Shadow Slave

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Sunny dreamt of a black pyramid.

Somber and wreathed in darkness, it rose from a sea of flawlessly white sand like a towering mountain. Its slopes were like vast plains, and its sharp peak was like a spear that pierced the heavens. Outlined against the backdrop of the starlit sky, the pyramid was like a black rift in the fabric of the world.

Its edifice was built from millions of colossal stone blocks. Each block was darker than the darkness itself and perfectly aligned, leaving no gaps between them. And each of them... each...

Sunny felt a cold terror grip his heart.

Each of the stone blocks... was a Seed of Nightmare. There were millions of them, some already in bloom, some still waiting for their turn to blossom. At the base of the pyramid, the Nightmares were shallow and weak. Higher, they were harrowing and unfathomable. And higher still...

The slope of the colossal pyramid was broken and covered in cracks, with many blocks either shattered into dismal dust or missing. Four vast scars were tainting its immaculate surface, as if some unholy beast had torn through the eternal stone with titanic claws.

Above the scars was a narrow capstone.

But Sunny... he was not someone who could gaze upon it.

The moment he did, his soul convulsed in agony, and his consciousness shattered.

The time reversed its flow, but then stuttered and froze.

The time warped and screamed.

The silhouette of the black pyramid exploded into a myriad of lightless shards.

And then, Sunny was no more.

There was the sound of wind whistling in his ears.

He was falling.

Coming to his senses, still disoriented, he sighed.

’Here we go again...’

Before doing anything else, Sunny summoned the Essence Pearl...

The next moment, he hit the water.

’Ha! I just knew this would happen!’

Instead of thrashing wildly, he let his body sink and waited for the breathing Memory to manifest itself. At the same time, Sunny extended his shadow sense outward and tried to understand the nature of his surroundings.

...Water. Nothing but water.

’Well, that’s strange. Wasn’t I in the desert just a few moments ago?’

They entered the Nightmare through a giant block of black stone that lay between the dunes, half-buried in the sand. Since the Seed was in the desert, the Nightmare was also supposed to take place in the desert... unless the Spell had sent them in a past so distant that the desert itself did not exist yet, hidden at the bottom of a sea.

The thing, though, was that...

’That’s... very strange.’

The cool water around him was not seawater. It was freshwater. If Sunny was so inclined, he could open his mouth and drink as much as he wanted. Not that he would, of course.

’Huh.’

One thing was certain. Sunny had already guessed it before, but after witnessing the Tomb of Ariel in the vision at the start of the Nightmare, he was now sure - the giant block of black stone was, in fact, one of the building blocks of the great pyramid. The unimaginable blow that had left four scars on the surface of the daemon’s tomb must have sent quite a few of them flying far away into the desert.

And Mordret had just happened to stumble upon one. Just as expected, the Prince of Nothing had ulterior motives.

Or maybe they had just gotten terribly unlucky.

Or maybe it was fate.

In any case...

’Finally!’

The Essence Pearl finished weaving itself from sparks of ethereal light, and Sunny could breathe again. He could also see again, not that it was of any use - in any direction he looked, there was nothing but clear water.

There was a current, too... a strong and turbulent one. Sunny felt himself being pulled by it, unable to resist.

’Back to the surface.’

Breathing out a little, he watched the direction in which the bubbles rose, and followed. This time, Sunny did not have to panic and worry about drowning, since he had come prepared.

The Essence Pearl was held safely in his mouth.

Some time later, his head broke the surface of the water. Sunny looked around and frowned. Everything was covered in thick fog and suffused with somber twilight. He couldn’t see far, and even his shadow sense seemed to be dulled by the mist.

If there was one consolation, it was that the mist seemed to be of a harmless, albeit somewhat mystical, kind. It was not the harrowing fog of the Hollow Mountains or its like.

’I should be thankful, I guess.’

But he did not.

Instead, Sunny felt... numb.

He had been in a constant state of tension since the start of the Battle of the Black Skull. The Third Nightmare was in no way less of an ordeal than the Nightmare Desert, but for now, at least, Sunny was safe - there were no Nightmare Creatures in the water, and no terrible danger waiting to swallow him alive.

And so, able to relax for the first time since forever, Sunny suddenly felt utterly exhausted, deeply tired, drained of all feelings, and numb.

