Shadow Slave

In the morning, Sunny woke up feeling grim and uneasy. The memory of the frightening dark mirror was still fresh in his mind, making every shadow seem sinister and foreboding. He scowled sullenly.

'What the hell. I'm the Child of Shadows. Why do I have to be afraid of my own domain?'

But then again, darkness and shadow were not the same, even if a lot of people tended to mistake one for another. Shadows were born from the absence of light. In a sense, they were manifestations of emptiness. True darkness, on the other hand… true darkness was its own entity.

In a sense, shadows shared more in common with light than they did with darkness.

'I mean… I guess they do. Do they?'

Philosophical debates with his internal monologue were not the best way to start the day, at least as far as Sunny was concerned. His already sour mood only got worse. With a short sigh, he sat up and stretched his arms, yawning.

"Good morning."

The sound of his voice was almost drowned by the echoing noise of rushing water. With the sun rising, the dark sea was in a hurry to retreat. Sunny was finally able to relax a little.

"Morning."

Nephis had been guarding the camp during the latter part of the night, so she was already awake. As usual, she was meditating with her eyes closed — in the absolute darkness of the night, "watching over" something actually meant listening for suspicious sounds, so keeping one's eyes open was not that useful.

For everyone except Sunny, that is, who had perfect night vision thanks to his Attributes.

Hearing him stand up, Changing Star slowly opened her eyes. A soft afterglow left behind by the dancing white flame could still be seen in their depth, quickly disappearing as her sight adjusted to the twilight of dawn. She looked at Sunny and offered him a polite smile.

In the past two weeks, Nephis had also been training, perhaps even more diligently than him. However, she wasn't trying to improve her swordsmanship.

She was actually trying to learn how to behave like a normal human. As the result, their interactions had become slightly less awkward… for the most part.

Sunny was able to recognize Changing Star's efforts because they were very similar to a phase he himself had gone through many years ago. On several occasions, he had caught her intently observing how Cassie talked and behaved around them. Sometime later, Neph would randomly try to mimic small details of her friend's behavior. The results were… a mixed bag, to say the least.

The first time she tried to greet him with a smile in the morning, Sunny panicked and almost summoned the Azure Blade. However, Nephis was very smart and persistent. Today, her polite smile looked almost natural.

He had no idea why Changing Start decided to work on her social skills, of all things, during their perilous journey through the monster-infested hellscape that was the Forgotten Shore. But he didn't mind.

It was actually rather entertaining to watch!

to better control her Aspect Ability, on the contrary, was not fun at all. They never talked about it, but Sunny knew that every time Nephis

he thought about it, his heart ached. Sunny wasn't used to feeling such things, but he suspected that this was what other people called "compassion". At least it was similar

a lot

Nephis stood up and looked at the beam of light falling through the nearest

"Let's study the surroundings."

land and decide on their next step. Usually, that implied looking for the nearest natural features that were high enough to stay above the surface of the sea and deciding on

day or two of scouting and hunting, followed by moving the camp to

her a

"Alright."

behind to keep an eye

seemingly ran up the wall, kicking herself off at the last moment and propelling her body even higher before grabbing onto a bone protrusion. Relying only on her upper body strength, she

atop the gargantuan spine and then straightened, turning to take a look west. Sunny shook his hands and did the same, expecting to see

they saw

of coral stood grey and misshapen, as though struck by some unknown disease and drained of all life. The stone-like material looked brittle and fragile, ready to crumble to dust at any

could see. Further away, the walls of the labyrinth seemed to have collapsed into a sea of ash-grey sand.

moving through

ground rose, forming a tall hill. The hill was probably the largest they had seen, easily capable of becoming a

grey sand left behind by dead coral, the hill resembled a mountain of ash. That

The bark of the giant tree was as black as the water of the dark sea, while

against the grey sky, the crimson crown of the majestic tree

Sunny gulped.

the hell…

just stared

clear and easily visible even from their position, like a beam of sunlight reflected by a large mirror. A moment later, it was gone, only to appear again after

'A mirror…'

some reason, the bright

time had passed, he addressed

"What do you think?"

Star was deliberating on what to

is the only way

grimaced and

this turn