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:

human? I used to be a human once, I

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

then asked

Then what

a few moments, then

"...Lost."

Sunny blinked.

hell

As in lost in the Sky

out a

Not in the

run down his spine, it hesitantly

that I am one of the Lost. My body in the waking world was destroyed, but my soul continues to exist here, in

One of the Lost…

person. Just like there were 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 Dream

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...

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

they certainly were not were disembodied voices coming from

slightly, ready to… do something to

I am able to hear

some time, that answered with

a good

answer, but that

Aren't you going

voice

you descending into the Sky Below? This is

a couple of times, then

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 broke off its chain. So, I had to jump off. And here I

Then, he frowned.

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

a