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.]

sucked in air,

'How the hell...'

on the new string,

Description: [You have inherited a part of Weaver's forbidden lineage. Your

from

stared at the runes for a while, then dismissed them

It felt... reinforced, somehow.

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

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

he

the Soul Sea,

inherited another part of Weaver's lineage. Soul

was, indeed,

hell was it doing

there? If anything, it should have been Oblivion's lineage... apart from the fact that no

lost a part of his... her?... soul

two

with the strange incongruity in the number of daemons that had participated in the Doom

Sunny did not know.

it... was

it wasn't even the

great that my soul has grown

freedom? How was Soul

what exactly was happening. Had Cassie been

something distracted him

eye, Sunny noticed an ominous detail. Looking down, he stared at the Guiding Light, which had rolled

staff was still

it was pointing into

slowly looked up... at that moment, it felt as though a ripple spread through the world.

His eyes widened.

Nightmare... it's starting

away, Nephis must have delivered

too long. Because just then, he noticed something moving

towering shape that

did I

being the size of a hill. It had a hunched back, a disheveled mantle of messy

vile soul filled with more Corruption than he had

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

took an

round, utterly insane eyes pierced him with a demented