Shadow Slave

Sunny blinked.

[You have received a Memory: Drop of Ichor.]

'Wait a moment… wait a moment…'

A Great Devil? He gulped.

Nightmare Creature with four soul cores was called a devil, just one class below the dreaded tyrant. From that detail alone, the evil ancient egg had been potentially more powerful than the Carapace Demon.

However, what shocked him the most was its rank, not class.

The quality of most things having to do with the Nightmare Spell followed a similar hierarchy, from Dormant to Awakened, Ascended, Transcendent, Supreme, Sacred and Divine.

Humans had only ever managed to reach the Transcendent rank. These heroes were known as Saints, each wielding an unimaginable amount of power and leading humanity in its war against the Nightmare Creatures.

The Nightmare Creatures, too, were different from each other in a similar fashion, with seven ranks of power. They were, in order of growing strength: Dormant, Awakened, Fallen, Corrupted, Great, Cursed and Unholy.

A Great Devil, therefore, was a Nightmare Creature with four soul cores, each one of the Great rank. Which were the same in terms of power as a Supreme soul core would have been if a human ever managed to pass the Fourth Nightmare and rise one step above the Saints.

…Sunny had just killed one of the most powerful Nightmare Creatures to ever fall by a human hand. At least as far as he knew. Victories against the Great Devils were rare enough to be of historic importance.

'Uh…'

What a stroke of luck, to find one absolutely defenseless, yet to be fully born and weakened by thousands of years of neglect. Not to mention the fact that he was probably the only human alive to be partially immune to the egg's terrifying life-sucking powers.

'Wait… how many shadow fragments did I get?'

Sunny felt stronger… a lot stronger…

He was used to receiving two fragments for each awakened beast he killed. Thus, it was fair to assume that a Fallen beast would give him four, a Corrupted beast would give him eight, and a Great beast would give him sixteen — forgetting the ridiculousness of the notion that a Sleeper would ever be able to slay a great beast.

Bird's Spawn was not a beast, it was a devil. It had four cores, so… sixty-four

even disregarded the insistent forgetfulness that prevented him from doing

Shadow Fragments: [196/1000].

the number, he was giddy with joy at first.

doesn't make any sense. I had ninety-six fragments before coming to the Ashen Barrow. I received sixty-four just now, that makes it hundred and sixty. Where did the additional thirty-six fragments come from?

how could so much time pass without him noticing? Yes, his memory

some reason. The more he thought about it, the less clear

was I trying to remember? Something about the

minutes later, he massaged his temples and

calculate how many fragments I got from killing that vile egg. It's sixty-four. What is there to think about?

insane amount of shadow fragments he

a Great Devil! A real, actual Supreme Memory of the fourth

'Fantastic!'

the runes once more and looked

Bell], [Puppeteer's Shroud], [Midnight

he concentrated on the

Memory: [Drop of Ichor].

Memory Rank: unknown

Memory Type: unknown

[The loathsome Thieving Bird was hated both by the gods and -unknown-. However, it only cared about shiny things. Enamored by Weaver's beautiful eyes, it stole one of them on a dark, starless night. Impatient, the vile creature looked at its bounty while still in flight. However, when it saw the reflection of -unknown- forever frozen in the depths of Weaver's pupil, it went mad and screamed, dropping the eye

Sunny frowned.

hell was

never heard of a Memory with an unknown rank and type. How was this even possible? Did the Spell really not know or was it simply refusing

words that it failed to translate? He tried to forego the automatic translation and look at the runes themselves, but they were beyond his ability to translate. In fact, he had

very, very

idea what the word "ichor" meant. It simply wasn't in his vocabulary. Maybe if he went to school and got an education like other Sleepers, he

strange Memory. Instantly, golden sparks of light appeared

I supposed to do with

again. Its

a drop of ichor. Do you