Shadow Slave

'Gods... oh gods...'

The pain... was exquisite. It was inconceivable.

It was the kind of pain that could kill a person, or at least make the pass out in an instant. Sadly, the latter did not happen, because the pain was not physical.

Instead, its source was Sunny's soul, which was being altered and transformed.

Not in a way it had been changed every time a new core was formed, but rather in a way his blood and bones had been altered in the past.

"Aaargh!"

Sunny hit the lid of the sarcophagus with enough force to split his skin and fell to the ground, the carpet of leaves softening his fall.

'Wh—what... what the hell?! How... is... this possible?!'

He knew what was happening to him. However, he had no idea why it was happening, and how eating the golden fruit from the tree growing above the grave of Oblivion had caused it.

In any case, Sunny had no choice but to endure.

He wasn't shy about screaming and howling in pain, though, especially because there was no one here to witness his sorry state.

"D—damn it! Damn it! D...damn it all!"

After an eternity — this time, quite a literal one, considering that time did not exist in the Estuary — Sunny found himself laying on the ground, staring blindly at the beautiful crown of the mystical tree. His body felt weak, and his face was wet with tears.

'...Curses.'

That one was definitely going into the collection of the most horrendous agonies he had experienced. What place? Probably not the first, which was still held by activating the [Where is my eye?] enchantment of Weaver's Mask. But it was a confident second.

Sunny groaned, and then shakily rose to his feet. Then, he took inventory of his soul.

It felt... different, somehow. And much, much more potent. Already knowing what he would see, Sunny summoned the runes.

'It can't be... can it?'

But it could.

There, in the shimmering field of runes, a new string appeared in the list of his Attributes.

Pale as a ghost, Sunny read:

Attributes: [Fated], [Flame of Divinity], [Master of Shadows], [Blood Weave], [Bone Weave], [Marble Shell]...

And at the very end, a new one:

[...Soul Weave.]

in

'How the hell...'

on the new string, he read

lineage. Your soul has been altered and imbued with

tears standing above a forgotten grave. A tree grew from the ground where the demon's tears fell, and from it grew a wondrous

at the runes for a while, then dismissed them and

It felt... reinforced, somehow.

potent, and the rate at which it replenished itself was much faster. The soul itself seemed more robust and durable, capable of withstanding a terrible amount of damage and maintaining its integrity even if large

six lightless cores. They did not look very different, at the surface, apart from the fact that the dark flames burning within them

the depths of his cores... was he seeing things, or had he glimpsed a

Soul Sea, both elated and

part of

indeed,

hell was it

was a fragment of Weaver's lineage left there? If anything, it should

his... her?...

the two of them

did it have something to do with the strange incongruity in

Sunny did not know.

it...

it wasn't even the

great that my soul

his promised freedom? How was Soul Weave supposed to

unsure of what exactly was happening. Had Cassie been wrong? Had

distracted him from

Light, which had rolled away from him when he fell down, and was now laying to the

the sacred staff was

pointing into the darkness

looked up... at that moment, it felt as though a ripple spread through the world. His surroundings suddenly felt less

His eyes widened.

Nightmare... it's starting

far away, Nephis must have delivered a

too long. Because

shape that filled him with indescribable

I

sight, his nose, and even his shadow sense, despite being the size of a hill. It had a hunched back, a disheveled mantle of messy black feathers, a terrifying beak, and mighty wings that

vile soul filled with more Corruption than he had ever seen, spreading outward

'A... a Cursed Terror...'

an involuntary

just as he did, a pair of round, utterly insane eyes pierced him with a demented