Shadow Slave

Sunny got comfortable on his criminally soft bed, picked up a few succulent grapes from the tray placed on an intricate table near it, threw one in his mouth… and finally summoned the runes.

'Let's see…'

The first thing he glanced at was the shadow fragments counter. He vaguely remembered receiving what felt like much more than six after slaying the black steed, who had been an Awakened Terror. So, Sunny was hopeful to see a pleasant number…

However, when he did see it, he almost choked on the grape juice to death.

'What… what the Spell?! What?!'

He even rubbed his eyes, thinking that he was seeing things, but no. The counter was the same.

Shadow Fragments: [2823/3000].

Sunny stared at it in disbelief.

'Six hundred… I received almost six hundred fragments for killing that damned horse?'

Absentmindedly, he threw another grape into his mouth, and proceed to almost bite off one of his fingers from the sheer disorientation of it all.

'How is this even possible?!'

He thought about it for a bit, stunned, and then tilted his head a little.

'Could it be…'

One of the advantages, but also inherent drawbacks of Sunny's Aspect was that it operated through shadow fragments instead of the usual soul ones. So, while Sunny didn't need to collect and absorb shards to grow stronger, he also could not use the shards of creatures that he had not personally slain for that purpose.

the accumulated soul fragments after killing others of his own kind, and instead received just one

rather, the world itself — did not consider him a human? He was a divine shadow, after all, and shadows recognized him as one of their own.

Awakened Terror possessing six cores, and with a thousand years of battles and bloodshed behind his

the fragments accumulated by the tenebrous courser throughout his long and grim life, as a normal Awakened would after slaying

certainly

Sunny's eyes ignited.

'That… that is it!'

might have just stumbled on one

possess multiple cores, Sunny had been wary of the eventual toll hunting down enough Nightmare Creatures to create a new one would exert. As a Sleeper, or even an Awakened, he was too small and vulnerable. Any powerful abomination would have been able to snuff

of survival were going to become. However, that also meant that there would be fewer creatures he would be able to hunt down to collect shadow fragments,

now that he knew how much he could gain from destroying true shadow creatures… perhaps, there was

in the bloodsoaked arena of the Red Colosseum, and now these hundreds he gained by slaying the nightmare steed. Neither of these feats had been easy… in fact, both rewards had cost him an unimaginable amount of pain, torment, and damage both mental and physical… but the result

…Almost.

unreachable. But now, just a few months later, Sunny was already near the finish line. This fact was both exciting

still amazing. I survived, did

he had been subjected to in the Nightmare, Sunny stared at the unbelievable number for some time, then shifted his

by accident while seeking the runes describing his Shadows. Before that, he had noticed that the runes

last string describing the enchantments of the onyx armor… the counter of victories tied to the [Prince of the

Now, it read:

Vanquished Foes: [3291/6000].

He blinked.

'Huh…'

Creatures and humans he had killed in the Read Colosseum had not counted toward the requirements of the strange enchantment for a simple reason —

thousand vanquished foes

Sunny frowned.