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.

darkness

"Shall we start?"

the beautiful furniture made of pale

fine fabric

spacious chamber was entirely barren, as if 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

the doors of the Marvelous Mimic, he

to the great hall, the smile had

at the statue of the nameless goddess one

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

that were lost. Only when she

a bit

and forgotten, even his name

was even a

a day come when Sunny turned into a Nightmare Creature, as well? What was it that he had not lost yet that kept his soul from blooming

from the statue

passage, he allowed it to take him to a winding staircase and descended underground.

Black

his eyes. After days spent in absolute darkness, the pale light of the ghostly

door... was the solitary cell where

runes left on its floor by the corpse that had worn

Dark City

a deep breath, Sunny steeled

light of the strange torches would harm them. But now, he knew that the underground cell was designed to keep someone in, not prevent others

moments... not that there was a lot to study. There was only the broken runic circle, the dust

to the forbidden runes he had

ones were different from the script Nether had used, and much easier to translate. However, when Sunny read them, his expression

'What?‘

He didn‘t quite understand...

The runes read:

[Thus spoke Weaver

will open

And they did

doom and destruction upon

Now, in the ruins

Gods lay dead

daemons have

The Forgotten One comes

Wide awake

To consume them].