Shadow Slave

'Hope… herself…'

Sunny stared at the seven chains, finding new meaning in their cruel visage and the misshapen, torn remnants of the seven rune-inscribed shackles.

So the Sun God's ire had not been quelled by just destroying her kingdom. He had gone a step further, binding the Demon of Hope at the heart of her decimated domain… for how long?

And how had she escaped, in the end?

He tilted his head.

"So the Demon of Hope was chained here?"

Mordret answered with a hint of surprise in his voice:

"...You know of the daemons?"

A crooked smile appeared on Sunny's face.

"I do... a bit. Why wouldn't I? Although truth be told, there's not a lot of information about them, even among the Dream Realm researchers. So… the ruler that you had told me about was one of the daemons? A lesser deity?"

Mordret kept silent for a bit, then said dejectedly:

"Yes. I am not sure that those two words really go together, though. I also don't know what Hope had done to earn the wrath of the Lord of Light. However, I do know that these seven chains are what holding is the Chained Isles from falling into the Sky Below."

Sunny raised his eyebrows.

"What?"

The lost prince sighed.

in fact, there are only seven, and you are looking at their roots... or rather, there were only seven. Each of them had to be broken for

thought for a bit, trying to correct the way he used to think about the Chained

his head, he turned back to the Seed

thing? I guess it contains a Second Nightmare,

Mordret answered succinctly:

"Correct."

into the Second Nightmare alone? Whole cohorts of experienced Awakened routinely perish in their attempts to become Masters. What would my chances of survival be

one survived in the Dream Realm alone. She probably

He scowled.

in the real world if

his voice was almost

a few years, or a decade. It has not matured enough to be able to

Sunny hesitated.

can

did not answer for a while, but then finally

Nightmare directly. The Gate also disrupts the anchors of those near it, so Masters and Saints that

He paused, then added:

why the Nightmare Creatures are entering our world so often. Challenging a Seed before it blooms is much better. In this case, however… I would

from the mass of shimmering darkness, then asked

"Yeah? Why?"

out a

That is why Awakened challenge them as members

kept his ears open, suddenly very

"Unless what?"

remained silent for

an ivory knife. Only those who have shed blood on the altar and received the Memory of

blinked a couple of