
Sunny barely dove aside as the column crashed down, blocking the hall, cutting off retreat. Not that he planned any.
He attacked alongside the Stone Saint. Even wounded, the devil was terrifying. He shattered marble with every strike, smashed the Saint's visor to reveal her haunting, inhumanly perfect face—flawless as carved granite, utterly devoid of emotion.
Then Nephis rejoined them. Three against one, coordinating perfectly. Nephis struck at the broken arm. The Saint went for the greatsword.
And Sunny did something mad.
He stepped onto the black blade itself and ran up it like a ladder, grabbing the devil's helmet, hanging from his neck. The Moon Shard appeared in his hand—Ascended, enhanced, enough to breach the gap between ghostly stiletto and Fallen steel.
He drove it into the shoulder joint.
Not to kill. To cripple.
With both arms damaged, the Black Knight's speed finally diminished. The Stone Saint pinned his greatsword to the floor with her greave, raised her shield high with both hands, and brought it down on the weakest point of the blade.
A deafening ring.
The greatsword shattered.
With everything well and done, sunny had spent rest of his time productively.
When he says productively, he means he had learned the true history of the forgotten shore. Discovered profane knowledge about demons and unknown beings that he really shouldn't have. And finally acquired a memory of the divine rank.
A truly productive day indeed.
Sunny met his cohort at dawn, finding them calm despite the looming confrontation with the Bright Lord. Only Effie seemed unaffected by the tension, gnawing on a bone as she greeted him with her usual "Hey, doofus."
He approached Nephis, who stood watching the distant silhouette of the Bright Castle. She turned, her eyes catching the dawn light.
"You've made it, Sunny. I am glad."
"Why? You didn't expect me to show up?"
She looked away with a sigh. "Could I not? It's not like I know the future." Then, rare for her, she smiled. "Amusing."
Sunny didn't return it. "So, what's the plan?"
"This time there is no plan," Nephis said. Gunlaug still hunted Effie, and once they entered the settlement, Nephis would be forced to challenge him.
Sunny pressed her on the odds. Her sword was barely Ascended; Gunlaug's armor was Transcended.
"I don't have to break the armor," she said quietly. "I just have to break the man."
He shook his head. "Good luck achieving one without the other."
They walked apart from the others so his shadow could watch for eavesdroppers. Sunny mentioned killing Harper, one of Gunlaug's spies, testing her reaction. Nephis showed only indifferent confusion.
Alone, she stopped and faced him. "It is good that we can speak privately. Actually, I wanted to ask you a favor."
After she defeated Gunlaug, a flood of soul essence would incapacitate her. She wanted Sunny to make sure Caster was nowhere near when that happened.
Sunny stared at her, cold and dark. "Why? What's the deal with you and Caster?"
"It's very simple, really." Her grey eyes were calm and deep. "Caster has been sent here to kill me."
Soon after the news of Nephis and her cohorts arrival spread, Tessai, the hulking leader of the Castle Guard, smashed into the lodge to arrest Effie for murder. When the giant demanded they step aside, Nephis stared back at him, her eyes suddenly blazing with white light. "...Who's going to stop me?" Tessai feigned reluctance but concealed triumph—he had come for her all along.
They marched through the outer settlement, the crowd swelling into a chanting mob demanding judgment. Inside the Bright Castle's throne room, hundreds gathered beneath hanging skulls. Gunlaug sat upon his throne in liquid gold armor, his face hidden behind a polished mirror mask that radiated crushing psychic pressure.
After a mock trial, Gunlaug sentenced Effie to death. She grinned up at him. "Fuck off."
The Bright Lord laughed and raised his hands. "I rest my case."
"I object," Nephis said.
"Object? Her guilt is proven."
"Then you are the one I challenge."
Gunlaug descended from his throne, his armor flowing into a Transcended battle axe. "How audacious! I wonder what gives you the confidence..." He chuckled darkly. "Alright. I accept."
Gunlaug accepted, descending from his throne clad in living gold that flowed like liquid over his body. His face was hidden behind a polished mirror mask that radiated crushing psychic pressure. When Nephis summoned her sword, the Bright Lord formed a battle axe from his own armor—a Transcended weapon that could cut through her Ascended-grade Starlight Legion Armor like paper.
The fight began with Gunlaug exploding forward in a blur of gold. His axe elongated mid-swing, bypassing Nephis's defense and cleaving through her helmet, leaving a cut on her cheek. He followed with a kick that sent her flying across the marble floor. For a moment, the outcome seemed certain.
