Shadow Slave

Sunny had planned to catch a couple of hours of sleep, but in the end, he was too mesmerized by the promise of the Marble Shell to close his eyes even for a second. That new Attribute of his was both supremely powerful and complex, which meant that unlocking its full potential would demand a lot of insight and ingenuity.

If he did manage to master it, though...

Laying in the darkness of the sleeping niche, Sunny smiled ominously.

'What a great present. It should not have come as a surprise, though.'

The challenge of the [Prince of the Underworld] had been a steep one. Six thousand defeated opponents... most Awakened - those normal people that did not go out of their way to seek out battle after battle - would never face that many adversaries in their entire lifetime, perhaps.

More than that, Sunny suspected that the enchantment had actually had several stages, while he only completed the last one. After all, the counter of vanquished foes had already been filled to some extent by the time Sunny repaired the Mantle of the Underworld.

An Ascended armor of the sixth Tier, demanding six thousand kills to rise to the seventh.

If the onyx armor had started off as a Memory of the first Tier, demanding a thousand kills to rise to the second, two thousand to rise to the third... then it might have taken no less than twenty- one thousand defeated enemies for it to acquire the [Soulbound Relic] enchantment.

'What a scary number...'

No wonder the Marble Shell was such a potent Attribute... not to mention its connection to one of the daemons.

Whether it had been the First Lord of the Bright Castle or one of his companions that wore the Mantle before, Sunny really owed them some gratitude. Even more of it, to be precise.

Regardless of the past, though, there was a lot for him to think about when it came to the future.

Sunny instantly understood that the Marble Shell would drastically - and, most importantly, passively - increase his defensive capability and resilience. Yes, the dormant state of the Attribute was a weakened version of its active form, and yes, the [Living Stone] trait only allowed him to mend his skin, as opposed to his entire body. Sure, he did not currently possess a powerful Memory armor to synergize with the Shell.

But it did not matter. In a sense, Sunny himself was the armor now.

What truly enthused him about the new Attribute was the possibility of finally breaking one of the most ubiquitous laws of the Nightmare Spell - in the world ruled by it, attack almost always trumped defense. No matter how tough an armor was, a powerful and well-placed strike from a weapon of a similar Rank would most often overcome it.

Otherwise, he would have never been able to kill Awakened Nightmare Creatures as a Sleeper, or continuously challenge enemies that were, strictly speaking, out of his league.

Everything had its limits, of course, but generally, that was how things worked.

Not anymore, though. Not with what his Aspect was capable of. Someone else would have found the Marble Shell a powerful aid in battle, but in Sunny's hands, it could be so much more.

Possibly the most important quality of the strange Attribute was that it had become a part of his body, and as such, could be augmented with the shadows at the same time. An Ascended armor might be vulnerable to an Ascended blade, but with four shadows enhancing it?

Maybe not.

That went for elemental, mind, and soul attacks as well, albeit to a slightly lesser degree.

Add Blood Weave and Bone Weave to the equation, with the [Living Stone] on top of it all...

Sunny might not be ready to go around slaying titans just yet, but he was halfway convinced that being hit by Goliath would not instantly kill him anymore.

And that was just defense.

The Marble Shell had the potential to do wonders for his attack potency and lethality, too.

The [Feather of Truth] had always been an unassuming, but insidiously powerful enchantment. Now that it could be applied to his entire body, as opposed to only his armor, though... that really changed everything.

Making himself lighter could drastically increase his speed and mobility. Making himself heavier could help Sunny weather powerful blows, as well as increase the impact of his own strikes - force was heavily dependent on mass, after all, and it was hard to achieve one without the other.

The second part of force was acceleration, so...

If Sunny could learn how to skillfully weave two sides of the [Feather of Truth] together, his combat performance would take a significant leap forward. Wearing a light armor on top of the Shell would be the most optimal choice, in that regard, since doing so would grant him a double layer of protection while not encumbering him too much.

Sunny already had some knowledge of how to use the [Feather of Truth] in battle, but he was going to need to adjust to its new scope, as well as relearn a lot of things, both about the trait itself and about how he approached combat in general.

It would demand a lot of time, practice, insight, and most of all thinking... not to mention perfecting his ability to guide essence in just the right way. However, dismantling and mastering battle styles was something Sunny was exceedingly good at, so he had no doubt that he would see some improvements very soon.

A modest improvement was not his goal, though. He wanted to reach a state where using the [Feather of Truth] to its full potential was an instinct for him, to make it something that he did not even have to think about to do.

That... would be a bit harder to achieve.

Not impossible, though.

Sunny's personal progress in terms of pure combat mastery had been stalled for a while, so now, he was actually excited about a new challenge.

Shifting his perception to one of the shadows to observe the dark landscape flowing past the moving Rhino, he smiled wryly.

'...Luckily, I have a whole continent of Nightmare Creatures to practice on.'