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.'

was not seawater. It was freshwater. If Sunny was so inclined, he could open his mouth and drink as much as he wanted. Not

'Huh.'

the Nightmare, he 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

just happened to stumble upon one. Just as

they had just

maybe it was

In any case...

'Finally!'

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

and turbulent one. Sunny felt himself being pulled by it,

'Back to the surface.'

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

was held safely in

his head broke the surface of the water. Sunny looked around and frowned. Everything was covered in thick fog and suffused with somber twilight. He couldn't see far, and even his shadow sense seemed to be

there was one consolation, it was that the mist seemed to be of a harmless, albeit somewhat mystical, kind. It

should be thankful,

But he did not.

Instead, Sunny felt... numb.

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

time since forever, Sunny suddenly

noticed an unclear shape swaying on the waves some distance away, hidden by the mist. With

a minute later, he reached a large piece of wood resting on the water. The piece of floating wood was flat and irregularly shaped, with jagged edges, like a broken fragment of a ship's hull. Most importantly, it was big enough

of the water, Sunny climbed onto the slightly curved wooden raft and sprawled on

no sky, only

were slow

terribly hot anymore. That desert was a real nightmare. The Nightmare Desert...

inside

an exceedingly bizarre one, at

the Tomb of Ariel. Funnily enough, the cohort had failed to reach the real pyramid in the Dream Realm, but

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

And lastly...

challengers? What the

malfunctioned? There were not even a million Awakened in the

was the strangest

But Sunny...

too tired to think about all

going to have to explore the area first. Then, I'll start searching for the others. We'll

inhaled and

***

few moments later, Sunny was lulled to

Not again!

lurch and almost capsize because of his sudden movement. The remnants of a dire nightmare were already disappearing from his memory,

slightly, then grimaced and rubbed his

a Nightmare. What

consumed by anger, he stood up, clenching his fists,

Curse

voice drowned in