Then white flames ignited in Nephis's eyes. She wreathed herself in blinding radiance, augmenting her own body with her Aspect for the first time—revealing a versatility Sunny had never seen. Now faster and stronger, she met Gunlaug's onslaught with equal fury. She batted aside his strikes and hammered at his mirror mask, slowly forcing cracks to spiderweb across its golden surface.
When Gunlaug realized he was losing ground, he turned his face directly toward her, amplifying the psychic assault through the reflection. The pressure multiplied, driving Sleepers to their knees and making blood flow from their noses. Nephis staggered, groaning in pain—and Gunlaug drove a dagger through her chest.
"There, there," he said, twisting the blade. "Go die now, stupid girl."
She healed the wound with white flame, but he stabbed her again. And again. As she knelt, bleeding and broken, Gunlaug laughed and raised his axe to end it.
Then Nephis closed her eyes.
She had remembered Sunny's insight: the psychic attack came not from the armor, but from seeing one's reflection in the mirror mask. Blind to the mental assault, she grabbed Gunlaug by the shoulders and smashed the gem of the Crown of Dawn into his face. The mask shattered, revealing a single blue eye wide with shock.
Before he could react, Nephis opened her palm and blew. A cloud of red sand—Blood Flower pollen—enveloped him, seeping through the crack in his helmet.
Gunlaug staggered back, coughing. The parasitic pollen took root in his lungs, and within moments, blood began pouring from beneath his broken mask. He fell to one knee, then rose and stumbled back to his throne, collapsing into it as a red blossom bloomed from his eye socket.
"I... tried," he whispered, blood bubbling in his throat. "In the beginning... I really did..."
The golden armor disintegrated into sparks, revealing a surprisingly young man—no older than twenty-seven—with blood-covered features. The Bright Lord was dead.
As the psychic pressure lifted from the hall, Tessai turned to the Host and spoke three words: "Kill them all."
Chaos erupted.
The first Guard to follow Tessai's order lunged forward, summoning his weapon… and fell to the ground, a heavy kunai suddenly appearing in his eye. No one had noticed Sunny move his hand, letting the Prowling Thorn fly. His eyes were on Nephis while his shadow watched Caster.
When the Bright Lord died, Changing Star swayed and fell to one knee, vulnerable as her body rearranged itself after absorbing a vast amount of soul essence. Tessai gave his order, and Sunny threw his kunai. As someone screamed and the great hall descended into chaos, Caster turned into a blur—only to be tripped by the invisible string of the Prowling Thorn, sending him rolling into Gemma, the leader of the Hunters. The two were immediately entangled in a desperate struggle.
Hundreds of Sleepers clashed. The white marble turned red. But Sunny's attention was already elsewhere.
At the steps of the throne, Harus stared at Gunlaug's dead body, his glassy eyes empty. Then, slowly, dark hatred crept into them. His gaze fell on Nephis.
Sunny moved.
He intercepted the hunchback before Harus could take a single step toward her. They stood in the center of the great hall, surrounded by a storm of violence—yet an invisible circle of emptiness spread around them. Sleepers and Guards alike scrambled away from the two, their instincts screaming at them to avoid the deathly aura emanating from the executioner and the shadow-wrapped figure opposing him. Though the hall rang with screams and steel, the space around them remained clear, as if the very air had grown too sharp to breathe.
Harus remained motionless, looking at him with the same indifferent, bored expression. A hint of anger appeared on Sunny's face.
Taking a subtle step sideways and slightly turning his torso, he said in a casual tone:
"To tell you the truth, Harus, I have killed many monsters. Some of them were Nightmare Creatures, and some were men. I killed a person or two, as well. But I have never done it out of malice. I've never enjoyed it… too much."
"But I will enjoy killing you."
"You embody everything that I despise. The mere fact of your existence offends me. You sicken me, and for that reason alone I am going to end you. You don't deserve to live."
Harus blinked and continued staring at him, motionless. Sunny stopped a few meters away and snarled, frustrated at the lack of response.
"Do you have any idea what I had to do, what I had to sacrifice, how many things I had to let go of to save myself from becoming someone's slave? And here you are... living as one of your own free will… bastard, what gives you the right? Who gave you the idea that you can breathe the same air as I do?!"
The hunchback finally showed a sign that he had heard Sunny. With a slightly irritated expression, he shook his head and said:
"Talk, talk, talk. You talk too much, little worm."
Sunny grinned. A dangerous spark appeared in his eyes:
"Yeah? Well, what are you going to do about it?"
Harus smiled, too.
His smile was cold, unnatural, and frightening.
"Break you. Apart. You will have to die, anyway. All of you will."
Sunny raised his eyebrows.
"Oh, really? Why is that?"
