Hey!! Very important note!!
I fucked something up with how saints evolution works, I rememberd that she went from Awakend rank to Ascended by killing the black knight , and moved up in class by consuming memories. But it was the other way around so she should have been an ascended monster for the last twenty four chapters instead of an awakened demon.
I'm very sorry but I don't believe I will rewrite the chapters from 42 on as it would mostly consist of saint no diffing everything that was thrown at them. Instead I'm going to continue the fic as if she was an Ascended Monster before the black knight fight I'm really sorry about this.
— —- — - - - -
The weeks that followed were a time of profound and tireless transformation.
Over six hundred Sleepers stood ready—no longer desperate wanderers, but a disciplined and motivated force, hardened by loss and united by hope. Under Nephis's banner, they had found purpose. And under Sunless's quiet command, they had found direction.
The generals—some proud, others cunning—each made a show of swearing their loyalty to Changing Star. Their oaths were performed in public, for all to witness, and the once-guarded castle walls were thrown open to the people, a symbol that the age of isolation had ended. The dream of unity had taken root, and it was growing fast.
The grand tournament had done its part—Memories had changed hands, soul shards were distributed, and warriors had risen. But that was only the beginning.
Now, soul cores were being saturated with precision. Equipment was reforged from the monstrous corpses Sunless had personally provided. The Walking Forge thundered day and night, reshaping relics of old, while Sasha, trembling and determined, worked beside it—enhancing, engraving, mending. Together they made every piece of power count.
No detail was neglected. Sunless even scoured the forbidden depths of the castle's ancient library, plundering its secrets. With the power of [A Stubborn Legacy], he fed tome after tome into [Mother's Maw], preserving knowledge for what came after. He informed Nephis and Cassie of what he had discovered—the true, terrible nature of the artificial sun that hung over their world, and the slumbering girl bound to it. A gate guardian, most likely. A key wrapped in flesh and innocence.
There were battles, too—quiet ones in the shadows. With Kido's help, the Lord of the Dead was drawn out and weakened, then fell to Sunless's blade. In secret, he swapped the Shard pieces for one of Nephis's choosing, ensuring control. Formation teams were drafted. Gear was allocated based on compatibility, tactical role, and projection. No tool wasted. No soul left idle.
And after all that—after every shred of preparation had been exhausted—only one thing remained.
To celebrate.
Music spilled through the halls, wild and joyous. Laughter rang through the air like bells ringing in defiance of what loomed on the horizon. People danced, drank, sang—some even slipped into euphoric hazes, clutching strangers as if the night itself might swallow them whole. It was a festival of the doomed, a moment of release before the storm.
Sunless did not belong to any group. His reputation made sure of that. But tonight, he drifted from gathering to gathering, a phantom among the revelers. With Kai, he sang an old tune about a charming rogue—a smooth-talking felon. He toasted with Kido and Akio over talk of what might come after the siege:of Movies,merchandise and exclusivity contracts. A future. He caught sight of Alice stumbling away into the shadows, dragging a red-faced Harus by the wrist, the poor man too stunned to protest.
Eventually, his wandering brought him to the loudest table in the hall—a circle of drunken braggarts arm-wrestling and boasting of impossible dares. He bought them a round of drinks, earned their trust with a smirk and a few whispered jabs, and began steering the game. Not because he enjoyed it. He didn't.
But he had things to test.
Until now, he had ignored most of Az's Memories. They were relics of another life, chaotic and fragmented—sometimes bleeding into his thoughts like oil in water. But some were too vivid, too grounded to dismiss. Memories of a man named Aslan, once part of a European crime syndicate before the Fall. That much made sense.
But there were other things. Stranger things.
Az remembered beings called *Friends*—twisted, unnatural entities used by the Celik to gain power, status, or influence. The memories spoke of dark pacts sealed through 'games'—arcane rituals dressed as children's dares. And of hundreds of children vanishing in a single month.
At first, Sunless had assumed these fragments were hallucinations, the residue of madness or narcotics. But the memories were too consistent. Too detailed.
So now… he would test them.
He remembered the names: *The Tenth Caller*, *Mister Dry Bones*, *The Pretender*, *The Mirror Fiends*. Of them, only two seemed reasonably "safe" by Az's criteria.
And with no working phones in the Dream Realm, he settled on the Mirror Fiends.
It was almost innocent in its ritualistic simplicity. A dark room, one candle, and a mirror. The game: stare into your reflection for fifteen minutes. Then resist whatever the Fiends showed you for fifteen more. In exchange, they would give you a better version of yourself—a reflection that others would start to see as real.
He explained the rules to the group like it was a spooky campfire game.
And one of the drunkards—muscle-bound, red-faced, and puffed up by liquid courage—grinned and declared he'd do it.
Sunless smiled.
"Perfect," he said, pouring another drink.
