Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, then shifted his gaze, moving it to the very end of the field of shimmering runes. Soon, Neph's description appeared before him. He lingered for a few moments, and then read:

…Soul Fragments: [2478/4000].

The corner of his mouth twitched.

'Of course. She is in a hell of her own, after all…'

The gap between them had diminished, but barely. He was still behind… still lacking…

But she was alive, at least. And fighting with all her strength to return.

If Neph refused to give up, then he would have to persevere, too.

With a sigh, Sunny turned away and looked back to his runes, finding the list of his Memories and Echoes. His eyes suddenly gleamed, but then grew dark and slightly despondent.

'What the hell… how is this even possible…'

Among the names of his Memories, dozens of new ones shimmered in the darkness. It seemed that the Spell continued to reward him even while their connection was obstructed by the sorceries of Hope. It sort of made sense… the fact that Sunny had not been able to communicate with the Spell did not mean that it had not continued to watch his every step.

He was inside one of its Nightmares, after all. Which created a swarm of questions on its own…

Sunny silently counted the

there were

had received after slaughtering

make any sense… none at all. What is this,

luck when it came to Echoes had been beyond terrible. He should have

into the darkness for a

that I did not receive an Echo of the Red Priest, though. I

new Memories, slowly reading their names and descriptions. A few were good, and a couple was splendid. The rest, however, were worse than what he already had in his arsenal. Their only use was to feed

as sustenance for the taciturn demon. Instead, Sunny hesitated for a long time, and then dismissed the

possessed a unique weave, one that he would be able to study and experiment with while not fearing to damage or destroy an actually valuable instrument. He would be able to use Weaver's needle now, too, instead of cutting his fingers on the ethereal,

the Covetous Coffer, indifferently dropped them into the dark abyss of the

toward the horizon,

meant that he would have

***

next few days, Sunny traveled southeast, staying in the darkness of the Sky Below during the night, and finding shelter on the undersides of the floating island during the day. He was still weak because of his injuries and had to make frequent stops to rest and sleep, which slowed him down

days, Sunny made several

As it turned out, there were far fewer Nightmare Creatures populating the Kingdom of Hope in this era

easier for him. Of course, there were still some monstrosities hiding in the darkness, but not nearly enough to make it

were not completely devastated yet, and there were plenty of humans living on the levitating islands. It was because of them and their efforts that the population of Nightmare Creatures was so low. It was also the reason why it took Solvane and her zealots a full decade or more to gather enough abominations to hold

to do with the human inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hope. He was still in the territory of the worshippers of War, which made