Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, then shifted his gaze, moving it to the very end of the field of shimmering runes. Soon, Neph's description appeared before him. He lingered for a few moments, and then read:

…Soul Fragments: [2478/4000].

The corner of his mouth twitched.

'Of course. She is in a hell of her own, after all…'

The gap between them had diminished, but barely. He was still behind… still lacking…

But she was alive, at least. And fighting with all her strength to return.

If Neph refused to give up, then he would have to persevere, too.

With a sigh, Sunny turned away and looked back to his runes, finding the list of his Memories and Echoes. His eyes suddenly gleamed, but then grew dark and slightly despondent.

'What the hell… how is this even possible…'

Among the names of his Memories, dozens of new ones shimmered in the darkness. It seemed that the Spell continued to reward him even while their connection was obstructed by the sorceries of Hope. It sort of made sense… the fact that Sunny had not been able to communicate with the Spell did not mean that it had not continued to watch his every step.

He was inside one of its Nightmares, after all. Which created a swarm of questions on its own…

Not caring to consider them, Sunny silently counted the new Memories.

Thirty-nine… there were thirty-nine of them!

…And yet, there was not a single Echo he had received after slaughtering nearly a thousand Nightmare Creatures. Not even a hint of one.

'Doesn't make any sense… none at all. What is this, a joke?'

It seemed that his luck when it came to Memories had been incredible, while his luck when it came to Echoes had been beyond terrible. He should have received four of five, at least… but he had not.

Sunny stared into the darkness for a while, his expression glum. Then, he sighed.

'Well, doesn't matter. It's a pity that I did not receive an Echo of the Red Priest, though. I would have made him into a Shadow... just to get a chance to kill that bastard again…'

He studied his new Memories, slowly reading their names and descriptions. A few were good, and a couple was splendid. The rest, however, were worse than what he already had in his arsenal. Their only use was to feed Saint.

This time, however, he did not hurry to give them away as sustenance for the taciturn demon. Instead, Sunny hesitated for a long time, and then dismissed the runes. He had other plans for these Memories.

Each of them possessed a unique weave, one that he would be able to study and experiment with while not fearing to damage or destroy an actually valuable instrument. He would be able to use Weaver's needle now, too, instead of cutting his fingers on the ethereal, but perfectly sharp strings.

Satisfied with that decision, Sunny finished the last of synthpaste tubes he had taken out of the Covetous Coffer, indifferently dropped them into the dark abyss of the Sky Below, and sent one of his shadows to scout out the situation above.

The sun was rolling toward the horizon, and the night was swiftly approaching.

That meant that he would have to move soon.

***

Over the next few days, Sunny traveled southeast, staying in the darkness of the Sky Below during the night, and finding shelter on the undersides of the floating island during the day. He was still weak because of his injuries and had to make frequent stops to rest and sleep, which slowed him down considerably.

In the course of these days, Sunny made several stunning discoveries.

The first one was rather pleasant and beneficial to him. As it turned out, there were far fewer Nightmare Creatures populating the Kingdom of Hope in this era than there were in the future. That included the harrowing abominations that dwelled on the dark side of the islands.

Their absence made the task of remaining below the isles far easier for him. Of course, there were still some monstrosities hiding in the darkness, but not nearly enough to make it too hard to avoid them.

In retrospect, that made sense. These lands were not completely devastated yet, and there were plenty of humans living on the levitating islands. It was because of them and their efforts that the population of Nightmare Creatures was so low. It was also the reason why it took Solvane and her zealots a full decade or more to gather enough abominations to hold the accursed Trials.

The second discovery he made was far less fortuitous, and also had to do with the human inhabitants of the Kingdom of Hope. He was still in the territory of the worshippers of War, which made it all but impossible to appear on the surface of the islands during the day, unnoticed. But the dark side wasn't completely safe, either.

Not once and not twice, he saw humans traveling either across the heavenly chains or through the Sky Below. Hidden in the shadows, he observed several flying ships sail through the boundless darkness, some adorned with sails of pristine white, some of vivid red.

He even witnessed two vessels locked in furious battle, arrows and pieces of burning wood falling into the abyss like rain. In the end, the ship with white sails rammed into the red one, splitting the vessel in half and sending the captain and the crew to their deaths in the Sky Below.

These ships looked simultaneously similar and different to the one the Fire Keepers had repaired and guided to the Ebony Tower. They were much smaller and slower, and didn't have a magnificent tree growing around their masts. The vessel Sunny had spent several weeks on looked much more... ancient, in comparison.

Like the original in front of lesser copies.

…The third discovery Sunny made was, perhaps, the most shocking.

The Crushing... did not exist in this era. The islands rose and fell as usual, but no matter how high they climbed, no deadly force assaulted them, threatening to destroy anything too weak or too slow to run away.

Many of the Nightmare Creatures Sunny had studied before hunting them down, in the future, were somewhat different here from what he knew. He had understood that fact in the arena, and confirmed it while observing the islands through the eyes of his shadows after escaping it.

Now, he learned why. The Crushing did not yet exist, and for that reason, the Nightmare Creatures had not gone through thousands of years of adaptation to learn how to survive its burden. Neither their bodies not their behavior changed to accommodate the deadly force that would terrorize the entire region in the future yet, and that was why he had found them to be both familiar and strange.

Armed with that knowledge, Sunny slowly made his way south, leaving the Red Colosseum — and Saint Solvane — further and further behind.

His wounds slowly healed, and soon, he felt that he would not be entirely useless in the fight anymore.

…That was just in time, because his days of peace were about to come to an end.