[You have slain an Awakened Tyrant, Breeder of the Emotion Eater]
[Your shadow grows stronger]
He didn't have time to celebrate the kill before he had to evade another Herald coming at him. He parried the hook, the strength behind it making his arm bend slightly.
Instead of trying to hold his ground—a futile action, considering this was a Fallen—he allowed himself to be pushed back. The Herald, not expecting the lack of resistance, wobbled for a second.
A second too long, for the [Moonlight Shard] was already stabbed inside its left eye.
[You have slain a Fallen Beast...]
[Your shadow...]
He allowed himself a second to breathe and analyze his surroundings before diving back into the fight.
Nestled in a quiet valley, the forest he was currently in was made up of a tapestry of delicate trees, each no taller than two meters, their trunks slender and gnarled, their leaves a vibrant green. It was beautiful, idyllic even.
What he appreciated the most about it was the fact that the canopy served as a shield against the rain, letting barely a few drops through. It was a change he welcomed. He swore to never shower—he would still take baths though, he wasn't a savage—again if he managed to return to the Waking World.
To his right, Saint was facing a horde of creatures belonging to the Brood and was winning handily. She already was a deadly fighter, but with the addition of the [Wrathful Might] charm and the reinforcement of one of his shadows, she made it look downright easy.
To his left, Serpent—reinforced by two of his shadows, leaving the other two for himself—was slithering between Heralds, delivering quick and devastating bites or bone-crunching swipes with his tail before retreating back into the shadows, only to repeat it again from a different angle. He almost felt bad for the poor bastards. Almost.
He took a look at the tachi in his hands and sighed dejectedly before rejoining the fight. He had achieved the third step of [Shadow Dance] a few weeks ago, and since then he had been relegated to using the [Midnight Shard] once more. Serpent was far more useful as an active fighter now that he was an Ascended, so he couldn't justify using him as a weapon anymore. And he had more than proved his worth—his might allowed him to safely take on bigger groups like this one without relying too much on pitting them against each other.
It did nothing about the bitterness he felt. Once more, he was relegated to being the weakest in their small merry family. The thought almost made him smile.
Saint was the awkward elder sister he never knew he wanted until he had.
Serpent was the pet, cuddly but absolutely lethal when provoked.
What did that make him? The younger brother, perhaps?
He almost snorted. Saint was absolutely stunning under that armor, and Serpent looked elegant and regal. At their side, he looked like a vagabond.
He would probably be the poor neighbor they took pity on from time to time.
Sunny snorted. Even in the sanctity of his own mind, he always ended up as the pitiful guy. At this point, he had turned self-loathing into an art form.
"Thoughts for another time," he reprimanded himself, focusing back on the battle going on.
He advanced toward the last Tyrant remaining, one belonging to the Heralds this time. And what an ugly creature it was.
Where all others had pink skin that under a certain light could look human, this one's was bright and eye-catching, spotted with little grey dots. The differences didn't end there. Where other Heralds were slim and spindly, this one was short—shorter than him even—and obese to the point of morbidness. And instead of hooks? It had mouths. Mouths that were half its size, from which small dormant beasts—covered in a sickly-looking yellow pus—poured out by the minute.
The sight was revolting even for him, which was why he was going to put it out of its misery sooner rather than later.
The Heralds, of course, did not leave their Tyrant defenseless. A small guard of Awakened demons barred his path.
"Survive."
The command reminded him of its existence, like he could ignore the fact that it was always there, whispering in the background.
He took a deep breath and started running toward them, the apparent leader of the guard—it was twice as big as the others—moving to intercept him.
The Herald met him halfway to the Tyrant, the creature a storm of hooks and fangs that would have loved nothing more than snuffing the life out of him and then devouring his body like it was some sort of delicatessen.
The creature only made a single mistake, which was one too many as far as he cared. It had thought he would engage it in a straight fight.
A split second before his tachi met the first descending hook, he dived under its legs, sliding past the creature and kept running, not a trace of momentum lost.
The other guards moved to intercept him. One pounced on him fangs-first, ready to turn him into its chew toy. It was greeted by a [Moonlight Shard] to the face, killing it instantly.
Another, smarter than its dead sibling, organized the other guards into a pincer maneuver that left him no path of escape. Good.
He kept advancing toward them, running even faster rather than slowing down. Just as he was about to come into contact with them, he stopped and ducked, the leader of the guards passing right over his head, millimeters away from tearing his head off his shoulders.
