Shadow Slave

Sunny got comfortable on his criminally soft bed, picked up a few succulent grapes from the tray placed on an intricate table near it, threw one in his mouth… and finally summoned the runes.

'Let's see…'

The first thing he glanced at was the shadow fragments counter. He vaguely remembered receiving what felt like much more than six after slaying the black steed, who had been an Awakened Terror. So, Sunny was hopeful to see a pleasant number…

However, when he did see it, he almost choked on the grape juice to death.

'What… what the Spell?! What?!'

He even rubbed his eyes, thinking that he was seeing things, but no. The counter was the same.

Shadow Fragments: [2823/3000].

Sunny stared at it in disbelief.

'Six hundred… I received almost six hundred fragments for killing that damned horse?'

Absentmindedly, he threw another grape into his mouth, and proceed to almost bite off one of his fingers from the sheer disorientation of it all.

'How is this even possible?!'

He thought about it for a bit, stunned, and then tilted his head a little.

'Could it be…'

One of the advantages, but also inherent drawbacks of Sunny's Aspect was that it operated through shadow fragments instead of the usual soul ones. So, while Sunny didn't need to collect and absorb shards to grow stronger, he also could not use the shards of creatures that he had not personally slain for that purpose.

The other detail was that, unlike all human Awakened, he did not receive a portion of all the accumulated soul fragments after killing others of his own kind, and instead received just one or two, depending on their Rank.

Was that, perhaps, because the Spell — or rather, the world itself — did not consider him a human? He was a divine shadow, after all, and shadows recognized him as one of their own. So… would it be safe to say… that in this context, his own kind were actually not humans, but shadows instead?

The black steed had been a Shadow created by one of the Chain Lords. An Awakened Terror possessing six cores, and with a thousand years of battles and bloodshed behind his shoulders to fill them to the brim with shadow fragments.

…Did Sunny receive a portion of the fragments accumulated by the tenebrous courser throughout his long and grim life, as a normal Awakened would after slaying another human?

The math certainly supported that theory.

Sunny's eyes ignited.

'That… that is it!'

Not only was he correct… he might have just stumbled on one of the most crucial secrets about his own Aspect, power, and future.

Even since finding out that his Aspect allowed him to form and possess multiple cores, Sunny had been wary of the eventual toll hunting down enough Nightmare Creatures to create a new one would exert. As a Sleeper, or even an Awakened, he was too small and vulnerable. Any powerful abomination would have been able to snuff him out of existence with no more than a glance.

The higher he climbed on the path of Ascension, the less of such existences there would be, and thus, the higher his chances of survival were going to become. However, that also meant that there would be fewer creatures he would be able to hunt down to collect shadow fragments, since slaying those lower than him in Rank did not give him any at all.

But… now that he knew how much he could gain from destroying true shadow creatures… perhaps, there was still a way for him to grow stronger rapidly even after becoming a Master.

In any case, his progress was already staggering. First, the thousand fragments he had earned in the bloodsoaked arena of the Red Colosseum, and now these hundreds he gained by slaying the nightmare steed. Neither of these feats had been easy… in fact, both rewards had cost him an unimaginable amount of pain, torment, and damage both mental and physical… but the result almost made it seem as if it had all been worth it.

…Almost.

At the start of the Nightmare, the idea of gaining enough fragments to create a fourth core had seemed so distant and unreachable. But now, just a few months later, Sunny was already near the finish line. This fact was both exciting and incredible… even if its splendor was somewhat overshadowed by all the hideous scars he had received along the way.

'...No. No, it is still amazing. I survived, did I not?'

Both elated and reminded of the horrors he had been subjected to in the Nightmare, Sunny stared at the unbelievable number for some time, then shifted his gaze elsewhere.

The second reward he had received was also very welcomed, be it strangely unexpected. In fact, Sunny stumbled upon it almost by accident while seeking the runes describing his Shadows. Before that, he had noticed that the runes of the Mantle of the Underworld seemed to shimmer a bit differently.

Confused, he concentrated on them and shifted his gaze to the last string describing the enchantments of the onyx armor… the counter of victories tied to the [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment.

Now, it read:

Vanquished Foes: [3291/6000].

He blinked.

'Huh…'

Somehow… sometime… he had managed to raise the counter by almost a thousand victories. He knew that the Nightmare Creatures and humans he had killed in the Read Colosseum had not counted toward the requirements of the strange enchantment for a simple reason — he had not been wearing the Mantle of the Underworld while fighting them.

So where had the thousand vanquished foes come from?

Sunny frowned.

'Come to think of it… I was wearing the armor while sleeping in the boundary fortress. Did it actually accept every battle I won in the nightmares as a true victory?'

That would be very strange, since the enemies he had defeated in the neverending nightmares had been just phantasms summoned by the black steed, and not in any way real. However… that would also make sense. After all, the Mantle did not care about him actually killing the enemies. All it cared about was that he had overpowered and defeated the opponent… if so, did it really matter if the opponent was real or not?

The duelists of the Dreamscape had been considered sufficiently real, so why would the creatures populating the nightmares be different?

'A thousand souls… had I really killed that many?'

Suddenly, Sunny felt cold and somber.

How many nightmares, exactly, had he lived through during those several terrible hours?

Full of dark wonder, he shook his head and looked away from the runes describing the onyx armor. He was already halfway to satiating its mysterious enchantment… which was already good enough.

Finally, Sunny looked at the cluster that interested him the most.

…His Shadows.

A few runes shimmered beautifully in the darkness.

They read:

Shadows: [Marble Saint], [Soul Serpent]...

And then, a new one:

[Nightmare].