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

had changed while he slept, and there was nothing he

stared at the treasure chest beneath

pettiness. Not only did I kill this poor bastard, I even went so far as to take a nap on

down, down below, false stars shimmered with white

how much of his shadow essence had regenerated, Sunny judged that he slept for about twelve hours. A

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

no idea how long it was going to take to reach the thing on the end of the golden String of

real world, his body 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

Would anyone miss him?

would just assume that he was too

in the habit of keeping a detailed record of who went in and out of the Citadel. The most anyone was going to think about him would be when Cassie arrived from the Night Temple, and

was avoiding her,

the dead treasure chest in boundless darkness, Sunny realized that no one was really going to care that he was gone. So many things had changed, but

his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a while, then dismissed it and

I have my coins, at

***

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

with incredible speed,

did that even make any sense? Yesterday, he had thought that the speed of his fall was going

— or rather, the air moving past him as he fell through it — it meant that the speed of his fall had a limit dictated by the