The hunchback shrugged and outstretched his hand. Weaved from the sparks of light, a heavy chain appeared from the air, wrapped around his arm from wrist to elbow. Then, he grimaced and straightened his back as much as his deformity allowed him.
Before, he seemed to be of the same height as Sunny. But now, Harus towered above him almost as much as Tessai had, his twisted figure radiating a sense of vicious, bestial power. As two menacing lights ignited in his pale eyes, he growled:
"Because this is the will of the Lord."
Sunny laughed.
"Lord? The Bright Lord? I don't want to disappoint you, fool, but your lord is dead."
"Alive or dead… it doesn't matter."
Then, darkness swallowed Sunny's vision.
Harus's Aspect Ability—complete blindness. In the past, this had rendered countless victims powerless, unable to see their killer coming. But Sunny didn't falter. Shadow Sense painted the world in perfect clarity; he could see the hunchback's shadow moving, could anticipate the lunge before the muscle even twitched.
Sunny slipped into Shadow Dance.
His body moved with supernatural grace, shadow fragments coursing through his veins. When Harus struck, chain whistling through the air with terrible speed, Sunny was already gone—flowing around the blow like smoke, the Midnight Shard flashing out to bite into the hunchback's shoulder. Blood sprayed across the marble.
Harus staggered back, confusion flickering across his face. "How?"
"I can still see you, worm," Sunny grinned, moving in a blur of shadow steps. "Your Aspect is useless against me."
The fight became a dance of pure dominance. Sunny weaved between Harus's strikes, his form shifting and swirling with the Shadow Dance. He didn't need his eyes; the shadow showed him everything—every twitch of the chain, every shift of weight, every breath. Harus grew desperate, swinging wildly with his tremendous strength, but Sunny was always a step ahead, always striking from the blind spot, always just out of reach.
He moved faster, pushed harder. The Shadow Dance flowed through him like never before—each movement precise, each strike lethal. He was nine hundred shadow fragments strong, but more than that, he understood the dance now, truly understood it. The shadow wasn't just a tool or a cloak; it was an extension of his very being.
As Harus lunged again, roaring with frustration, something clicked within Sunny's soul. The final piece fell into place. He saw the pattern, the ultimate truth of the Shadow Dance—the ability to exist in the space between heartbeats, to strike from the shadows not with muscle, but with pure intent.
He had attained the last part. The utmost limit.
Harus threw his hand forward, the chain flying off his arm to ensnare Sunny—but Sunny didn't dodge. He slipped past the chain, inside Harus's guard, and brought his fist up.
"Hey, bastard," Sunny wheezed, his voice dripping with contempt. "Remember when I said I didn't want to use a trick to kill you?"
Harus grinned, confident in his superiority. "Well… that was a trick."
Sunny's shadow wrapped itself around the Midnight shard. It pierced Harus's temple and sank deep into his brain, killing him on the spot.
The grin froze on the hunchback's lips. His eyes widened, then slowly turned glassy. His grip weakened, and he crumpled to the ground like a broken mannequin.
Sunny stood up, shaking, and looked down at the dead butcher. "Die and go keep your lord company in hell," he spat. "Don't want to doesn't mean I won't, you fool."
Sunny stood over the corpse, drawing ragged breaths, while madness continued to reign mere meters away. The great hall was a charnel house—men and women hacking at each other with wild abandon, blood arcing through the air, the dying screaming beneath the boots of the living.
Yet within a five-meter radius of Sunny and the dead executioner, the floor lay clear and undisturbed. Combatants would surge toward the empty space only to pull up short, their faces draining of color as primal fear gripped their hearts.
They could feel it radiating from Sunny's shadow-wrapped form—a suffocating, predatory hunger that made the hairs on their necks stand rigid. Even Tessai, in the midst of slaughtering a Hunter, hesitated at the edge of that circle, his eyes widening at the sight of Harus's body.
The air itself seemed heavier there, thick with the metallic taste of true death, and not a single soul dared to cross that boundary, as if an invisible barrier of dread held them back.
Sunny took a breath, and then the Spell spoke.
Aspect Legacy: [Shadow Dance].
Shadow Dance Mastery Level: [1/7].
First Relic: [Claim].
Second Relic: Unearned.
Third Relic: Unearned…
Holding his breath, he concentrated on the runes describing the first relic and whispered:
"Claim."
As Sunny watched, the runes glowed brightly for a few seconds, and then changed.
First Relic: Claimed.
And a moment later, the Spell spoke softly into his ear:
[You have received an Aspect Legacy Relic.]
[You have received a Shadow: Soul Serpent.]