Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, thinking. After a few moments, he unconsciously began to fiddle with the hems of the black mantle's sleeves. The smooth fabric glided across his fingertips, making them tingle a little.

Eventually, his gaze settled on it. Sunny tilted his head.

Abandoning his previous plans, he stood up and took off the mantle instead. Then, he sat back down and laid it across his lap.

'I wonder...'

He doubted that it was a simple piece of clothing. It was the attire of a Nightmare Spell priest, after all, most likely passed down to Ananke from her mother - the original priestess who had entered the Tomb of Ariel with the first wave of Outsiders. The corpse under the cathedral in the Dark City had been wearing the same dark garment.

So, it had to have some secrets.

Sunny hesitated for a few moments. Unlike Weaver's Mask, the black mantle was not a Memory - otherwise, it would have disappeared with Ananke. There were some Memories that persisted after the death of their owners, of course, like the Dawn Shard that Nephis had found on the remains of the First Lord of the Bright Castle.

But the nebulous mantle was not one of those, either. Otherwise, it would have bound itself to Sunny the moment he picked it up.

It seemed to be a perfectly mundane robe, albeit sewn from some mystical material. Nevertheless, he shifted his perception and tried to look within the mantle, just in case.

He was not disappointed.

'Huh?'

There was indeed a spellweave hidden within Ananke's mantle. And it was... a strange one.

'How... odd.'

of ethereal strings with a perplexed

to be made of - a radiant nexus and an intricate tapestry of essence threads.

elegant and vast, but... how could he put it... the weave of the dark mantle was infinitely less labyrinthine than that of every Memory in his

for a few minutes, then leaned back,

'...It's not there!'

- the universal patterns that all Memories shared, and which were the first sorcery he himself had woven. The connection to the soul of the owner, the ability to manifest from and dissipate

Ananke's

blinked a couple

'What...'

fact. Although all the Memories he had seen shared these

More than that, his knowledge of weaving had mostly come from studying

served as an intermediary in the process

both sources were one and the

not the only way of going

though, had been created by someone else. Perhaps by the High Priest of

it was a sorcerous item enchanted through weaving, but not

Sunny scratched his head.

that

The fact seemed so obvious in hindsight, and yet, he had never considered such a possibility before. Mostly because it was really hard for a human mind to think outside a familiar framework. Every Memory Sunny had known was an item enchanted through weaving, and so, he subconsciously assumed that all items enchanted through

to be, like the mantle in

curious detail, but not

a whole arsenal inside your soul alone was a boon any warrior would kill for. Swords that sharpened themselves, suits of