Billions of majestic, brilliant black sparks danced with burning curiosity. Like tiny, pitch-black suns, they swirled around a single epicenter until they were swallowed whole by an abyssal void.
Finally, the vortex consumed it all, dragging everything into the dark.
[The Second Seal is Broken.]
[Awakening dormant power...]
...
Sunny slowly opened his eyes. He was sitting in a lotus position on his bed in the depths of the Dark City cathedral, emerging from a state of profound meditation. The familiar, comforting gloom of his room welcomed him back.
Instantly, a new, profound clarity gleamed within his pitch-black eyes. His body felt incredibly light, his mind was sharper, and his very features felt more defined, etched with a new layer of power.
Then, the Spell whispered.
[Awakening Aspect Ability…]
[...Aspect Ability acquired.]
[Aspect Ability Name: Shadow Step.]
[Shadow Step] Ability Description: [You can move freely between shadows, traveling from one to another in an instant.]
A small, deeply satisfied smile crept onto Sunny's lips as the Nightmare Spell confirmed the completion of his ascension.
"Finally," he breathed. Having that unparalleled ability back in his arsenal was a massive relief.
"Did you succeed?" Saint's voice drifted from right behind him.
The stone knight was lying on her side among the tangled sheets, completely devoid of her onyx armor. She propped her head up with a delicate hand, her elbow sinking into the mattress.
The breathtaking curve of her hips and her full, bare breasts were beautifully framed by her flawless, marble-white skin, utterly exposed to his gaze. Ever since becoming an Ascendant, Saint's physical form had evolved—her skin was impossibly smooth, her curves more generous and yielding, her delicate features an absolute vision. She was a mesmerizing sight.
Sunny turned to look at her, his smile widening. "It's done, Saint. I'm an Awakened once again."
"Well... in that case..." Saint's voice dropped to a husky, breathless whisper, vibrating with sudden excitement. She rolled onto her hands and knees, slowly crawling across the mattress toward him like a predatory feline. "Why don't we test just how much endurance your newly awakened body really has?"
The ruby-red flames in her eyes burned with an unmistakable, carnal desire. Meeting her gaze, Sunny felt a heavy, intense heat flare instantly below his navel, rushing up to paint his cheeks red and making his ears burn.
"Uh... you mean with a sword, right?" he deflected weakly, glancing away.
A low, sultry chuckle vibrated in her chest. "We can cross blades later, my Lord," she murmured, wrapping her bare, slender arms around his neck. Her heavy breasts pressed flush against his chest, her tightened, sensitive peaks tracing a slow, agonizing line against his skin.
Saint closed the distance. Their lips collided in a searing, hungry kiss, tongues tangling desperately. Sunny felt the intoxicating, wet heat of her mouth and the demanding, tender pressure of her lips. They were both entirely bare. Slowly, her right hand trailed down his abdomen, her cool, silken fingers wrapping firmly around the base of his aching length.
Sunny instinctively thrust his hips forward, a violent shudder of pure pleasure shooting up his spine as heavy blood pumped into his groin.
"Mmh... mmh..."
Saint hummed into his mouth, tasting of dark desires and the lingering sweetness of the previous night. He hardened completely in her grip, standing tall and thick. As his throbbing tip brushed against the soft underside of her hanging breasts, and the veins on his shaft pulsed with anticipation, she began to stroke him—deliberate, coaxing, and maddeningly slow.
The contrast of her firm, smooth grip sliding rhythmically up and down his shaft while her mouth devoured his sent his mind spiraling. He reached out, his left hand capturing one of her dense, soft breasts, while his right hand slid lower. Kneeling right before him, her sex was completely exposed and dripping with slick arousal.
As his fingers traced her slick folds and his middle finger slid inside her scalding wetness, Sunny felt Saint's hand tighten around his glans in return, milking him with expert precision as her lips trailed down his jaw.
The edge came fast. A violent tremor wrecked his body, and with a stifled groan, he came. A hot, thick pulse of white shot over her lower stomach, coating the palm of her hand.
Saint pulled back from his lips, licking her own playfully.
"And now... for the main course."
Without wasting another second, she shifted her hips forward and straddled him. Guiding him with a slick hand, she slowly sank down, taking him fully inside her. Sunny gasped as he was swallowed by her tight, scalding depths. Her flesh seemed to mold perfectly around his shape, the suffocating heat and immense pressure sending electric shocks of ecstasy straight to his brain.
Fully sheathed inside her, she wrapped her arms around his waist. He gripped her wide, yielding hips, her skin feeling unimaginably soft and supple under his fingertips. They locked eyes, a playful, deeply affectionate smile shared between them, like two partners sharing a wonderful secret.
"Mmmh!"
Saint began to move. Slow, grinding circles at first. Sunny felt the blood boiling in his veins, his rigid member twitching and pulsing deep within her womb, demanding more.
