Shadow Slave

Sunny sighed and glanced into the darkness where the runes had shimmered a few seconds ago.

It would have been nice if the Spell had explained clearly what the function of [The Weave] truly was. However, in its usual manner, it presented him with a riddle in the form of a conversation between two daemons instead.

Sure, he had learned a lot from the description of the Weave — but nothing about the Weave itself.

That, Sunny would have to discover himself. He inhaled deeply.

In front of him, Nephis noticed that the shadow cast by the remains of her father was gone. She would have felt the change that had happened to Sunny, as well — in fact, she might have already read his runes. However, at the moment, she was not in a state to pay attention to the esoteric mysteries of cosmic order.

She was fully focused on Broken Sword, instead.

Reaching forward, she touched the weathered bones softly, and then drew them into her Soul Sea. When the remains of her father disappeared, hidden safely in the depths of her soul, Nephis let out a heavy sigh and glanced up at the cracked sword rising from the stone and the enchanted lantern hanging from its crossguard.

Somewhere far away, on the other side of the ancient city, Saint and the shades of her fallen kin were still slaughtering the last defenders of the city — there were not a lot of abominations left, while the ranks of her taciturn army were swelling. That battle, too, would be over soon.

However, now that the initial daze of having completed the Weave was gone, Sunny felt an eerie, cold feeling settle in his chest.

He was still overcome with terror.

In fact, his fear had become much more overwhelming — almost palpable.

Sunny frowned and directed his focus inward.

‘The Weave... why did that sinister daemon create you? What, exactly, did Weaver want to bequeath to their epigone?’

The Weave granted Sunny numerous boons, most of which simply made him stronger and more tenacious — especially the latter. But the same could be said about all Divine Lineages. Each of them comprehensively empowered the descendants of the gods, focusing on one aspect of their being in particular.

So what was left if Sunny disregarded the overall tempering he had undergone due to collecting the Weave?

The answer was quite simple. It was almost comically obvious, in fact.

He was left with the ability to weave.

One way or another, each fragment of Weaver’s lineage enhanced his ability to practice Weaver’s sorcery. Blood Weave granted him the ability to perceive spellweaves, Bone Weave allowed him to interact with them, Flesh Weave increased his finesse when handling essence string... and so on.

There was even the Nightmare Spell, which presented him with an endless supply of Memories and Echoes to study and learn from.

So, it would not be a reach to say that Weaver had wanted their epigone to master weaving.

But why?

Sunny was a powerful sorcerer, but in the grand scheme of things, his unique way of creating enchantments was not fundamentally greater than other schools of sorcery. He was ahead of most human sorcerers, but that was largely due to his personal talent and power, not the uniqueness of his methods as an enchanter. He was not the only weaver in existence anymore, either — Ananke was already mastering it, and the rest would follow.

So what was so important about weaving that the lineage of the Demon of Fate centered around it?

Sunny remained motionless for a moment, searching for something inside himself, and then held his breath.

‘Is it that?’

The answer he found was frightening in its implications. It was that there was nothing important about weaving in and of itself. Teaching him how to weave enchantments did not matter — what mattered was what learning how to weave prepared him for. Sunny had learned how to weave from the Nightmare Spell. He had mastered the foundations of sorcery by observing how it wove Memories and Echoes... so what was the next step?

The next step was to learn from the being who had created the Nightmare Spell. From Weaver. And to do that, Sunny had to observe what Weaver had woven.

Sunny did, in fact, possess something that the Demon of Fate had created personally. It was Weaver’s Mask — one of the two Divine Memories that Weaver had woven and gifted to the High Priest and the High Priestess of the Nightmare Spell.

That was not what Sunny had to observe, though...

There was another creation of Weaver that he had access to.

It was the Nightmare Spell.

The Nightmare Spell, the inner workings of which all Awakened saw in the brief seconds between conquering a Nightmare and returning into the harsh embrace of reality — the endless black void illuminated by innumerable stars, all connected by rays of silver light into a vast and unfathomable pattern.

That starlit void, as well, was a spellweave... it was the Spellweave.

And by observing it, Sunny could learn what Weaver had wanted him to master.

‘D—damnation...’

It was right in front of him — in front of everyone — this whole time.

An ugly expression settled on Sunny’s face as he felt the cold claws of fear gripping his heart tighten. He had a feeling that he needed to follow this train of thought to its logical conclusion, quick... or something harrowing was going to happen.

It felt like hours had passed since he absorbed Shadow Weave, but in reality, it was just a handful of moments. And as another second passed by, Sunny felt a shiver run down his spine.

‘The Spellweave?’

There was one glaring, fundamental difference between the weave of the Nightmare Spell and the weaves of Memories and Echoes it and Sunny created. It was that Memories were woven out of essence string, while the Nightmare Spell... The Nightmare Spell was woven out of Strings of Fate.

Sunny had already gained the ability to touch the Strings of Fate, and he could even glimpse knowledge from them — however, that ability of his was both rudimentary and perilous.

So, logically, that was what [The Weave] had to have granted him...

A greater capacity to manipulate the Strings of Fate.