Shadow Slave

As Sunny and the treasure chest plunged through the skies into the boundless black abyss, pieces of the shattered island pursued them. The Crushing was slowly growing weaker, but it was still strong enough to kill most Awakened.

If not for the power of his shadows, Sunny would have been long dead. And even with it, he was much closer to becoming a corpse than he would have wished to be. His whole body was bruised, bloodied, and in pain.

…Which he could see very clearly, because, in addition to being terribly banged up, Sunny was also currently completely naked.

'What a… glorious sight. Damn it!'

He had dismissed the Puppeteer's Shroud to absorb the shadow essence spent on its summoning, and had none of it left to manifest the armor again. The last drops had been spent to summon the Dark Wing.

As the result, Sunny found himself falling into the Sky Below atop a lop-sided treasure chest while wearing nothing but his pack and the strip of leather holding his broken arm in place. His only hope right now was that neither Master Roan nor Saint Tyris would suddenly appear to save the day and see him in this state.

He would rather plunge into the Tear than live through that embarrassment.

Well… not really.

'I take it back. Both of them can descend from the clouds and carry me away in their arms. I won't mind! No, really!'

But no one came to his rescue. Dodging the heavy slabs of shattered stone and desperately trying to glide through the field of debris, Sunny slowly pushed the chest toward the empty expanse of the Tear and prayed that nothing would damage his fragile cloak.

It was having enough trouble obeying his commands already.

both of them being affected by the Crushing, the enchanted cloak was on the verge of breaking apart. Instead of gliding smoothly away from the falling rocks, Sunny and

not easy. But, somehow, Sunny managed to protect both himself and the Dark Wing for long enough to escape the danger

then, the Crushing had

Sunny grimaced from pain, then let out a relieved sigh. The cool breeze was softly touching his burning face, as well as his... well, everything. All things considered, the fall was not

thought appeared in

you feeling relieved about,

Oh… right.

saw nothing but the swiftly approaching, boundless dark expanse

stretched downward forever, and from which there was no escape.

was where he

***

of the Tear, he had no reason whatsoever to believe that he would survive the fall into the Sky Below, let alone ever be able to return to the Sanctuary and the real world. Most likely, he was

almost literally, was hanging by a

the physical relief of not being pressed down upon by the Crushing. He was still wounded all over

the small things

constantly crushed by an invisible, murderous magical force. Or resting comfortably on a

…Simple stuff like that.

it level in the

worse ways to fall

at the wide sweep of the Tear, trying to burn the memory of the golden string

in the center of the Chained Isles, and was both vast and absolutely empty. Some people believed that the Ivory Tower had once stood in its middle, and was the first island to break free of its chains. Over thousands of years, islands that had bordered it