The wet, rhythmic slap of flesh against marble echoed through the dark cathedral room. Their mingled moans filled the heavy air, the ambient heat rising with their friction. Sunny felt an incredible, consuming tightness milking his shaft with every downward thrust, his fingers sinking deeper into the plush softness of her thighs and buttocks, urging her to take him harder. Her heavy, beautiful breasts bounced enticingly right before his eyes.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
They traded soft, fleeting kisses, intoxicating and sweet as strawberries. Her weight pressing down on him was perfect—grounding, enveloping, but never crushing. The bedsprings beneath them began a frantic, rhythmic song.
"Ah! Ah! Ah! Aah!"
"Ngh! Ah!"
The climax hit them like a tidal wave. Blinded by euphoria, Sunny emptied himself deep inside her, flooding her core with his essence. But the rhythm didn't break. Now that both of them possessed the stamina of Awakened beings, their bodies possessed much more energy to burn.
He slumped back, pulling her flush against his chest as he continued to spasm inside her, his mind clouding over in a haze of pure bliss as he pumped thick waves of white deep into her womb. Gently, Saint pushed him by the shoulders, forcing him to lie flat on his back.
Sunny gazed up at her through half-lidded eyes. Her hands rested flat against his stomach. His still-erect member pulsed stubbornly deep inside her tight grip. Her flat stomach and underboob were still slick with his earlier release, and the ruby flames of her eyes were entirely consumed by lust. A beautiful, flushed red dusted her cheeks and shoulders, perfectly complementing the idyllic, sated smile on her lips.
"Ah... ah..." she panted softly.
Creak. Creak. Creak.
Feeling his spasms subside but his hardness remain, she immediately resumed riding him, wrapping him in a vice of silken heat. The bedsprings protested loudly once more. Sunny surrendered completely to her fluid weight, letting the relentless waves of pleasure melt his mind into a bubbling, euphoric warmth.
And so, in the dead of night, the two lovers continued.
***
The morning had gold in its mouth, as the old saying went, and today, Sunny was feeling incredibly greedy.
Right in front of him sat a miniature black pagoda of exquisite craftsmanship, looking as though it had been sculpted by a grandmaster of darkness itself. It was the [Shadow Lantern].
"Ready, Saint?" he asked, shifting his gaze toward her.
"I am," Saint replied with a firm nod behind her visor, she was standing in full armor, emphasizing her conviction by slamming a fist against her marble shield.
A moment later, she dissolved into a wisp of darkness, sinking back into his shadow and returning to his Soul Sea.
Sunny had spent a long time carefully agonizing over how to absorb the drop of the Shadow God's Ichor without letting [The Weave] devour it entirely.
In his first life—Timeline A—he had blindly absorbed the Ichor while wandering alone the Forgotten Shore. But [Blood Weave] had violently intervened. The resulting clash had damaged both divine legacies, leaving him with only a fragmented fraction of the Shadow God's power, which eventually vanished entirely as he collected more pieces of Weaver's lineage.
In Timeline B, he had attempted the absorption while already possessing two fragments of the forbidden lineage: blood and bone. The combined might of those two parts had instantly and completely cannibalized the Shadow God's Ichor before it could even settle.
So Sunny never truly possessed the true lineage of the Shadow God.
"Damnation! Just thinking about it drives me crazy!" He muttered under his breath.
It was an inevitable, brutal rule of nature. When two different divine lineages clashed within a single vessel, the stronger one would always devour the weaker. There was only one known exception in existence where multiple lineages peacefully coexisted: Asterion.
The original Dreamspawn had possessed four different divine lineages simultaneously, and in Sunny's past life, the man had even managed to secure a fifth—Heart, Blood, War, Storm, and Sun. But how was such a feat even possible?
That question had haunted Sunny for a long time. Initially, he had theorized it was a specific trait of the Heart God's lineage—perhaps the Hunger's or Growth's trait. But the true answer lay in his very nature as a Dreamspawn. Dreamspawns were born of two worlds. And the Dream God—the forgotten, corrupted deity—was currently in the process of devouring all worlds.
Every single divine realm had already been assimilated into the Dream Realm, with the sole exception of the Waking World—the domain of War. This metaphysical convergence of the realms allowed Asterion to forcefully bind and anchor different divine lineages within their body, forcing them into a state of coexistence.
The natural follow-up question was: could Nephis, being a Dreamspawn herself, do the exact same thing and harbor multiple divine lineages?
Sunny didn't know, and frankly, he had zero desire to find out. In the previous timelines, she had gone utterly out of control. Giving her all six was a recipe for an apocalyptic disaster.
So, that brought him back to his current dilemma: how could Sunny converge Weaver's forbidden lineage with the Shadow God's without one damaging or cannibalizing the other?
The answer had ironically been provided by his "dear uncle"—the King of the Underworld, the Daemon of Choice, Nether. And to pull off this method, Sunny was going to have to do something completely unprecedented.
He had to enter the Shadow Realm as an Awakened only.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~