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…'

raised a hand to rub his

"What is that?"

of his wrist, peaking out slightly from

of the training suit provided to him by the staff of the hospital complex. Left naked to the waist, he then looked at himself

'...Huh?!'

alive. The serpent coiled around his arms and his torso, its tail resting just above his right hand,

I have…

serpent almost seemed to move under his skin, two curved fangs threatening to break its

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

the Shadow

his new

listened to his body and soul, trying to feel if something had changed

soon, he did notice a

of the shadow essence through his body had changed. If previously it had circulated naturally, now, it seemed to follow the coils of the serpent,

thing enhance my

of Shadow Dance. After that, he jumped from one shadow to another a few times, expending even

was he able to control the essence better, but it also seemed to be consumed at a slightly slower pace, and restore

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

a very

already understood how important and vital managing essence was for the Awakened —

he got such a marvelous

that the Serpent would only get more powerful in the future, provided he kept it well-fed,

he supposed to feed Memories to a

for a bit, then finally concentrated on the

Shadow: [Soul Serpent].

Shadow Rank: Dormant.

Shadow Class: Monster.

Attributes: [Shadow

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

between Shadow God and death, Sunny lowered

string, the one he had been accustomed to paying the most attention to when it came to Saint, was missing. There was no indication of how many shadow fragments it would take to make the Serpent

Sunny frowned.

to think of

strange Shadow was clearly connected to his soul. Perhaps it wasn't a coincidence that it was a monster — Sunny was a monster himself, after all. So, maybe, the

why was it of the Dormant Rank, while Sunny had already become