Shadow Slave

Sunny's bed trembled slightly, and he felt the wind blowing across the room. Still mostly asleep, he sighed and tried to pull the blanket higher. However, that damned thing was nowhere to be found.

'Where the hell is it…'

Reluctant to let go of sleep, he blindly searched for the blanket. Instead of finding it, though, Sunny suddenly felt his whole bed careen to the side. Startled, he opened his eyes… and saw nothing but darkness surrounding him.

'What the?! Oh… right.'

He wasn't in his small room in the Sanctuary. He was plummeting into a lightless abyss atop the corpse of a Fallen Devil, instead.

Sunny stared into the darkness for a bit.

Then, he yawned.

'Well. At least I slept well.'

Indeed, he was feeling rather refreshed. Most of his aches had either disappeared or grown milder, and even his wounded mind felt soothed. He felt rested, energized, and much better overall.

The only problem was, he was still falling into the endless void of the Sky Below.

Sunny scratched the back of his head, though about this predicament, then summoned the Endless Spring and drank some water. Then, he concentrated and tried to assess the situation.

was absolutely

surrounded by nothing, nothing had changed while he slept, and there was nothing he could do about

sighed and stared at the treasure chest beneath him. After a while,

about it, this is just next-level pettiness. Not only did I kill this poor bastard, I even

down below, false

about twelve

his, of course, were very rough. But if he assumed them to be correct, that would mean that he had left the Sanctuary six days

had no idea how long it was going to take to reach the thing on the end of the golden String of Fate, but had to assume that it would take at least a week… much longer than

was safely hidden in the luxurious sleeping pod in the basement of his house. The pod would keep it alive for months, so Sunny was not too worried about his physical

Would anyone miss him?

was going to be, they would just assume that he was too lazy to answer their messages and go about their business. They were famous heroes now, after all, with

any reports from him, too. The lookouts in the Sanctuary were not in the habit of keeping a detailed record of who went in and out of the Citadel.

that he was avoiding

the dead treasure chest in boundless darkness, Sunny realized that no one was really going to care that he was

glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a while, then dismissed it

have my coins, at

***

the dead Mimic with his one functioning hand, Sunny summoned the Dark Wing, then cautiously

incredible speed, his body felt pleasantly light. Sunny thought about it for

that the speed of his fall was going to increase exponentially, which

wind — or rather, the air moving past him as he fell through it — it meant that the