Their clash gave him a second to act before they could recover. A second he did not waste, as he ran again and, using one of the fallen creatures as a foothold, jumped, clearing past the line of guards and landing right on top of the Tyrant.
The creature tried to put up resistance, its minions attempting to defend their vile progenitor, but it was futile. The Tyrant did not have combat skills of its own, and the minions were far too weak and slow to pose a danger. He reinforced his arms with essence and slashed at the creature's head, its life ending in a second.
[You have slain an Awakened Tyrant, Meron of Aleras]
[Your shadow grows stronger]
[You have received a Memory, Staff of Eternal Binding.]
He allowed himself a heartbeat to check the enchantments.
His heart thundered upon reading them, a wide smile taking shape on his face. The heartbeat passed, and he didn't have any more time to pay it attention before he was forced to contend with the enraged guards he had left behind.
The fight turned into a blur after that. The strongest creatures had been dealt with already, and now it was only a matter of cleaning up the dregs.
And what a ridiculous thought that was. Sleepers were supposed to face Dormant creatures, Awakened beasts at most. Anything higher was considered suicide by any normal metrics, and here he was, regularly facing Tyrants and Fallen beasts—though not without help—all on his own. His boast about being the greatest Sleeper ever wasn't empty after all.
Hah! He would show them! He would show everyone who had ever doubted or underestimated him! Then, he would make them pay for ever doing so in the first place. He would drink their blo—
First time trying real meat, being placed second to last in the Academy's rankings, having a room of my own in the Awakened Academy, almost dying to the carapace centurion, swordsmanship classes with…
He stopped his thoughts in time, the remembrance chain managing to pull him out of the insidious wrath. He shot a resentful glare in the direction of the creature responsible. Kilometers away, and its passive aura still caught him at times. It was maddening.
A particularly big raindrop fell on his nose, drawing his attention to another maddening fact: the addiction was still going strong.
Yesterday marked five months since he last drank from the rain, and he still craved it like he couldn't live without it. The calm. The numbness. The brief relief that made him forget, even if only for a moment, just how dire his situation was. And who cared that it was just for a moment? There was an infinite amount of the heavenly rain falling on him constantly.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to drink a little…
[Master: Changing Star]
The usual conflicting emotions slammed into him with the subtlety of a train, dragging his mind back from the mire he always ended up in whenever he thought for too long—namely, two seconds—about the rain.
He exhaled in annoyance and started walking.
He had considered leaving The Tears after his staring contest—which he totally won—with the Unholy, but in the end saw no point in it. The Titan didn't harm him—if you ignored the fact that he almost died just by being stared at by it—even after he had looked directly at its soul, so he was tentatively sure that it wouldn't make itself a problem.
Besides, Fate had practically screamed at him when he considered leaving, and he was still pretending to be a dutiful son to it. Which, honestly, seemed to work fine. After all, if he were to look a little up, he could see the silhouette of the Temple of the Twin Gods just a few hours of travel away.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to drink a little, just for old time's sake, now that he was so close to escape…
"Survive."
[Master: Changing Star]
He exhaled in annoyance and started walking.
As he did so, one of the dead creatures caught his attention. It was an Awakened Devil of the Brood, its ability being the growth and control of hair in battle, which could have been quite deadly if not for the fact that Saint had killed it in one stroke. The poor guy's horrendous face was still set in surprise.
It was its hair that he noticed. If he were to squint a little—or maybe a lot—it looked like… it looked like that of the first dead person he ever saw.
"Hey guys, have I ever told you about the first time I saw a corpse?"
Saint, walking by his side, gave him a sidelong glance but chose not to answer in any other way.
Serpent, on the other hand, poked his head outside the tattoo to shake it, then went back to his resting mode.
Gloomy shook his head, somehow conveying the idea that he would rather do anything else than listen to his ramblings. Rude.
Happy gave him an effusive thumbs-up. He could always count on that guy to have his back.
Creepy seemed delighted to talk about corpses. It made him question the choices that had led him to making the Creepy fellow happy.
Haughty raised its chin, pointedly looking away from him, as if saying that it was beneath it to listen to such a thing. Honestly, where did the shadow get such an attitude?
Naughty seemed interested. A bad omen all on its own.
Sunny shook his head, desperately wishing he had more normal company.
"I was ten years old, I think. I was looking for food when I noticed a terrible smell coming from an alleyway," he started.
He sidestepped a puddle of blood as he kept walking, his eyes and ears peeled for any indication of danger. The forest was positively infested with nightmare creatures of both clans, after all.
