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 the

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

stared at the treasure chest beneath him. After a

kill this poor bastard, I even went so far as

below, false stars shimmered with

shadow essence had regenerated, Sunny judged that he slept for about twelve hours. A bit

rough. But if he assumed them to be correct, that would

on the end of the golden String of Fate, but had to

in the 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 worried about

Would anyone miss him?

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 and go about their business. They were famous heroes now, after all, with packed schedules

a detailed record of who went in and out of the Citadel. The most anyone was going to think about

she would just think that he was avoiding

chest in boundless darkness, Sunny realized that no one was really going to care

a long look at the beautiful glass bottle in his hand, Sunny remained motionless

I have my coins,

***

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

of the fact that both of them were plummeting down with incredible speed,

of his fall was going to increase exponentially, which meant that at some point

Since he could breathe in the Sky Below and felt the wind — or rather, the air moving past him as he fell through it —