Shadow Slave

Eventually, Sunny reached the far side of the island. Diving out of the shadows, he staggered a little and sighed.

His reserves of essence were mostly empty. Luckily, the speed with which he was losing essence was not that great, by now... which meant that many of the risen corpses had already been destroyed by the prisoners of Aletheia's Island.

His journey across the misty forest had been much more swift and uneventful than it would have been otherwise, though, so it was well worth it. Come dusk, his essence would be replenished...

That said, he was going to have to be very careful after reaching the blood lake.

Sunny shook his head and headed forward, with Nightmare following him in the shadows. His steps were fast and silent. He crested a tall hill and jumped over a rock outcropping, then raised a hand without ever slowing down.

Catching a lightning-fast spear, Sunny grunted and slid back a few steps. Then, he walked over to Effie and nonchalantly put the spear into her hand.

"Here. You dropped this."

The huntress stared at him in bewilderment.

"...Doofus?"

He let out a mental sigh.

'Here we go again...'

Sunny patted her on the shoulder and smiled.

"Who else would it be? Yes, it's me. Before you ask... this is not the first time we're having this conversation. Actually, time moves in a circle on this island..."

He gave her a short explanation, going over the strange nature of Aletheia's Island and their plan.

flabbergasted and thoroughly teased by you

a moment,

give him a proper beating at first. But then I remembered that I already

welcomed him back to the waking world with a slap... just like Jet had once welcomed

He sighed dejectedly.

too hard. Something has to have broken in his head for him to get with a gluttonous brute like you... so,

her protruding belly with both

want something to break in

Sunny chuckled.

father of Effie's child. He just said those things to distract her from the fact that her

anyone could pull through the winter solstice in Antarctica, it would

mental command, Nightmare rose from the shadows. At the same time, Sunny summoned the Covetous

any case, there is no time to waste. The others should already be approaching the shrine

at the dark

that I can ride your pony,

terrifying eyes quivered. Sunny was pretty sure he had never seen

'A... a pony?!'

indignant retort and forced out

to ride my

a step to the side, he pointed to the big alloy chest standing on

That's your

for a few moments, then awkwardly climbed on its lid. She

was it about riding your big

countless alloy legs appeared from beneath the large chest, rising it above

Sunny grinned.

Chiffonier. The smoothest ride on

he jumped into the saddle and sent Nightmare into a medium trot. The alloy chest scurried to