"It smelled terrible—sweet yet rotten—with an undercurrent of urine and feces that still makes my stomach revolt at times," he continued in a low voice.
He crouched behind a bush, avoiding the gaze of a pack of Heralds with a single second to spare. He advanced through the bush silently, doing his best to stay as inconspicuous as possible.
An hour later, he had left the detection range of the creatures and was once more in the clear to resume his tale.
"I checked it out of morbid curiosity. I entered the alleyway, and there I found Hairy Ron. I don't think that was his name, but it's what everyone called him."
He found his first objective a few steps ahead: an incredibly wide river that was currently clogged by a set of massive boulders he had placed on it with Saint's help, the rocks slowly but surely crumbling under the wrath of the currents.
He looked far into the distance, where the river split into two forks, perfectly circulating around the Temple of the Twin Gods. He made some quick calculations and, after checking once more his new Memory, took hold of the strings of life of the boulders.
"He was a very hated man, even by the standards of the Outskirts. Ron had the bright idea of stealing from pretty much every small and big fish in our district, which made him plenty of enemies. The bastard even stole from me once."
He poured essence into the strings as he talked, keeping a careful eye on their rapid deterioration.
"It made sense that eventually someone would catch him off guard. And they made sure to deliver a message. I counted no less than twenty-seven stab wounds before puking."
Once he judged that the boulders were ready, he stopped and started walking once more toward his second and last objective.
On the way, he had to hide many more times, even going so far as to crawl to avoid detection.
"Do you guys know what I felt after that?" he asked in a whisper, eyes carefully tracking a Fallen Demon belonging to the Brood that was mere meters away from him.
Silence answered him.
He would kill to have someone answer.
He shook his head at the stray thought and kept waiting with bated breath for the Fallen to leave.
Twenty minutes later, the Demon finally left, giving him a narrow window of time to reach his objective. He stepped carefully, heart thundering in his chest.
He crouched once more and kept advancing like that for a good quarter of an hour, his legs and chest burning from the accumulated exhaustion.
At last, he came upon his goal.
The leftmost statue.
He sent his shadows atop it to check, and once they signaled that he was in the clear, he dismissed Saint and started to climb quickly, fingers and feet nimbly finding the climbing holes he had made on previous visits to ease the task.
Ten minutes later, he reached the top and hid behind a crease that made him impossible to see from outside. He had learned that fact when he was ambushed upon first climbing it. He owed the scar crisscrossing his face to that.
He sat as comfortably as he could and summoned Saint once more, the space in the crevice barely enough to hold both of them.
"I felt nothing," he said at last, his voice so soft as to be almost silent.
He searched for the string of life of the statue and, upon finding it, began channeling essence into it.
"I felt nothing," he repeated, this time more clearly. "I hated that man, and yet I felt nothing."
He saw the string growing, its shade far darker than it had been the first time he did this.
"He had been dead since the first time I met him," he continued. "That day was just the day on which he finally realized it."
His gaze remained fixed on the string, but his mind drifted elsewhere, adrift with memories of the past.
"Hairy Ron was a hollow man, clinging to life like a rat to a sinking ship, too desperate and ignorant to realize it had already gone under. Each breath he took was just another cycle of self-destruction. He wore misery like a second skin, suffocating in it yet somehow believing that it was the only thing keeping him alive. His every movement was a desperate grasp at some sort of meaning he had lost long ago—if he ever had it to begin with."
Disgust welled inside him at the memory, the urge to spit growing by the second.
"Back then, I always wondered if he was so far gone as to not even recognize his reflection. He didn't even realize he had already been dead for years; too caught up in pretending to live to realize it."
He spat at the memory.
And then he did it once more, because he realized just how similar he was to him.
Why?
Why did he do it?
Why did he keep surviving?
Did Hairy Ron ask himself that question too? Did he find an answer before his death?
He didn't know.
And it scared him.
-------------------------------------------
He arrived at his current lair at the edge of night—or what he considered it to be; the light was always the same under the eternal downpour of rain—and found himself relaxing a little.
He covered the entrance of the cave with leaves and branches, then went to take a seat on his favorite—and only—rock.
Sunny summoned the [Safebox of Greed], and from inside he retrieved some meat as well as a weirdly shaped fruit that had a sweet taste when dried. He had found it on a tree a few months back and had saved it for this very moment.
Tomorrow he was going to raid the Temple. The least he could do was treat himself to something sweet for a change. He ate in silence, then drank from the [Endless Spring].
