Shadow Slave

Over the next few days, Sunny slowly grew somewhat accustomed to life aboard a giant, floating metal coffin. Of course, the thought of being separated from the bottomless abyss of dark water by just a few layers of alloy was not too comforting… but at least he did not think about it too much anymore.

What helped Sunny the most was the fact that he was simply too busy to entertain frivolous thoughts.

His schedule was packed to the limit. There was so much he had to do…

Most of his days were still dedicated to trying to improve the level of cooperation between the members of the cohort. Now that they had left the Northern Quadrant, there was no spacious gymnasium for them to practice in. The Dreamscape pods were a thing of the past now, too.

Of course, there were some facilities available on the giant battleship, as well as the whole upper deck, but none of it was sufficient to put six elite Awakened fighters through the paces. Still, there was a lot they could do to learn how to work well together.

From low-intensity training to mental exercises and games, anything that could give the members of the cohort a glimpse into how their comrades thought and acted was a step in the right direction. Sunny's insights that he had gained thanks to Shadow Dance helped a lot, as well.

Slowly but surely, his soldiers were clicking together and learning how to fight side by side. Belle's swift and mercurial nature, Dorn's solid and calculated approach, Quentin's stalwart persistence, Samara's steadiness and deadly aim, Kim's mastery of sight and quiet competence, Luster's spirit and inexhaustible bravado… guided by Sunny, all of it was slowly melting together.

The cohort had not reached the point where they could move as a single organism yet, but at least they were already able to reinforce each other's strengths while simultaneously covering each other's weaknesses.

Sunny had gained a deeper understanding of their powers, as well. For example, Belle's ability to sharpen his sword was actually more complicated than he had fought — as it turned out, the actual effect surrounded the blade with an incredibly thin, invisible displacement field instead of actually making the edge sharper.

Kimmy could not only share visual perception between several people, but also mix and match it as the situation demanded. She could see the weaknesses of the enemy, but simply channeling her point of view to a fighter in the middle of furious battle would have been too disorienting. Instead, she was able to transfer only the vision of the vulnerabilities, almost like a composite overlay that lighted the chosen spots up.

Luster could speed up the soul essence recovery, both for himself and his allies. Strangely enough, the better he knew a person, the more distance he could maintain between himself and the target while channeling the beneficial effect. If there was one flaw to his Ability, it was that it did not seem to work on Sunny.

As it turned out, shadow essence did not react to Luster's presence at all… which was a big disappointment, considering that Sunny had stripped himself of Serpent's support in order to protect Rain.

'Damnation… why did I even recruit this fool?'

Despite being upset, Sunny had to reluctantly admit that this was not a big issue. Luster's unique and useful Ability would not have had a great effect on him, anyway. The young Awakened was not able to dramatically affect the much more potent essence of a Master, let alone of an abnormal one who possessed four cores.

When Sunny was not training his cohort, he was busy modifying their Memories. The process was long, arduous, and complicated, but he was steadily making progress.

He had imbued Belle's sword with a potent, but passive sharpening effect of the enchanted straight razor. He had somehow managed to transfer the [Feather of Truth] enchantment of the Mantle of the Underworld to Dorn's sledgehammer.

The latter was an especially incredible achievement, considering that the weave of the onyx armor was one of the most intricate and complicated he had ever seen.

Even more impressive were the six charms that he had presented to the members of the cohort. Each carried an altered version of the single enchantment of the Memory of Ice, which was supposed to raise their resistance to cold.

While the effect was much weaker than that of his personal charm, that was exactly what made this accomplishment so important. It was the first time Sunny succeeded in not only copying and enchantment, but also modifying it.

While the Memory of Ice was more powerful, it was an Ascended charm that devoured a lot of essence to sustain its effect. The version Sunny imbued into the six weaker charms was more modest, but also much less demanding. His Awakened soldiers were going to be able to keep it active more or less permanently, unless their reserves were completely drained.

…If there was one thing that he had failed to do, it was turning Samara's destructive rifle into a Memory. Sunny had really wanted to, but no matter how hard he tried, the high-tech weapon was just too intricate, complicated, and contained too many moving parts.

There was a limit to what Sunny could achieve. The more complex the structure of the object was, the larger its size and mass, the harder it was to integrate the rudimentary weave into it. Perhaps if he knew more, he would have known how to overcome this limitation. But as things stood, Sunny had to abandon this particular ambition.

'Oh well…'

His dreams of turning the Rhino into a Memory were utterly shattered.

It had already been a week after the departure from the Northern Quadrant. Sunny was currently in his private cabin, sitting on the bed as he stared dejectedly at the heavy rifle. The battleship vibrated subtly around him, but its corridors were enveloped in silence. This far into the night, most members of the First Army were fast asleep.

Sunny himself had not slept in a long while. Of course, as an Ascended, he could easily last a week without sleep… the problem was that it was already his second week.

Or was it third?

With a sigh, he put the heavy rifle aside and threw the unused soul shards into the maw of the Covetous Coffer.

'To hell with it. I need some rest.'

He yawned and put his head on a soft pillow. Suddenly, all the exhaustion of the past weeks descended upon him, making his thoughts slow and sluggish.

A few moments later, Sunny was already asleep.

…And after what felt like a minute, he was rudely awoken by a loud and persistent sound.

Irritated, he turned on his other side and tried to dive back into the rejuvenating darkness.

'Bastards! Quiet down!'

But no matter how hard Sunny tried to continue to sleep, he couldn't.

After a while, he sat up and listened to the noise with a resentful expression on his face. He could clearly hear several voices. By the sound of it, they all belonged to young women.

And these women were…

Sunny gritted his teeth.

"Singing? Who the hell sings in the middle of the night?! People are trying to sleep here, damn it!"