Shadow Slave

Sunny was riled and angry. Once again, talking to Nephis made him lose his sense of balance.

…However, the decision he made was not an emotional one.

He had enough composure to keep a clear head even while being affected by seething feelings. Years of battles and dire conflicts had taught him how to keep a cool head.

So, his choice was cold and calculated.

Two things had become clear during the conversation.

The first one was very simple — Nephis intended to join the great clan Valor, while Sunny didn't want to have anything to do with it.

It was one thing to become a retainer of a powerful and prosperous clan in order to make use of its vast knowledge, arsenal, and resources. Despite his strong desire to remain independent, Sunny had entertained the idea himself.

However, it was a completely different thing to join an embattled clan that was on the verge of entering a destructive and bloody war against a similarly fearsome adversary. To add insult to injury, Valor was on the losing end of the equation. Their enemy, the great clan Song, held all the advantages.

And even worse than that was the idea of joining a warring faction with conscious plans of betraying it further down the line. Nephis was more than willing to eventually face not one, but both great clans in battle.

She had her goals and conviction, but Sunny just wanted to be left alone. He saw no reason to follow her into the dragon's maw. More than that, with her joining Valor, the initial condition that had forced him into the damned negotiations in the first place was resolved.

Since Valor was willing to settle for recruiting just one member of the cohort, and Changing Star was willing to play the role of the recruit, then why the hell would he follow suit?

In short, despite all the contradictory feelings raging in Sunny's heart, the situation was rather straightforward. There was no compelling reason for him to enter into service of the great clan, but there was a convenient opportunity for him to take a step back and walk away. He would be a fool not to use it.

…Of course, in reality, things were a bit more complicated.

What Changing Star had said might have angered him, but she was not wrong. Their fates did, indeed, seem to be intertwined.

From being born in the same year to receiving Divine and complementing Aspects, from meeting at the gates of the Academy to being sent to the same small patch of the Forgotten Shore… whether by coincidence or not, their connection went far beyond the tether of the Shadow Bond.

Sunny had a strong suspicion that his intrinsic Attribute, [Fated], had a lot to do with placing Nephis in his path. And as much as Sunny wished to defy fate, he was not arrogant enough to think that he was ready to break its chains just yet.

He could already see how, no matter what he did, he would not be able to escape colliding against Changing Star again. She had been right when she said that escaping the notice of the great clans entirely was impossible for them — more so for her, but also true for Sunny.

With his meteoric rise, his Special Strategic Asset designation, and his connection to both Nephis and Mordret — not to mention Shadow God and Weaver — coming into contact with the Sovereigns and their Domains was just a matter of time. Even if Neph joined Valor and Sunny did not, they would most likely meet again soon enough.

The question, then, was more about the nature of their future relationship than whether it would exist or not.

So… what could Sunny do to shape it into something that had a semblance of corresponding to his desires?

Perhaps the most important revelation that had resulted from their conversation was the nature of Neph's intentions toward Sunny and her power over him.

Sunny had spent several weeks burying his head in the sand and avoiding this pivotal discussion. As the result, those weeks had been… perhaps some of the nicest in his life. However, his actions had also caused everything to blow up in his face in the end.

Nephis had said in no uncertain terms that she had no intention of ever issuing another order to him. Not because of any moral consideration… but simply because it was beneath her.

Changing Star had no need for an unwilling slave. She disdained the idea of forcing anyone to obey her. Instead, she planned to have people follow her of their own free will. Instead of enslaving anyone, she preferred to have people enslave and bind themselves by their desire to serve her.

Neph had told him that she would never force him to do anything. But she also seemed to be certain that he would follow her willingly, in the end.

And that, to Sunny, was the core problem of the dynamic between them.

He believed that Nephis valued him. She even respected him. But despite all that, she still saw him as a follower.

…And a follower could never be an equal.

'Damn it.'

Worst of all, her stance was not baseless.

Sunny couldn't help but think back to his conversation with Effie. The huntress had told him once that he would never be stronger than Changing Star, because Changing Star had something that he lacked.

Conviction.

Sunny had been tempted to dismiss her well-meant, but biting remark. However, he could not dismiss the fact that despite all his desperate attempts, despite him almost killing himself several times to catch up to Nephis, there was still a noticeable gap in power and accomplishment between them.

He did not think that he lacked determination. Gods knew that very few people have pushed themselves as hard, and endured as much, as he had.

But his last conversation with Changing Star had finally given Sunny an inkling of what it was exactly that he lacked.

As far as Sunny saw it, his determination was no less intense than Neph's. However, all his goals were internal. All he did was react to things. He did not strive to reach anything, instead, he only strived to avoid and get away from things. Get away from danger, from poverty, from fate itself… he had always been reactive.

Neph, on the contrary, had always been active. She had always pursued a goal that was larger than herself. As the result, her conviction pushed her forward like an external force, while Sunny was stuck trying to pull himself up with nothing propelling him forward.

That was why he was destined to always lag behind. Selfish desire to attain material wealth and live free would never be able to push him as hard and as far as Changing Star's insane and unattainable dream was pushing her.

…At least that was his current thinking.

Maybe it was all senseless crap.

In any case, Sunny was determined to try and find an equally powerful motivation. Either it would help him, or it would not… however, no matter what happened, he was not satisfied being seen as a valued follower instead of an equal. He was still determined to grow stronger, much stronger, and if conviction was what it took to speed up his progress, he was willing to give it a try.

Where was one supposed to find conviction, though?

Well… Sunny was pretty sure that attempting to save hundreds of millions of people in Antarctica was a good place to start.

That was where he was going to go in search of true strength.