Shadow Slave

After the conversation with the disembodied voice of the void — whether it was real or not — Sunny felt different. Not exactly better, but at least not as lost and unmoored as before.

'That would be really ironic if the voice was just a figment of my imagination, wouldn't it?'

The empty void around him didn't seem as empty anymore. Even if it was now full of potential danger, the danger was better than nothing.

…Anything was better than nothing. After four days spent in the endless silence of the dark abyss, Sunny realized just how terrible nothingness was. The human mind was simply not built to withstand it.

In any case, he wasted some time staring at the distant stars, and then got to thinking.

Now that his cores were once again full of essence, he had no tool left to measure time. After considering his options for a while, he summoned the Cruel Sight and activated the [Dark Mirror] enchantment.

Even though he had no enemies to fight in the Sky Below, simply keeping the enchantment active was going to drain his shadow essence. Sunny felt that he could keep it going for about two hours straight.

After his reserve of Essene became approximately half-empty, he dismissed the Cruel Sight and sat cross-legged in the center of the dead devil's lid.

Plummeting through the lightless void, Sunny inhaled deeply and closed his eyes. Then, he concentrated on the flow of essence through his body, feeling it permeate every fiber of his being.

Directing it into the coils of the Soul Serpent, he felt its flow accelerate and widen.

By using the Shadow, he was going to replenish all of the spent essence in about a day. That was going to be his clock from now on.

Sunny exhaled, directed the shadow essence into his left hand, and concentrated it in his thumb, then in his index finger…

Thanks to the Soul Serpent, his control of the essence was better than that of most Awakened. However, it was still rather crude. Sunny innately knew how to enhance his physical attributes by expending it, but wasn't really efficient with how he did it. To him, it was a matter of instinct — he just thought about making his hand stronger, and the essence flowed like a torrent to achieve the desired effect.

That was how all young Awakened used it.

nerve, every bone in their body and only enhance those parts of it that they needed to perform an action. Their expenditure of essence was more akin to

could be able to fight at his peak physical prowess for much

body and soul. He had practiced essence control before, of course, but between the constant need to hunt down Nightmare Creatures and the fact that Soul Serpent served as an effective replacement for months of training, not as much

flow of essence into his right hand, Sunny

'Vacation is over.'

***

passed… or rather, two cycles of spending shadow essence with the help of the Cruel Sight and then waiting for it to regenerate, which

meditating as he controlled the flow of the essence

rationing his food, the feeling of hunger that he had forgotten ever since becoming infected by the Nightmare Spell returned. Even then, his supplies

two meager meals left. After that, Sunny was either going to have to starve, or consider opening the treasure chest again and gnawing on

seemed rather

however, were the shimmering fake stars of the Sky

would have never noticed the subtle change. But after being alerted to their importance and spending a lot of time observing the stars, he had become convinced that the voice — whether it was one of the Lost, a Nightmare Creature pretending to be human, or simply a manifestation of his damaged psyche — had been

drawing closer to the stars burning in the deepest reaches of the

him why,

plummeting through the Sky Below, the voice

food and staring into the darkness, feeling his

curious creature

'Oh, thank god!'

from the Endless Spring to chase it down, and glanced at the empty expanse

the hell have

silent for a bit, then answered

like this is draining for me.

the owner of the pleasant voice from this statement, but then gave up. He had

again, at least tell me what's the deal with these