Shadow Slave

Sunny returned to the Brilliant Emporium as the sun was rising above the eastern horizon. If someone had seen him coming back home at the break of dawn, they would have probably assumed that he had spent the night elsewhere… and with someone else, engaging in revelry.

Of course, being mistaken for a philanderer would have been the least of his problems — many people already considered him a lecher, anyway. It was better to be seen as a profligate than as someone who had a habit of sneaking into the forbidden parts of the royal castle at night.

«Now, wait… what does it sound so wrong?»

In any case, his goodbyes with Cassie had felt a little hurried. She had seemed to be a little dazed and a little rattled, acting strangely around him… well, it was not surprising. Sunny doubted that she had expected him to dump two years worth of memories into her head in the span of a few hours.

But he had no other choice… initially, Sunny had wanted to share his memories with Cassie little by little. But the war was approaching faster than he had expected, and so, he needed her to trust him sooner.

Cassie was smart. With what she had shown her this time, she would be able to figure out many things. Most importantly, she would understand that he had been a companion to her and Nephis for a very, very long time.

Even if their relationship had been turbulent and rocky for most of that time…

Knowing that, she would lower her guard around him more. She would also advise Nephis to trust him better.

Well, and…

The things Sunny, as the humble shopkeeper, might do in the future would not look as outrageous. Which wasn't to say that he was planning on doing something outrageous, of course! But he had also not planned on participating in scandalous duels and being publicly embraced by Nephis because of a candy wrapper, so…

Things just sort of happened when Sunny was around her. He could put a leash on his emotions and control himself better, but… he didn't want to.

«Ah, so many things to do…»

Entering the Brilliant Emporium, Sunny yawned, stumbled sleepily to his bed — the very same bed he had taken from the hidden chamber of the ruined cathedral — fell on it, and closed his eyes blissfully.

At the same time, his avatar in the basement of the Marvelous Mimic looked up in disbelief.

«No way.»

They had so many things to do, and the original body decided to just go to sleep?!

Sunny couldn't believe himself.

Shaking his head, he sighed and continued pouring over his notes.

was indeed a

Rain, developing a design of the soul sword for Nephis… oh, and by the way, today was the day they were

he was not suffering enough from the rumors

their date. Even

Before that, however…

work on the design of

soulbound weapon was a vexing

each presenting its own

the simplest to solve, which was not to say the easiest. It was

a good sword, Sunny needed good materials. Usually, he would have just gone with the most potent ones at his disposal — those harvested from Great abominations would be ideal. He also needed a set of powerful soul shards, but

of the material, the harder it was to process it. That was why Sunny did not seriously consider using materials harvested from Cursed beings… even if he managed to get something like that, his own power was insufficient to

the situation was entirely

there was no point in making its Rank higher than Nephis' own. Actually, it was impossible since she was a

version of itself by the flames of Changing Star's soul as he walked the path of Ascension. Really, there was no one

what Sunny needed was not the strongest material. What he needed was the material with the highest affinity to Nephis and her Aspect. Her weapons and armor had a

sure that he already

a certain spot in the material storage of the

he was staring at… were the shards of the mystical ice that had once been the heart of the Winter Beast. It seemed a little odd, using ice to channel fire but Sunny believed

the mystical ice, or create an alloy on its base? A lot of experimentation was needed to answer

the Mantle of the Underworld well, and had come a long way in learning its secrets. He had reached a point where he could theoretically recreate most of its enchantments… except for the one he needed

order to fulfill its requirements, Sunny had had to defeat thousands of opponents. The strangest part was that he had not needed to kill them… just defeat them. How did that work? How could

means of soul binding, or simply a restriction placed on the onyx armor by its creator? Sunny wasn't sure. All

of the Underworld from a Memory to

Relic] enchantment? Or was fulfilling the demands of the [Prince of the Underworld]

that what he wanted to achieve would happen

he was considering temporarily manifesting

as elaborate, but also the most expansive of

was deciding on what other enchantments he wanted to include, and constructing the map of

lot

been trying to do for a long time recreate the [Unseen] enchantment of

be an enchantment that augmented the resilience and lethality of the

Beyond that, however…

too much to