Shadow Slave

There were hours left until they were going to be taken to the arena again. Sunny stared at the walls of the dungeon intently, as though hoping to glean some secrets from the ancient stones.

But what could he see? They were just old stones. There was nothing interesting on their surface, and neither was there anything interesting beneath it.

After a while, Sunny took a deep breath and sat down again, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible in the narrow cage. Then, he shut down his senses, pushing away the presence of countless abominations surrounding him, the stench of the prison, the pain in his exhausted body… everything that distracted him from thinking.

'What do I know about sorcery?'

That was a daunting question.

Even the word itself was deceptive. Humans of his world used it to describe any Aspect capable of dealing direct damage to the opponents, as opposed to augmenting the Awakened's combat ability — especially those that could do so from range. But that wasn't what Sunny was after.

No, what he was interested in was not the type of abilities that existed within the familiar framework of supernatural powers, but the very means used to create that framework, or at least those that existed outside the realm of Aspects.

That, to him, was true sorcery.

'But there are different kinds of such sorcery, as well… what are the ones that I've witnessed?'

familiar with the best — the spellweave, which he believed to be Weaver's own sorcery. The Spell itself was created from it, as well as all the magical items that the Spell gifted to the Awakened — Memories and Echoes. This was the magic that all humans knew, and most believed to be the only kind there

learned that sorcery was not synonymous with the Spell, and that there were ways

of a much more primitive weave hiding beneath the usual pattern of

notice, but Sunny didn't know which of the daemons had copied which — whether Weaver perfected the sorcery created by their brother, or whether the youngest child of the Unknown had based the method of his craft on the eldest's

these two types of sorcery, it was easy to imagine that all of them involved some kind of a weave. However, that conclusion would

altar of the Sanctuary of Noctis

full of blinding radiance, as if encompassing a boundless ocean of soul essence, with a single String of Fate placed

— and later, the wooden one he had used to kill Solvane — proved that one didn't have to base their magic on

might have been completely unique,

he supposed to search for something that could have looked like

was another type of sorcery that he had encountered. Or rather, several different ones, all united by the

wearing Weaver's mask had been chained within

on the

they had been either

was the spellweave, as well as a version of it used by

one was based on the inscription of runes, and seemed to have been mostly used by humans — here in the Kingdom of Hope and