Unwilling to wait any longer, he dived straight into his soul sea.
The waters were as calm as ever, the five dark suns hanging over him ominously, as if they too were awaiting with bated breath tomorrow's challenges.
He took a look toward the legion of shadows, many more having joined their ranks since his last visit.
He saw the Mountain King, mighty and tall, blind eyes looking ahead as if he were still staring down Hero.
He saw Harper, just as pitiful as his owner had been in life.
He saw the shadows of the first Bright Lord's cohort, immobile yet conveying a sense of solace upon being reunited.
He saw Harus, the hunchback, still eliciting disgust from him even in death.
He saw Caster, young and hale despite having died a fragile old man. He, too, elicited disgust.
He saw many more shadows stretching into the distance, the Brood and Heralds holding the advantage in numbers by far.
Inevitably, his gaze was drawn to the gargantuan black moth. It had shown up one day, its presence completely unexplainable.
It had given him a terrible scare when he first saw it, but after determining that it behaved just like the others, he had settled into a quiet yet nervous acceptance of its presence. Its provenance was a mystery he intended to solve one day, but for now he would settle for monitoring it for any sudden activity.
Checkup done, he moved on to his actual purpose.
He pulled up the runes and, at the same time, summoned the Memory.
[Memory name: Staff of Eternal Binding.
Memory description: And so the Priest retold, "In a storm of deadly waters and mighty winds, the twin gods clashed at the edge of existence, their powers shaking the very fabric of the realm. Their eyes burned with ancient rage, and their voices roared like thunder across the heavens. One, a goddess of water, corrupted by knowledge that none should possess. The other, a god of the free skies, mournful yet determined to stop his sister before she could destroy what they had built together.
In the end, the god of the sky triumphed over his sibling, and yet he did not kill her, for they had always been together and could not bear the idea of being left alone. Driven by grief and sorrow, he consumed the still-living flesh of his sibling, merging their bodies so that they would never be separated."
Mirroring the tenets of their gods, among the priesthood of the Twin Gods, no greater virtue existed than having someone always by your side, and no greater sin than being alone.]
He found himself snorting in dark amusement upon rereading the description. He had already claimed to be the greatest of sinners, and it turned out that he was right when it came to that particular religion.
He shook his head and rechecked the enchantments just to be sure he wasn't making a mistake, but he truly couldn't find any use for them.
Saint manifested by his side and took hold of the staff. She stared at it for a second before crushing it without hesitation.
[Shadow Name: Marble Saint
Shadow fragments: 200/200]
He watched silently as dark flames enveloped her, a mighty gust of wind following right after.
Mere seconds later, it was done.
Saint had transcended.
For once, bitterness did not rear its ugly head. He couldn't bring himself to feel anything but happiness for his greatest ally.
He raised a hand, but as usual, Saint ignored the request for a high-five. Now, if only growing in rank could also make her more personable, it would be perfect.
"It's fine, Saint. You're still awesome even if you don't talk much," he said with fake cheer.
She looked at him strangely, her ruby eyes conveying some emotion he couldn't quite understand.
A problem for another day. This one had already been eventful enough, and he would rather go to sleep.
Tomorrow was going to be a long day, after all.
-------------------------------------------
He stood once more beside the river, the string of life belonging to the biggest boulder already within his grasp.
In the distance, he saw the battle that was about to unfurl.
Along the leftmost statue were the Heralds, individually stronger but fewer in number. Leading them was the reason he had spent the last two months hunting Memories to make Saint transcend. His chances were already low, but otherwise they would have been zero.
It towered like a walking monolith, its body hewn from obsidian so dark it seemed to drink in the light around it. Jagged plates of glassy stone shifted as it moved, grinding together with the sound of distant breaking rock. Where hands should have been, cruel, curved hooks jutted outward—polished, razor-edged, and heavy with purpose.
Its face was the most unsettling thing of all. A vertical split ran straight down its head, opening into twin rows of interlocking fangs that flexed and clicked as if tasting the air. Its eyes were massive, like two fiery orbs that boiled the rain around them. Heat and malice radiated from it, and with every slow step, the ground seemed to tense, as though the world itself feared what the creature had come to claim.
Surrounding it was an aura of unquenchable fury, driving every Herald under its command into a mad frenzy that threatened to spill at any second. Despite appearances, the beast possessed a surprisingly sharp intellect that had nothing to envy from nightmare creatures of a higher class.
