Shadow Slave

Chapter 1799: Back to Civilization Chapter 1799: Back to Civilization

Sunny returned to the outskirts.

After years spent in the wild reaches of the Dream Realm, NQSC was like an explosion. Sunny almost fell to the ground after being assaulted by a myriad of movements and sensations. There were sounds, scents, and countless scenes. Most of all, there were shadows... a vast legion of them, all moving and changing, surrounding him like a boundless whirlpool.

Overwhelmed by them, he spent several days hiding in an abandoned room at the top of a ramshackle dormitory hive.

His mind wasn't ready for the sensory overload of being among hundreds of millions of people subduing his shadow sense, he waited for a while, slowly preparing himself to face humanity again.

Gradually, Sunny let his senses lose. First to envelop a few levels of the dormitory hive, then all of it. Laying in the darkness, he could feel thousands of humans go about their harsh lives, observing their sorrows, joys, and struggles.

Then, his shadow sense extended outward, enveloping the outskirts one street after another.

At some point, Sunny felt as if he was an invisible, omniscient deity. The area he could perceive was too vast for his mind to concentrate on each shadow, to witness every person - and yet, there was no better way of throwing himself into the half-forgotten feeling of being human.

Slowly, the feral grip of solitude that the Dream Realm had on his mind loosened. Sunny remembered how to be a person again.

His status in the waking world was... questionable. He didn't really exist. A nice family was now living in his terrace district house. He had no money, nо citizenship, and no home.

Which was pretty much exactly how it had been, back in the days of living as an outskirt rat.

A very familiar situation.

Of course, Sunny himself was entirely different from his younger self. He was a Saint now, which meant that he wasn't just a rat... he was the strongest, most vicious and fearsome rat in the world. The loftiest rat there was.

A true rat king.

much emptier, as if someone had culled the population of this miserable place in the past few years. Sunny knew that many of the most disenfranchised people of the waking world had been seduced by the lure of the Dream Gates -

place

it was a good thing, for

he procured a cheap communicator and a sizable sum of credits. lіghtn\оvеlс\аvе~c`о\m. Things that had been insurmountable for him as

have to scrounge for food and shelter. He did not have to fear the other humans populating

survive here with no effort whatsoever... live as lavishly as he wanted,

was the point if

about the bitter past. It had no hold over

outgrown the

in order, Sunny sighed, turned into a shadow, and reached for the

tethered to the Ivory Island... of course, the Ivory Island had long left the Chained Isles by now, and the Crushing

the edge of the Chained Isles, so it was still safe, However, more and more islands fell into the Sky Below with each year, In a few decades, most likely, there would be none left, erasing the last

the Ivory

above Bastion, but it seemed that Nephis and Cassie had been sent out to accomplish a

them and jumped off the edge,

a crow, he glided to the ground and

sigh, he summoned

destination was in the

time to consider the situation while getting his bearings in the outskirts, and although he did not have a concrete plan yet,

Zone known

was where he

there, he had to cross most of