Shadow Slave

The Nightmare was over.

The illusory world that Spell had conjured had collapsed, expelling the surviving challengers.

They were supposed to find themselves in the empty void between dream and reality, where countless stars shimmered in the darkness, forming a vast and inconceivable pattern. There, the Spell was supposed to appraise their performance and let them go through the process of rising to a new Rank in peace.

However, that was not what happened to Sunny.

He had no time to comprehend the consequences of having his very existence pierced by the talons of the Cursed Terror when the Nightmare Collapsed, sending him into a world of darkness. There was no appraisal, and no pattern of stars shimmering in the void.

Instead, still reeling from the inconceivable and frightening turn of events, he was thrown out of the void, entering another, much smaller, but similarly dark space. In fact, he was violently catapulted into that space, crashing into a jagged piece of scorched concrete, shattering it, and colliding with a deformed alloy wall behind it.

The force of the impact was terrible enough to make the alloy crack, and for Sunny to lose consciousness.

And that…

Was how he became possibly the first human in history to Transcend while passed out..

The six shadows gathered around his reforged body, perplexed and dumbfounded.

After a while, one of them sighed, and then shook its head in utter dejection.

***

The first thing Sunny felt was pain.

Not the terrible kind of pain he was sadly used to experiencing from time to time, but a more mundane pain. He was laying on a rough surface, something sharp biting into his back through the fabric of Ananke's Mantle.

The air was full of dust. The world was silent.

He was cold.

Groaning, he opened his eyes and sat up, feeling strangely refreshed and revitalized. Looking down, he saw jagged pieces of concrete littering the floor. No wonder he had been uncomfortable.

hand, wishing to sweep a

turned to dust from his irritated swipe. More than that, the floor cracked under his palm, and

to think

hell was

and

It was rather strange.

that he had found himself in a small cave. It was a few meters in diameter, the ceiling just tall enough for him to

moments of contemplation, Sunny realized that the dusty pocket of space he had come to his senses in was not a natural cave. It looked more like the result

were a chaotic mess of cracked concrete and torn alloy, as if some building had

'Wait… alloy?'

widened slightly, he concentrated on the details of his surroundings. Alloy and concrete, pieces of broken machinery, a torn piece

heart was

am… back in

Nightmare had ended while the horrid bird was tearing his soul with its talons,

the point in the waking world where his

in one of the siege capitals of East

observed the scene of devastation around him for a while, his expression

the siege capital been

empty space inside a ruin instead of his

cold air brushing against his chest. Looking down, at himself, Sunny blinked

Why am

was still covered by the nebulous folds of Ananke's Mantle, but the Shroud of Graceless Dusk was gone. Here

summoned the Shroud

However, nothing happened.

'What…'

again, and yet there was no response. It was as if it did not

essence to summon even

soul, planning to assess how much essence he had

And froze.

'What, what the hell?!'

he realized how vastly different his soul, his body, and the world

power that even Sunny himself felt a chill. It