Shadow Slave

The runes shimmered in the darkness, surrounded by still silence.

Hypnotized by them, Sunny read greedily:

Shadow: Nightmare.

Shadow Rank: Ascended.

Shadow Class: Terror.

Shadow Fragments: [0/300].

He had known what to expect, but seeing the word "Ascended" still filled him with excitement. At any other time, Sunny would have lingered, enjoying the view of the changed runes, but he was much more interested in something else right now.

His gaze slid lower.

Shadow Description: [This beautiful steed was tamed by the treacherous Lost From Light in the depths of a harrowing dream. The two Shadows battled across countless nightmares, shattering them all apart; neither was willing to give up, so in the end, the nightmares did.

Despite the excitement, memories of his dreadful battle with Nightmare made Sunny shiver.

Shadow Attributes: [Swift], [Dark Destrier], [Dreadlord], [Dreamwalker].

The Attributes were the same as before. His steed was swift, could travel through dreams, and grew stronger when feared or surrounded by shadows. Sunny's gaze finally settled on the string of runes that interested him the most...

Shadow Abilities: [Flowing Shadow], [Mantle of Fear], [Nightmare], [Dream Curse].

His eyes widened slightly.

The first two Abilities had not changed. [Flowing Shadow] allowed Nightmare to move through shadows with stunning speed, as well as become one of them. [Mantle of Fear] was a powerful mental attack that induced terror in those affected by it.

The second two Abilities, though... the runes describing them were different.

'It happened faster than I thought...'

The [Nightmare] Ability shared its name with the black stallion. At this moment, its description read:

it grows, both inside and outside dreams. Dormant nightmares: 287 Awakened nightmares: 252 Ascended nightmares:

Sunny's eyes glinted darkly.

'It's a thousand.'

unlock his Terror Ability, but due to the nature of the carriers of the Nightmare Spell, most of these dreams were also much more powerful than expected -

stallion had even managed to find and defeat six nightmares belonging to Saints... or maybe Corrupted

nightmares added a little

Much more importantly...

been lightless before, were finally

of a thousand nightmares, his Shadow was

wildly beating heart, Sunny concentrated on the newly awakened runes and read

and imprisoning their souls in a labyrinth of nightmares. The souls destroyed within the nightmare maze feed

the runes, suddenly chilled to

"How curious..."

was shaken so much that he uttered

not like the food? It smashed it with a hoof! Uh... I'm sorry to say this, my lord... but you might not know what beasts like to eat. That was a shell ornament, after all. Who would want to eat a piece of shell? You should

then turned his head and stared at Cronos wordlessly. The

'Right. He's still here.'

the Soul Sea, he concentrated fully on the real world

of my steed is... to some other things. He did like the food. It was much more

doubt, but Sunny ignored the youth and

'Maze of nightmares...'

truly an insidious and dreadful Ability, one worthy of a Terror. Sunny could easily imagine the Dream Curse slowly spreading to swallow this entire city... people falling asleep one after another, until there was no one left awake. All of them dying, their souls

also imagine the

maze himself, after all. What would have happened if he had broken down and given up? His soul would have been torn apart by the

measure of control Nightmare had over the dream labyrinth... and the fact that the more his victims were terrified by

of the Dream Curse, of course. After all, Sunny had broken free of it by destroying each and every one of the dreadful dreams. It had not spread to all the Kingdom of Hope, either, because its reach was limited by Nightmare's own strength... as an Awakened Terror, the dreadful steed could only influence one castle and

Ascended Terror, though, that reach would have become greater. Who knew how far the Dream Curse would

not why Sunny felt cold. Why would he? The power of his Shadow was his

by the words the Spell used to

'A lesser dream domain...'

like something he

injury. Awakened used the public arenas for training, but there were private ones established for

lesser dream domain, as well? That would