Shadow Slave

Sunny shuddered.

The voice he heard… was not his own. It sounded pleasant and calm, and seemed to have come from the darkness of the Sky Below itself.

'...Have I finally lost it?'

His first thought was that he had gone crazy again and was now hearing things.

His second thought was much less comforting…

'Damnation!'

Had he summoned some unholy titan from the depths of the Sky Below, after all?!

Sunny outstretched one hand, ready to manifest the Cruel Sight, but then hesitated.

If the owner of the voice was not a figment of his imagination, but some harrowing being of the void, was it really wise to agitate it? Would the silver blade even do anything against it?

'Calm down. Calm down. Maybe you just imagined the whole thing…'

As if to answer his thoughts, the void laughed softly.

"Ah, my apologies. I seem to have startled you."

Sunny gulped.

The pleasant voice seemed to belong to a young man, but no matter how hard he looked into the darkness, he couldn't see anyone… or anything… nearby.

He was reminded of his first meeting with Kai, only this time... this time, things were much more frightening.

"N—no worries. I just… didn't expect to hear another human's voice here. You, uh… you are a human… right?"

The void was silent for a while, then answered in a neutral tone:

used to be a human

the direction from which the voice was coming. It was just… there, somehow.

tensed, then asked

what are

a few moments,

"...Lost."

Sunny blinked.

the hell does

in lost in

out a

in the

Sunny felt cold shivers run down

of the Lost. My

One of the Lost…

Hollow — people whose souls were destroyed, leaving an empty body behind — there were also the Lost. People whose bodies had somehow died in the real world, leaving their souls stranded in the

that the owner of the voice was one of these lost souls made Sunny relax a little… not that he had any reason to believe that the stranger was telling him the truth. He could

Or something worse...

from what Sunny knew, were just like any other Awakened in the Dream Realm. It was just that they couldn't return to the

were not were disembodied voices coming from

to… do something to protect himself, if need

that I am able to hear your voice, but can't

for some time, that answered with a

a

waited patiently for him to expand on that answer, but that seemed to be it.

Aren't you

voice suddenly

into the Sky Below? This

couple of times,

I am not so much descending into the Sky Below as I am falling into it. I got stuck on an island because of the Crushing, and sadly, that island

Then, he frowned.

place? Why is it dangerous? I haven't seen anything dangerous anywhere in this

a while, then