With a sigh, he slowly spun in the water, and eventually noticed an unclear shape swaying on the waves some distance away, hidden by the mist. With nothing better to do, Sunny started to swim in that direction.

Less than a minute later, he reached a large piece of wood resting on the water. The piece of floating wood was flat and irregularly shaped, with jagged edges, like a broken fragment of a ship’s hull. Most importantly, it was big enough for Sunny to climb on, with plenty of room to spare.

Pulling his tired body out of the water, Sunny climbed onto the slightly curved wooden raft and sprawled on it, looking up.

There was no sky, only swirling mist.

His thoughts were slow and heavy.

’Well... at least it’s not so terribly hot anymore. That desert was a real nightmare. The Nightmare Desert... ah, what a fitting name...’

He was now inside the Third Nightmare.

And an exceedingly bizarre one, at that.

The source of the Nightmare was the Tomb of Ariel. Funnily enough, the cohort had failed to reach the real pyramid in the Dream Realm, but still ended up brushing against the illusory copy of it.

The very beginning of the Nightmare was highly unusual, as well. Sunny had not seen the time flowing in reverse, as it was supposed to happen, so he had no idea where exactly he found himself, and had no hint of what he needed to do to resolve the conflict of the Seed.

And lastly...

’Thirteen million challengers? What the hell was that?’

Had the Spell malfunctioned? There were not even a million Awakened in the whole world, let alone anywhere near the Nightmare Desert.

That was the strangest part.

But Sunny...

He was too tired to think about all that right now.

’I’m going to have to explore the area first. Then, I’ll start searching for the others. We’ll figure something out together.’

With that, he slowly inhaled and closed his eyes.

***

A few moments later, Sunny was lulled to sleep by the gentle swaying of the water.

”No, no! Not again! Please!”

Sunny woke up with a yell and cursed, feeling his wooden shelter lurch and almost capsize because of his sudden movement. The remnants of a dire nightmare were already disappearing from his memory, leaving behind only the bitter taste of madness and despair.

He shivered slightly, then grimaced and rubbed his face.

’What the hell... now I’m having nightmares within a Nightmare. What a great damn start to the day!’

Suddenly consumed by anger, he stood up, clenching his fists, and shouted:

”Curse it! Curse it all!”

His hoarse voice drowned in the mist.

The mist did not look as thick as it had before, but it still veiled the entire world. There was nothing within the reach of his shadow sense except for the endless expanse of flowing water.

”Curse it all...”

Sunny shut his eyes for a moment, then winced and sat back down.

He was in a terrible mood.

’What was even the point of it all?’

He was being pulled by the current... just like he had always been before. For most of his life, Sunny had just gone with the flow, struggling to survive and only reacting to things that threatened him.

Going to Antarctica was perhaps the first real decision he had made for himself. Sure, it might have been a reaction as well... but later, Sunny developed an understanding of what he wanted to achieve.

He had wanted to protect the civilians of the Southern Quadrant and the soldiers of the Evacuation Army. He had wanted to prevent the great clans from messing everything up. The things he had done in East Antarctica were not a reaction - instead, they were the result of an active desire to change the world in the way he saw fit.

That was the first time Sunny had tentatively attempted to bend the world to his will, instead of letting the world press him into the ground.

And for what?

What was the result?

The siege capitals of East Antarctica were, most likely, already destroyed. The Evacuation Army had been wiped out, and the civilians had been slaughtered. There was a desperate hope in his heart that some miracle had happened, saving them all, but Sunny knew that it was a futile dream.

When had there ever been a miracle like that?

No. He failed.

’Ah...’

The world was not so easily bent.

’Damn it!’

Sunny stared into the mist with resentment.

And then, he heard a voice:

”Done feeling sorry for yourself yet?”

’What the?!’

With a start, Sunny flinched away from the source of the voice. Falling on the wet surface of the wooden raft, he crawled back and looked up.

There was a slender figure standing above him, with a mocking smile on his face.

It was a young man with black hair, alabaster skin, and a lithe build. He was wearing a simple tunic of beautiful black silk and a pair of dainty silk shoes, looking like a porcelain doll.

His eyes were like two pools of cold darkness.

The young man... was Sunny.

Or rather, it was the Sin of Solace.

However, the spirit of the cursed sword did not look vague and blurry anymore. It looked utterly complete and real...

In fact, it looked slightly more real than Sunny himself.