Shadow Slave

Sleeping in his own bed felt really great.

Sunny had had many beds throughout the years. He had one in his temporary room at the Academy, one in the bedroom of his house, the luxurious sleeping pod he had purchased after becoming an Awakened, a flimsy cot in the Sanctuary of Noctis, and even the wide sleeping shelf at the back of the Rhino, among others.

But out of all of them, this bed of pale polished wood, which had once belonged to the priestess of the ruined cathedral, held a special place in his heart.

Perhaps because this dark chamber was the first place he had considered home, and this bed was the first he had considered his.

Even though the time Sunny had spent living alone in the Dark City was one of the bleakest pages of his life, he remembered it with a special fondness.

Waking up pleasantly refreshed, he smiled, yawned, and climbed out of the bed.

Looking around the spacious chamber, Sunny remembered his days here. Things had been so simple back then...

He walked around for a while, briefly touching various pieces of furniture, and then stopped in front of a bare wall. There, countless scratches had been left by the tip of the Prowling Thorn, counting the days he had spent here.

Below them, the word "Sunless" was carved in the stone with two runes.

A sad smile appeared on Sunny's face.

Back then, he had wanted to leave proof of him having lived, struggled, and suffered in the Dark City on this stone wall. A mark of his existence.

Who knew that the mark he had left would become meaningless one day? His own actions made it so that nobody could remember him, even if he scratched his name into the stone a thousand times.

Sunny chuckled, then outstretched a hand and used his nail to leave one more scratch on the wall.

He had spent another day here, after all.

Then, he looked around, studying the interior of the dark chamber.

The thought of leaving it all behind once again made him sad.

But then...

Did he really have to leave it?

Slowly, a dark grin twisted his lips.

'Why don't I take it all with me? What a great idea!‘

He needed to decorate the Marvelous Mimic, anyway.

Summoning the Shadow, he commanded it to turn into an enormous wardrobe and opened its doors wide, paying no attention to the rows of terrifying fangs hidden behind them.

the cold darkness of the vast dimensional

"Shall we start?"

loading the beautiful furniture made of pale polished wood into the Mimic. The bedJ the desk, the

the garbs and vestments of the young priestess, which Effie had once mocked him about. These beautiful clothes were made from fine fabric and masterfully tailored... more than that, they had remained in pristine condition despite thousands of years

robbed by an extremely greedy thief. The greedy thief in question, meanwhile, looked at the intricately engraved stone walls, feeling regretful that he couldn't take the

Mimic, he dismissed the Shadow and left the

time Sunny returned to the great hall,

glanced at the statue of the nameless goddess one

of the Nameless Sun, the Memory Nephis had received after slaying the Terror of the Crimson Spire,

suffered in solitude, longing for all the things that were lost. Only when she lost that longing, too, was the Crimson Terror of the Forgotten Shore finally

he a bit like

forgotten, even his name erased from

was even

a Nightmare Creature, as well? What was it that he had not lost yet that kept his soul

looked away from the statue and

and descended underground. Deeper and deeper still,

from the same metal that the armor of the Black Knight had

spent in absolute darkness, the

the open door... was the solitary cell where

runes left on its floor by the corpse that had worn

had come to the Dark City

breath, Sunny steeled his heart

now, he knew that the underground cell was designed to keep someone in, not prevent others

a few moments... not that there was a lot to study. There was only the broken runic circle, the dust that the mysterious corpse had turned into, and the words left

the forbidden runes

were different from the script Nether had used, and much easier to translate. However, when

'What?‘

He didn‘t quite understand...

The runes read:

[Thus spoke Weaver

will open the

And they did

doom and destruction upon

Now, in the ruins

Gods lay dead

daemons

The Forgotten One comes

Wide awake

To consume them].