The room was prepared. The candle lit. And as the mirror caught firelight and shadow in equal measure, Sunless stepped back… and waited to see if the world remembered things better left forgotten.
The old servant's quarters were silent, lit only by the fragile glow of a single candle. Shadows clung to the corners, thick and heavy, as though the darkness itself was holding its breath.
Rolf sat cross-legged in front of the mirror, his reflection staring back at him. His breath stank of alcohol, and the bravado that had brought him here on a dare was already starting to fray. The others chuckled behind the door, peeking through the crack like boys around a campfire.
Sunless leaned beside the frame, arms crossed, silent as a statue.
He was curious. He needed to know if Az's memories were lies… or warnings.
The rules were simple. Sit before the mirror, a candle lit beside you. Stare for fifteen minutes without breaking eye contact. If you succeeded, the Mirror Fiends would begin their game—an offering, in exchange for enduring the true face of yourself.
Rolf lasted twelve minutes before he began to sweat.
It started subtly. His reflection blinked too slow. Smiled too wide. Not distorted—worse. Almost perfect. Just wrong enough to itch beneath the skin.
Then the mirror's glass darkened—not dimmed, but deepened, like it had become a window into something far away. Rolf's reflection grinned at him, teeth lengthening like needles.
He frowned. Leaned closer.
And behind his image, something *moved*.
A child's shape—impossibly tall and narrow—crawled across the floor of the mirror. Limbs jointed backward. Head lolling side to side. No face. Just a mask. A painted smile.
Rolf's mouth opened, but he didn't scream.
The mirror shifted again.
Now he saw himself—not in the present, but as a boy. Crying. Alone in the snow. Screaming for help. No one came. The image twisted, and he became the one walking away, pretending not to hear.
Then the images blurred—flashes of blood, of stolen food, of a woman's neck breaking under his boot,his first nightmare,*She attacked first,* his mind insisted. *It wasn't murder. It was survival.*
But the mirror showed no excuses. It only showed what was.
And then—quietly, coldly—it offered him a better self.
Handsome. Heroic. Unstained.
But only if he *watched*.
The mask returned. The Fiend leaned in from the other side of the glass. Eyes like ink, pupils shaped like mirrors.
It smiled.
And began to *show him things*.
Things that made Rolf whimper. Gasp. His fists clenched so hard they drew blood. His whole body trembled. He tried to close his eyes—but couldn't. The Fiend *held* them open.
He tried to look away.
And failed.
He *screamed*.
The others outside fell silent.
Rolf scrambled backward, kicking the candle over. Darkness exploded across the room.
"No! No, I'm done—I'm done!" he shrieked. He barreled out the door, knocking over two of his friends. "You said it was just a dare! Just a joke!"
They caught a glimpse of him as he fled—wild-eyed, sweating, pale. He crashed into a table and didn't stop running.
Sunless stayed behind.
The room was quiet again. The mirror sat in the dark, perfectly still.
But on its surface, faint and fleeting, was the reflection of someone who wasn't in the room.
A boy.
Aslan.
The image stared back at Sunless, exhausted and blood-smeared,one eye filled with a quiet, hopeless hatred.
He was not smiling. Behind him the Fiends were waving their hands as if recognizing sunless.
Sunless turned and left, letting the door creak shut behind him.
So. The memories weren't hallucinations. The Friends were real. And the Mirror Fiends did not forgive weakness.
He would need to be far more careful if he ever dared face them himself.
'*'
Cassie had a bad habit, sunny decided. She had gotten into the habit of using him as a mattress that she shared on occasion with nephis. Normally he would not complain about something like that, he actually found it somewhat endearing how much she felt comfortable with him and nephis. But the problem arose when he awoke before her, they had spent the celebrations planning the attack together, he had joined them after the mirror incident. But this didn't mean that they were speared the fun. And Cassie was sleeping away what must have been her first time being tipsy, it was actually really cute how she kept saying that she loved him and Nephis.
But sunless had been awoken by something important or rather someone important. Saint had changed.
Her graceful figure brimming with new power. The glow of her ruby eyes seemed to have become brighter. Her onyx armor was still composed of polished, stonelike metal. Beneath it, her skin was still smooth and white as alabaster.[16]
On the inside, the darkness hiding in the body of the living statue now seemed much, much deeper, and the three embers seemed to have become substantially larger. More than that, they somehow appeared to be more complete. Not yet whole, but also not as broken and fragmented as they had been before.
She now was an Ascended Demon , a force to be reckoned with. She had gained the ability to use Memory weapons and charms.
This was phenomenal, her being able to equip enchantment items upped her combat effectiveness dramatically. But it had shown sunny how to help his shadows reach a new rank.
He dismissed her back into his shadow. She would have plenty opportunity to show her might in a few days. With that he snuggled closer to nephis.