Shadow Slave

The weave of a Shard Memory was subtly different from an ordinary one. They possessed some unique qualities, after all, like the ability to remain in existence after the owner's death, or the hidden purpose of manifesting the Oath Keys after all seven had been gathered in one place.

Luckily, Sunny possessed two Shard Memories of his own - the Midnight and Moonlight Shards - so he already knew how to find and isolate these sections of the tapestry, which was supposed to make the task of deciphering the rest of it easier.

...In theory.

In practice, the spellweave of a Shard Memory was even more labyrinthine than that of a normal Memory. Sunny had managed to gain a sufficient level of understanding of the Midnight Shard - enough so to apply a part of its enchantment to the Siege Souvenir - but the Moonlight Shard still remained beyond his grasp.

Which was a shame, because the ghostly stiletto possessed one of the most useful enchantments Sunny had ever seen - it was able to appear instantly, without wasting any time manifesting itself from the sparks of essence. If Sunny could master that single enchantment, all Memories he created would gain a lethal edge.

The more powerful a Memory was, the longer it took to manifest. So, as the Awakened reached higher Ranks of power, they had to be more and more strategic about when to summon their Memories.

Considering that he was unable to master the weave of the Moonlight Shard to this day, the Dawn Shard could very well prove to be a similarly tough nut to crack.

As Sunny stared at the vast tapestry of ethereal strings hidden within the band of bright metal, the corner of his eye twitched.

'Yeah...'

This... was not going to be easy.

'But I can do it.'

He was certain of it. Recreating the whole weave was out of the question, but modifying it... armed with the insights he had gained and would gain from Ananke's Mantle, he felt confident in his chances.

It was just going to take a lot of effort, and a lot of time.

'How do I transplant a new nexus without collapsing the whole weave? How do I ensure that superior essence actually produces a superior result? How do I prevent the less resilient sections of the weave from being torn apart by the increased burden on them?'

All these questions required answers... there were many more problems to solve, as well. Sunny had never tried something quite as ambitious as turning a powerful Ascended Memory into a tremendously more powerful Supreme Memory.

One thing was certain - it would require an inhuman level of finesse and precision. It would also require a lot of additional essence strings.

of ingenuity,

daunting, but Sunny did not feel discouraged.

beat patching up sails or drowning in

resting his back against the bending surface of the tall aplustre, he moved the oar a little

seven suns rose from the water, Sunny felt like his head was on

of the graceful vessel, Sunny was holding the Dawn

other four hands danced in the air and weaved strings from his flowing shadow essence. Those were

him, considering his experiences in the Second Nightmare. The most difficult part was actually learning how to manifest sufficiently intricate hands from shadows, but he had mastered that in

he understood that the finesse he would need to alter it was not something a human could achieve. Two hands and ten fingers were simply not enough... and neither were four hands and twenty

two, but six additional arms. Finely controlling eight hands at the same time had turned out too much for his mind, however. Even with the

were crude actions that did not require a lot of finesse. Weaving,

Sunny had to dismiss two shadow arms and be satisfied with

with only six

moment, Nephis emerged from the lower deck, rubbing her face sleepily. She glanced at Sunny and nodded... then

head slightly, sighed, and continued on her way to examine the

delicious food being

He smiled.

breakfast, I

the steering oar, Sunny dismissed the Dawn Shard and went to find

the sacred tree, enjoying the warm sunlight and the refreshing breeze. After a while, she

going to

leaned back, satisfied,

more days... there's

to continue studying Ananke's Mantle, alter the spellweave of Dawn Shard, create Memories for Nightmare

She frowned a little.

will slow you down. Your

He smiled.

I have the Shroud of Graceless Dusk, remember? The same Dusk we are on our way to visit.