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

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

this poor bastard, I even went so far as to take a nap on

below, false stars shimmered with white

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

he assumed them to be correct, that would mean that he had left the Sanctuary six

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

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?

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

the Sanctuary were not 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 he wasn't there to help Saint Tyris

would just think that he was avoiding her, as he had

no one was really going to care

remained motionless for a while, then dismissed it and knocked on the lid of the

have my coins,

***

hand, Sunny summoned the Dark Wing, then cautiously climbed onto the side of the big chest and tried to balance it so that the heavy thing

speed, his body felt pleasantly light. Sunny thought

going to increase exponentially, which meant that at some point his body was bound to be simply

air moving past him