Shadow Slave

The spar with Morgan left Sunny feeling sore and contemplative. The soreness quickly dissipated thanks to his Ascended physique and the Shroud of Dusk, but the ponderous mood remained.

Some time later, he was sitting in his small office, ignoring the paperwork he had to fill out in favor of idly staring at the wall.

That fight of theirs was not exactly illuminating, but it had provided him with a lot of food for thought.

First of all, Sunny was reminded of what true Legacies represented. Over the years, he had forgotten the feeling of awe and reverence mundane people had toward the distant, powerful Legacy Clans - the austere warrior caste that produced the best and most valiant champions of humanity. That existed solely for battling the Nightmare Spell... or was supposed to, at least.

He couldn't be blamed - Sunny had grown immensely strong himself and had crossed paths with all kinds of powerful creatures, from ancient Saints to Titans. He had even brushed against actual divinities like Weaver, Nether, and Hope. It was not surprising that the fearsome reputation of the Legacies faded a bit in comparison.

But the Legacy Clans, and especially the three Great Clans, were still authorities in terms of personal power and combat prowess. They were in no way inferior to the ancient Awakened of the past, and in fact seemed to be superior in many ways... the most important ways. Legacies - and all modern Awakened by extension - were much harsher, much more extreme, and much better tempered than those from the ancient times.

That was because the Legacy Clans were forged in a much more hellish world. They had risen to resist the Nightmare Spell, and were shaped into a force to be reckoned with by its terrible pressure.

Morgan had reminded Sunny about that.

It was no coincidence that the two most dangerous people he knew - Nephis and Mordret - were products of the Legacy culture. Among the three of them, it was Sunny who was an outlier.

Which brought him to the second avenue of thought... his own power. Sunny would have lied to himself if he said that he wasn't upset about his loss. Even though he understood that a good defeat was much more beneficial as far as his goals were concerned, a small and unreasonable part of his mind still desired to win.

member of a Great Clan. He deeply resented them, after all... being defeated by

swallow it he

of the matter was that she was simply too strong - even the current Sunny, with all his advantages, would find it hard to contend with that level of strength in a direct confrontation. And

regard, she was a dire

remembered what Jet had told him once,

one survives in the Dream Realm

much more powerful than he ever imagined being. But

as a gatekeeper to greater strength. No one could even become a Saint without their permission - unless that person wanted to be

were ways to grow more powerful without achieving

was the duel itself. He slowly replayed it in his mind, considering what he could have done better and

was easier in hindsight - it was achieving the best result in the moment that

his performance, as well as

the wall and thinking back to the

that group of muscles with essence, it

fight, his thoughts inevitably drifted to what could have been

Morgan would have fared against

his mind, replacing himself with a version that was three meters high and possessed four arms. Would Morgan have still held

abomination slayers, after all. Anvil's daughter had been trained to face all kinds of Nightmare Creatures since childhood. A four-armed fiend would not phase her

some other

one form - that of the shadowspawn - because that was what he knew best. But, in theory, he could create the