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

'Huh.'

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

had just happened to stumble upon one. Just as

maybe they had

it was

In any case...

'Finally!'

and Sunny could breathe again. He could also see again, not that it was of any use - in

one. Sunny

'Back to the surface.'

followed. This time, Sunny did not have

was held safely in

looked around and frowned. Everything was covered in thick fog and suffused with

to be of a harmless, albeit somewhat mystical, kind. It was

should be thankful,

But he did not.

Instead, Sunny felt... numb.

state of tension since the start of the Battle of the Black Skull. The Third Nightmare was in no way less of an ordeal than the Nightmare Desert, but for now, at least, Sunny was safe - there were no Nightmare Creatures in the water, and no

forever, Sunny suddenly

sigh, he slowly spun in the water, and eventually noticed an unclear shape swaying on the waves some distance away,

and irregularly shaped, with jagged edges, like a broken fragment

his tired body out of the water, Sunny climbed onto the slightly curved

was no sky,

were slow

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

was now inside the

bizarre one, at

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

Sunny had not seen the time flowing in reverse, as it was supposed to happen, so he had no idea

And lastly...

challengers? What

Spell malfunctioned? There were not even a million Awakened in the whole world,

the

But Sunny...

tired to think about all that

the area first. Then, I'll start searching for

inhaled and

***

few moments later, Sunny was lulled to sleep by

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, leaving behind only the bitter taste

then grimaced and rubbed

within a Nightmare.

consumed by anger, he stood up, clenching his

Curse

hoarse voice drowned in the