The creature was the one he suspected to be Wrath, a Corrupted Beast whose mind hex he could feel threatening to drive him mad even kilometers away.
Along the rightmost statue were the Brood, generally weaker but far more numerous. Leading them was the reason—among many—of his sleepless nights, their vile poison too tyrannical to allow rest.
The creature lurked like a living blight, its long claws scraping softly against the ground as if impatient for something unseen. Its skin hung in brittle layers, sickly and pale, flaking away in dry fragments that never quite touched the earth before fading into nothing. The air around it felt wrong—stale, heavy, and cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature.
It did not hunt flesh, but feeling. Wherever it passed, warmth drained, courage thinned into doubt, and joy withered into a dull, aching numbness. The creature seemed to swell with quiet satisfaction as the rage evoked by its rival ebbed away, its posture straightening, its claws flexing as though fed by it. To face it was to feel yourself slowly hollowed out, left standing and breathing, yet stripped of everything that made you feel alive.
The creature was most likely the Emotion Eater, a Fallen Terror whose mind hex was no less insidious than that of its rival.
Since he arrived two months ago, he had seen the two abominations engage in battle for dominion over the Temple countless times. It had already changed hands more times than he could count, and yet they still kept battling each other, the hatred between them too great to ever stop.
It would have been convenient if one of his main enemies killed the other and, in the process, weakened themselves enough to grant him an easy kill.
Sadly, they didn't work like that. The two leaders never engaged directly in battle for more than a few seconds, completely unwilling to leave any opening the other could exploit. The battles were usually decided by their minions, with the losing side leaving the Temple to regroup and try again later.
"Just my luck. Nightmare creatures that act more like generals than mindless beasts," he groused to himself once more.
He had had a few direct encounters with them as well, and each time he had escaped only by pure luck. He sported quite a few new scars that could be attributed to them, and today he would make sure to settle the debt.
The prize—for him and the creatures—lay straight ahead, between the two hordes.
The temple still stood, though only by stubborn memory and stone. Once, its towering steps and gilded arches must have inspired awe, but now they were cracked and sunken, softened by centuries of wind and rain. The walls bore the faint scars of old carvings—stories and symbols worn so thin they were little more than whispers etched into the rock.
On either side of the entrance loomed two massive statues, their forms colossal and solemn. Time had not been kind to them. Faces once carved with divine authority were eroded into blank, fractured masks, and great chunks of stone lay scattered at their feet like fallen crowns. Moss crept along their legs, and vines wound through broken fingers, as if nature were slowly reclaiming them. Together, temple and statues formed a silent monument to lost splendor—a place where glory had once ruled, and where only echoes now remained.
The most striking feature had to be the gates of the Temple, still holding strong unlike the rest of the structure and just as firmly closed as they had been in the mural he had seen so long ago.
And from inside, he felt a calling—so vague and faint that he couldn't be sure whether it was real or just his imagination playing a cruel prank on him. There was a Gateway inside that Temple. Or at least, he hoped so.
Quite real was the almost-whisper of Fate, urging him toward the Temple with an insistence that did nothing but worry him further.
He steeled his nerves. That was a problem for future Sunny. The current one had a battle to win.
[Name: Sunless
True Name: Lost from Light
Shadow Cores: 5/7
Shadow fragments: 3879/5000]
He briefly considered postponing this until he completed all seven cores, ensuring his chances were as good as possible. He considered it—and then crushed the idea immediately. His plans were already in motion, and he might not have another chance.
Both the Emotion Eater and Wrath were hunting him just as much as they hunted each other, and despite Saint's new might, he had no guarantee he could keep escaping them.
More importantly, he wanted to do this. He wanted to end it today. Whether that meant victory and a return to the Waking World or death didn't matter.
Glory or death. Those were his only options.
Sunny took a deep breath and brought up the runes once more. If he succeeded and there truly was a Gateway inside the Temple, he would have to deal with Her sooner or later, so it was as good a time as any to check.
[Master: Changing Star
Rank: Awakened
Soul Cores: 7/7
Soul fragments: 5001/7000]
Still no change. She had been inactive for a while now.
As if waiting precisely for that thought, the counter changed.
[Soul fragments: 7000/7000]
He shook his head in almost fond exasperation. Just what was she doing now?
He guessed he would find out soon enough—if he survived.
Sunny took another deep breath, sent a fresh stream of essence into the boulder, and summoned Saint. Then he started walking toward the battle about to unfold, his steps firm and steady.
The war over the Temple ended today.