Shadow Slave

Judging that he had seen everything he needed to, Sunny rose and left the cafe, then headed home. The happy shadow left the premises of the school, unnoticed, and soon wrapped itself around his body... but not before showing how proud and satisfied it was with its flawless performance.

'Yeah, yeah. You did well.'

On his way back, Sunny was thinking over what he had learned about Rain. His sister seemed to be smart and well-adjusted, and receiving the kind of training most kids in this world could only dream about.

But was it enough?

He did not know. No one could know, really.

After he had returned from the Forgotten Shore, several people told him that they would have never survived in that hell. But their words rang hollow to Sunny, because how would they know? Until a person was thrown into a situation like that, there was no way to tell what would remain of their resolve once everything else had been stripped away.

Brave people broke, while cowardly ones found strength that they had not even known was inside them. Kind people became cruel, while cruel people became lost. Only by looking at a mirror of a nightmare could one truly see their real face.

Before Sunny entered the Forgotten Shore, he had thought himself to be strong. But once there, he had to learn the hard way that his strength was brittle and illusory, that it could shatter under the smallest amount of pressure. To survive, he had to build within himself a new kind of strength, one that could not be broken by anything, or anyone.

That was how he had survived.

How was he supposed to know how Rain would measure against the horrors of the Spell? And how was he supposed to make her chances of surviving its trials better?

Consumed by these thoughts, Sunny returned home and tried to put his mind at ease.

This was not something that he could decide in a hurry, anyway. For now, he had many other things to do.

Activating the Dreamscape pod, Sunny climbed inside and closed his eyes.

'Time to relax a little…'

At least out there in the Dreamscape, things were simple. He just had to fight, learn, and win.

…Granted, his previous visit to the Colosseum had turned out to be a fiasco. But Sunny had high hopes for more elite arenas. He just had to gain enough victories to enter them — about seventy more to gain access to the lower-ranked professional dreams.

Not that hard...

lost all interest in dueling with amateurs, and couldn't wait to meet better opponents who could teach him a

better do

the sand of the Colosseum, Sunny sighed behind the mask and willed the Soul Serpent to assume

'Huh… that's weird.'

some reason, today, much more people wanted to challenge him. A literal crowd of Awakened assembled around Sunny in a span of a minute, staring at him with disturbing intensity. Also, the

with

is your real

at the young woman challenging

"Mongrel."

if struck by a

do you

frowned behind

"I practice no style."

else, but

girl's dead body was already turning into a rain of

have a lot of time. If I want to enter a professional arena

Awakened, Sunny sighed dejectedly and

is gold. Don't waste my

challengers looked at each other with weirdly enlightened expressions, then

better! At least they're an

much faster. Sunny had no plans of copying

to really exert himself, though. They were all Awakened, after all… each and every one of them. Behind the black mask, Sunny was sweating an ocean

could he do? He

forced to command the

dismissed his sword, the challengers assumed that he wasn't going

at them, Sunny gritted his teeth and

"Next!"