Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, then shifted slightly, causing the chain of his cage to rattle. Attracted by the sound, Elyas woke up from his restless sleep and stared into the darkness, a tired expression on his young face.

"...Demon? What happened?"

In the next moment, he heard the sound of a heavy body slamming against the iron bars, and then another crash. His partner's cage swung widely, and at the highest point of its swing, a long arm suddenly shot from between the bars, claws scraping against metal as Sunny took hold of the youth's own gibbet.

Elyas flinched.

"Wha... what are you doing?"

Sunny growled, trying to express his intention as best as he could. The young Awakened didn't know how to read the runic language he knew how to write, so this was the only way of communication between them. Luckily, an honest effort to answer truthfully was enough for the Flaw. It didn't punish Sunny for not being able to deliver the truth, as long as he really tried to.

Their cages hung diagonally, connected by his hand. Sunny groaned, straining his muscles to pull them even closer together. Then, staring at the young man's pale face, Sunny took hold of the bars with two more hands, and stretched the fourth one to grab the Awakened by the throat.

Elyas's eyes widened slightly, but he didn't even try to struggle. The youth simply looked at him, no fear written on his gaunt and emaciated, but still childishly soft face. Instead, there was only confusion... and trust.

Sunny sighed.

'What a fool. If I wanted to, I could have snapped his neck right here and now…'

Of course, he had no such intentions. Instead, Sunny brought the youth closer and stared intently at the steel collar wrapped around his neck, studying it. He couldn't really see his own, so this was the next best thing.

Elyas remained motionless for a while, then said:

"I don't know what you are trying to do, Demon, but you better stop it before the priest comes to check on the noise."

right… there were mere seconds left before the Ascended showed up, judging by how long it had taken the solemn giant to appear before. He was always somewhere near, ready to intervene in case

carved inside the collar, and the stream of soul essence running through it…

going to have

***

like a corpse than a living being, he was laying at the bottom of the cage, looking at his hands. Between them, a complicated cradle of black strings was weaved together, forming a strange and hypnotic pattern. Sunny had advanced a lot in his ability to thread shadow strings and loop them between his fingers…

which also meant that they could not interact with the material world. However, they could interact with his flesh, which was why two of his fingers were missing, each sliced away so cleanly that it seemed as though they had never

offered the essence strings any resistance. All that

his fingers were cut and mangled, but still in place. Considering that there were eighteen of them left, he still had more

like a needle, perhaps. Coincidentally, he had one of those in his possession, a needle used by Weaver themself, no less. But

very careful, lest the number of his

another problem,

do. All he had was his memory of the spellweave patterns he had seen before, and a vague feeling of the

master sorcery…

he had studied before had unique enchantments, so he couldn't draw parallels between them and

and dismissed, the ability to repair themselves unless completely destroyed, and

three ubiquitous traits, Sunny could, in theory, determine which parts of the weaves were the exact same across all

single pattern perfectly was a challenge, despite him having a very good memory. Sunny, however, had to recall not only many, but also

had to somehow rebuild the repeating parts of those weaves with nothing but his bare hands and shallow reserves

resolve,

…And also failed.

he had managed to isolate. But as soon as the pattern was complete, it instantly fell apart. No matter how many times he repeated the

the weave didn't hold.

Something was missing.