Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the runes for a while, then slightly tilted his head.

'A Shadow…'

What an unexpected boon.

Usually, a Legacy Relic came in the form of a Memory, or very rarely an Echo. Perhaps there were some other types of Relics out there, but he had never heard of them.

That didn't mean much, though. By now, Sunny was reasonably certain that there were a lot of things that he, as well as the rest of mundane humans, had never heard about. Awakened kept a lot of secrets.

Nevertheless, receiving a Shadow pleasantly surprised him.

Looking up, he saw new runes appearing out of thin air:

Shadows: [Marble Saint], [Soul Serpent].

Sunny hesitated for a few moments, then furtively looked around. The small room was empty and quiet.

Feeling a little bit stupid, Sunny shook his head and summoned his new Shadow to take a good look at it.

A slight breeze moved his hair, and in the next second…

Nothing happened.

'Huh?'

Sunny frowned and looked around the room, then scratched the back of his head.

'What the hell? Where is the damn snake?'

He had hoped to see a giant serpent made out of shadows appear in front of him, with black scales as thick as plate armor and a mouth wide enough to swallow his enemies whole. Or an average-sized snake, at least!

But there was nothing.

He even checked to see if a new shadow joined his two invaluable helpers, but no. Both rested on the floor, one seemingly content, the other bored and in a perpetually bad mood.

'Weird…'

rub his eyes, but froze at

"What is that?"

skin of his wrist, peaking out slightly from beneath

him by the staff of the hospital complex. Left naked to the waist, he then

'...Huh?!'

image of a black serpent was tattooed, so detailed that it almost seemed alive. The serpent coiled around

have… a

of the small room, the serpent almost seemed to move under his skin,

recognized the serpent immediately. Both the nameless temple slave and his mother had a very similar image marking their skin, after

was the

did his new Shadow turn into

trying to feel if something had

soon, he did notice a

his body had changed. If previously it had circulated naturally, now, it seemed to follow the coils of the serpent, moving faster and with more intent, as

Serpent… does that thing

performed several movements of Shadow Dance.

able to control the essence better, but it

existing both on the material and the spiritual plane. As such, it was connected both to his cores

is… a very

an egregious understatement. Sunny had already understood how important and vital managing essence was for the Awakened — any tool

he got such a marvelous one, practically

more powerful in the future, provided he kept it

supposed to feed Memories to

bit, then finally concentrated on the runes

Shadow: [Soul Serpent].

Shadow Rank: Dormant.

Shadow Class: Monster.

[Shadow Guide], [Soul

the end came, Shadow was the last of the gods to be destroyed. Many have resented him for creating

the interesting detail of a connection between Shadow God

the most attention to when it came to Saint, was missing. There was no indication of how many shadow fragments it would take to

Sunny frowned.

think of

soul. Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that it was a monster — Sunny was a monster himself, after all. So, maybe, the Serpent would not evolve its Class like Saint had, by consuming the soul core of a suitable Nightmare Creature. Most likely,

Dormant Rank, while Sunny had already become