Shadow Slave

Because of the sudden influx of so many shards, Sunny got disoriented and swayed. His body was subtly rebuilding itself, growing stronger, more powerful… the difference was stark enough for him to feel it with every fiber of his being.

As Awakened absorbed soul shards — or shadow fragments, in his case — the capacity of their cores grew, and their physical capability was slightly enhanced. Usually, it happened at such small increments that the difference was hard to judge, but this time, Sunny had done something pretty preposterous and consumed fourteen hundred shadow fragments all at once.

He wondered if anyone else in history had accomplished the same feat.

'Not… not likely…'

Grabbing the edge of the altar to support himself, he endured the strange and euphoric sensation as best as he could.

How could anyone do such a thing, if — as far as Sunny knew — everyone except Nephis and him were limited to having only one core? They wouldn't even be able to absorb this much…

'Argh…'

Back on the Forgotten Shore, Sunny had gone from having almost no shadow fragments to fully saturating his core at a thousand. In the process, he went from being no different from a mundane human, to the pinnacle of humanly possible, to breaking past those limits.

Becoming an Awakened had elevated him even further above what was considered normal. He was much stronger and faster than any mundane human could ever hope to be, and capable of enhancing his prowess even more with essence, achieving truly superhuman might.

And now, he went through a transformation that was similar in scale to his rise on the Forgotten Shore, becoming so much more powerful. In fact, he was now probably the strongest Awakened both in the waking world and in the Dream Realm, with the exception of those whose Aspects directly enhanced their physique.

And even then, he could still double… even triple his physical ability with the help of the shadows.

'Insane!'

Sunny drew in a deep breath, then silently flexed his muscles, feeling a new strength course through his veins. He felt… incredible. Incredibly strong, incredibly fast, incredibly resilient.

But that wasn't all.

both of his Shadow Cores was also dramatically enhanced, almost doubling in a matter of seconds. Therefore, his reserves of

in the form of a shadow for a bigger amount of time, control his shadows at a

become even more of a

his new and improved physique,

perspective.

stronger, and Sunny had just made

…It felt good.

consumed with triumphant thoughts, his gaze fell on the obsidian

lingered for a while, then cautiously reached with his hand and touched

'Will it work?'

remained on the altar of the Sanctuary for as long as humans lived there. Pretty much every Awakened that had ever set foot into the Citadel

succeeded. The knife seemed to weigh more than the entire island itself, as if it was glued to the altar. No matter how much people tried, no one had ever managed to move it even by

when Sunny used the miraculous coins for the first time, he

he were to place enough coins on the altar, the knife might become detached

Sunny wrapped

'...Here goes nothing?'

he tried

like any knife would, easily sliding off the white stone, which then caused Sunny to

stared at the knife in his hand with

'Crap!'

the entire Sanctuary to suddenly plunge into the Sky Below, or for the Gateway to stop functioning. That's why he wanted to just lift the knife a little, and then place it back down if something had gone awry. Instead, he was

none of his

the obsidian knife had left its usual spot on the altar, the island seemed fine. Everything was just as it had

with visible

good. I wouldn't want to mess things up too bad for everyone here on the

cut from a single piece of black stone, with its blade sharpened and polished. There

also