Shadow Slave

Chapter 1827: Cleansing Chapter 1827: Cleansing

Hidden in the shadows, Sunny let out a secretive sight of relief.

The past week had been a terrible ordeal for Rain... but it had not been easy for him, either.

A long time ago, Sunny had told Rain that he could teach her how to wield a sword, how to traverse the Dream Realm, and how to kill her enemies... but he could not teach her how to be strong. The world was a cold and ruthless place, and his little sister was much too soft to endure its cruelty.

Even now, all these years later, she retained that softness. She had learned how to wield weapons, survive in the wild, and hunt down abominations, but her nature was still the same. Rain had never suffered heartbreaking loss, had never felt the lightless depths of true despair, and had never faced the darkest sides of humanity.

Despite her cool appearance and tough reputation, at her core, she was still the same kind and sweet girl.

Which was a solace to Sunny. He never wanted her to lose that part of herself.

And yet, he couldn't coddle her too much, either. It would only do Rain harm if she learned to rely on him too much.

So, he had laboriously created the persona of Shadow, her mercurial teacher — who was both friendly and caring, but also a little sinister and not completely reliable.

That way, she could still feel a false sense of danger while being protected by him from the shadows, and grow stronger for it.

It would have been fine to let Rain Awakened at her own pace, but the war was too close. So, Sunny had used the chance encounter with the Awakened Tyrant to design a trial for her.

His own version of the First Nightmare.

The irony of how similar it was to his personal Fist Nightmare had not escaped him. A punishing escape through the wild reaches of the Dream Realm, in the company of an Awakened swordsman, pursued by a blind Tyrant...

Of course, there were differences, as well.

And although Rain had never been in real danger due to him observing her from the shadows, she definitely had not felt that way.

had been real, her suffering had been real, and her eventual

had not struggled himself — all he had done was eliminate any Fallen abominations that could have stumbled onto the two escaping girls and keep an eye on the survey

he felt

go as far as to say

felt like his

much, considering how difficult it was for him to

felt incredible joy and pride at being able to Awakened, his

he felt even

because he could

had a deep connection to her soul, for a mundane person, and could control her essence well. But Sunny perceived it on

see a tiny bead of hideous darkness that nestled in her sister's soul. A seed of Corruption... the Nightmare Seed. Every mundane person who had entered the Dream Realm carried one within them, just like those infected by the Nightmare

sure which came first — the Seed of Nightmare or the infection. Perhaps it

any case, the Seed in Rain's soul had not grown in the past four years, and would not bloom into a Category One Nightmare Gate unless certain conditions were met. That was because it was small and miniscule enough to be suppressed by the authority of Queen

the Song Domain, her

an eternal hostage of a Domain unless she accepted the Spell and challenged

was going through the final stage of her Awakening, Sunny

sparks of light — the crystals of solidified essence — fused under the pressure. A luminous sea ignited at

the heat of that sea, her soul core slowly came to

the

bead of darkness dissolved in the

of a Sleeper once. Watching the opposite process take place

infected into Awakening, and thus destroy

direct opposition to Corruption. So, it only made sense that coming closer to divinity would render one immune to the weaker manifestation

the second way Sunny knew of for

way was known to everyone, but very

It was death.