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.

situation was absolutely

he slept, and there was

stared at the treasure chest beneath him. After

I kill this poor bastard, I even

below, false stars

of his shadow essence had regenerated, Sunny judged that he slept for about twelve hours. A bit longer than usual, but

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

to reach the thing on the end of the golden String of Fate, but had to assume that it would take

in the real world, his body was safely hidden in the luxurious sleeping pod in the basement of his house.

Would anyone miss him?

used to his long ventures into the Dream Realm, and even if none of them had been as long as this one was going to be, they would just assume that he was too lazy to answer their messages

out of the Citadel. The

he was avoiding her, as he had done

in boundless darkness, Sunny realized that no one was really going to care that he was gone. So many things had changed, but even more

the beautiful glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless for a while, then dismissed it and knocked

have my

***

him to the dead Mimic with his one functioning hand, Sunny summoned the Dark Wing, then cautiously climbed onto the side of the big

that both of them were plummeting down with incredible speed,

sense? Yesterday, he had thought that the speed of his fall was going to increase exponentially, which meant that at some point

breathe in the Sky Below and felt the wind — 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