Shadow Slave

Sunny did not fully understand what the sorcerer meant by saying that the new heart needed time to settle. Physically, he felt fine… great, even. Both of his hearts were beating steadily in his chest, powerful and dependable like relentless machines. However, he had not put them under any strain since the battle with Nightmare, so there was no way of telling how they would behave in a crisis.

Remembering the frightening pain of having his heart give out, Sunny decided to take the immortal's word for it and allow himself to rest.

He needed rest, anyway.

While his body had healed, the mind was not that resilient. Sunny felt that his mental state was not in the best of shapes… however, strangely, it was not as bad as he would have expected.

After the hellish two months he had spent in the Red Colosseum with Elyas, their subsequent escape, and the young man's death, Sunny had beem numb and apathetic for a long time. He had gone through the motions of pursuing a simple goal without much emotion, hiding in the darkness as he traveled across the Kingdom of Hope, too hurt and defeated to feel anything.

Already in a damaged and vulnerable state, he had been then thrust into the harrowing succession of nightmares and forced to experience one hideous torment after another. At this point, Sunny could have broken… but instead, unexpectedly, he had found himself full of rapacious determination.

That determination had banished the suffocating lethargy and allowed him to endure countless nightmares and continue to fight, until there were none left. It was as though the two ghastly experiences clashed and counteracted each other, leaving him in a semblance of a healthy state.

Or maybe it was just the matter of suffering a bitter defeat by Solvane's hand, but then refusing to give up and clawing his way to victory in the battle against Nightmare. That victory, costly as it had been, ignited his tortured spirit despite all the suffering it brought, the same way that the previous defeat had extinguished it.

Well… healthy was a strong word. Perhaps functioning was more suitable.

sometimes made their existence known. And added

two of rest did not sound too bad. Sunny had a feeling that later, there would

restoration, so he politely refused. In the end, he settled in

beautiful, and safe. However, Sunny didn't like to stay inside the room for too long… being surrounded by its

them as the humans of the waking world would have been, especially since they knew that

to remain in a corner of the garden where very few people ever appeared… coincidentally, it was the same place where he used to sell soul shards in the future. His favorite stone, sadly, was usually taken by the leper whose body

couldn't

meters away from the leper, he spared the four-armed monster a short glance, lingered for a few moments, and then said in an

kind of a

not really wishing to engage in a conversation, then reluctantly produced the emerald amulet and

kind of a

a bit of yellow puss to sip from

"...A cripple."

the man, then made a grimace

catch whatever it is that

out

I'm not

tilted his head a little, then shrugged and