Shadow Slave

Sunny dreamt of a black pyramid.

Somber and wreathed in darkness, it rose from a sea of flawlessly white sand like a towering mountain. Its slopes were like vast plains, and its sharp peak was like a spear that pierced the heavens. Outlined against the backdrop of the starlit sky, the pyramid was like a black rift in the fabric of the world.

Its edifice was built from millions of colossal stone blocks. Each block was darker than the darkness itself and perfectly aligned, leaving no gaps between them. And each of them... each...

Sunny felt a cold terror grip his heart.

Each of the stone blocks... was a Seed of Nightmare. There were millions of them, some already in bloom, some still waiting for their turn to blossom. At the base of the pyramid, the Nightmares were shallow and weak. Higher, they were harrowing and unfathomable. And higher still...

The slope of the colossal pyramid was broken and covered in cracks, with many blocks either shattered into dismal dust or missing. Four vast scars were tainting its immaculate surface, as if some unholy beast had torn through the eternal stone with titanic claws.

Above the scars was a narrow capstone.

But Sunny... he was not someone who could gaze upon it.

The moment he did, his soul convulsed in agony, and his consciousness shattered.

The time reversed its flow, but then stuttered and froze.

The time warped and screamed.

The silhouette of the black pyramid exploded into a myriad of lightless shards.

And then, Sunny was no more.

There was the sound of wind whistling in his ears.

He was falling.

Coming to his senses, still disoriented, he sighed.

'Here we go again...'

Before doing anything else, Sunny summoned the Essence Pearl...

The next moment, he hit the water.

'Ha! I just knew this would happen!'

Instead of thrashing wildly, he let his body sink and waited for the breathing Memory to manifest itself. At the same time, Sunny extended his shadow sense outward and tried to understand the nature of his surroundings.

...Water. Nothing but water.

'Well, that's strange. Wasn't I in the desert just a few moments ago?'

They entered the Nightmare through a giant block of black stone that lay between the dunes, half-buried in the sand. Since the Seed was in the desert, the Nightmare was also supposed to take place in the desert... unless the Spell had sent them in a past so distant that the desert itself did not exist yet, hidden at the bottom of a sea.

The thing, though, was that...

'That's... very strange.'

freshwater. If Sunny was so inclined, he could open his mouth and drink as much as he wanted.

'Huh.'

was now sure - the giant block of black stone was, in fact, one of the building blocks of the great pyramid. The unimaginable blow that had left four scars on the surface of the

one. Just as expected, the Prince

maybe they had just gotten terribly

maybe it

In any case...

'Finally!'

itself from sparks of ethereal light, and Sunny could breathe again. He could also see again, not that it was of any use

strong and turbulent one. Sunny

'Back to the surface.'

rose, and followed. This time, Sunny did not have to panic and worry about drowning, since he

Essence Pearl was held safely

Everything was covered in thick fog and suffused

the mist seemed to be of a harmless, albeit somewhat mystical, kind. It

should be

But he did not.

Instead, Sunny felt... numb.

the Battle of the Black Skull. The Third Nightmare was in no way less of an ordeal than the Nightmare Desert,

the first time since forever, Sunny suddenly felt utterly exhausted,

in the water, and eventually noticed an unclear shape swaying on the waves some distance away, hidden by the mist. With nothing better to do, Sunny started

and irregularly shaped, with jagged edges, like a broken fragment of a ship's hull. Most importantly, it was big enough for Sunny to climb on,

climbed onto the

sky,

were slow and

That desert was

was now inside the Third

an exceedingly bizarre one, at

of the Nightmare was the Tomb of Ariel. Funnily enough, the cohort had failed to reach the real pyramid in the Dream Realm, but still ended up brushing against the illusory copy of

happen, so he had no idea where exactly he found himself, and had no hint of what

And lastly...

What the

malfunctioned? There were not even a million Awakened in the

the

But Sunny...

tired to think about all that

I'll start searching for

inhaled

***

Sunny was lulled to sleep by the gentle swaying of

Not again!

with a yell and cursed, feeling his wooden shelter lurch and almost capsize because of his sudden movement. The remnants of a dire nightmare were already disappearing from his memory,

then grimaced and

a

anger, he stood up, clenching his

Curse

voice drowned in the