Shadow Slave

Chapter 15

Prepare for appraisal…]

Sunny found himself in a space between dream and reality. It was an endless black void illuminated bya myriad of stars. Between those stars, countless strings of silver light were woven into a beautiful andinconceivably complex net, forming various nexuses and constellations. It was truly breathtaking.

Somehow, Sunny understood that he was seeing the inner workings of the Nightmare Spell. He alsocouldn’t help but think that it looked a lot like the celestial equivalent of a neural network. If so… wasthe Spell alive?

This was a question that countless people had been asking themselves for the past few decades. Thebest answer they had come up with was that there was no way to know. The Spell was neither alive nordead; neither sentient nor mindless.

It was more of a function than a creature.

But Sunny was in no mood to ponder philosophical questions. He was eagerly awaiting his boon.

The Spell was still appraising his performance. However, the first reward had nothing to do with it.

[You have received a Memory: Puppeteer’s Shroud]

‘Yes!’

Sunny felt incredibly elated. He was almost ready to do a happy dance. That Memory belonged toMountain King, who was an awakened tyrant — which meant that the Memory itself was of theAwakened rank. Getting it was a stroke of incredible luck!

There were seven ranks to everything in the Spell. These ranks were, in order of growing power:Dormant, Awakened, Ascended, Transcendent, Supreme, Sacred and Divine (with the exclusion of

Nightmare Creatures, who were ranked as Dormant, Awakened, Fallen, Corrupted, Great, Cursed andUnholy).

From the Spell’s point of view, Sunny was a dormant human. Having a Memory of a higher rank thanhis own soul core would be of great help once he enters the Dream Realm. The power gap betweendifferent ranks simply could not be overestimated.

He wanted to take a look at the Puppeteer’s Shroud, but there was no more time. The Spell was donewith its appraisal.

Here in the void, its voice didn’t sound subtle and familiar anymore. Rather, it seemed like the universeitself was speaking. Sunny held his breath, listening.

[Aspirant! Your trial is over.]

[A nameless slave ascended the Black Mountain. Both heroes and monsters fell by his hand.Unbroken, he entered the ruined temple of a long-forgotten god and spilled his blood on the sacredaltar. The gods were dead, and yet they listened.]

[You have defeated a dormant beast: Mountain King’s Larva.]

[You have defeated three dormant humans, names unknown.]

[You have defeated an awakened human: Auro of the Nine.]

[You have defeated an awakened tyrant: Mountain King.]

[You have received the Shadow God’s blessing.]

[You have achieved the impossible!]

[Final appraisal: glorious. Your treachery truly knows no bounds.]

That final part was not really necessary, as far as Sunny was concerned, but he was still pretty satisfiedwith the praise from the Spell. He felt like his chances of evolving his Aspect to an Awakened, or evenAscended one were pretty high.

His overall power was still dependent on the rank of his soul core, which would remain dormant untilmuch later, but the rank of the Aspect itself would do wonders for his overall potential.

[Dreamer Sunless, receive your boon!]

He was an Aspirant no more. Sunny grinned.

[You have been bestowed a True Name: Lost from Light.]

His jaw dropped. A true name! He had received a true name! Never in his wildest dreams did Sunnydream of becoming one of the chosen few to accomplish such feat — and in his very first Nightmare toboot! Not even all of the Saints could boast of having one. He was an elite now, a bonafide cream ofthe crop! He was going to be rich!

But the rewards kept coming.

[Your Aspect is ready to evolve. Evolve Aspect?]

‘What kind of a question is that?!’

Sunny crossed his fingers and said “yes”.

[Dormant Aspect Temple Slave is evolving…]

[New Aspect acquired.]

[Aspect Rank: Divine.]

Sunny fell over.

[Aspect Name: Shadow Slave.]

***

‘Divine… it’s Divine.’

Sunny was standing on his knees, stupefied. The shock was so great that for a second there he lost allcontrol over his limbs and fell.

‘It said “divine”… right?’

He raised a trembling hand and rubbed his eyes, making sure that he was awake. Or rather conscious,since, technically, he was still sleeping in the underground vault of the police station.

Confused by all this terminology, Sunny silently summoned the runes and found the lines describing hisaspect.

Aspect: [Shadow Slave].novelbin

Aspect Rank: Divine.

Aspect Description: [You are a miraculous shadow left behind by a dead god. As a divine shadow, youpossess plenty of strange and wondrous powers. However, your existence is empty and lonesome; youmourn the passing of your former master and long to find a new one.]

Innate Ability: [Shadow Bond].

Ability Description: [Find a worthy master and let them know your True Name. Once they recite it outloud, you will be bound to their will, unable to disobey any command. It is improper for a shadow, letalone a divine one, to walk around without a master.]

That was… a lot to digest.

First of all, Sunny felt his heart beating faster. He heard it right! All the suffering and horror he hadexperienced in the First Nightmare paid off in the end. A divine Aspect, he had received a divineAspect! Anything above Awakened was rare and immensely valuable!

People with Ascended Aspects were rare enough to be fought over by various factions. The factionsthemselves were built around singular powerhouses with Transcendent or Supreme Aspects. And hehad never, ever heard of anyone acquiring a Divine one. Never!

Anything with the “divine” prefix was so hard to find that it mostly lived in the realm of myths andlegends. After all, the human race had not reached that high yet; it was only slightly more than adecade since humans managed to finally conquer the Third Nightmare and receive the ability to evolvetheir cores to Transcendent rank.

As Transcendents — or Saints, as they were called in the real world — powerful Awakened ruled overthe Dream Realm, but even they did not dare to face Nightmare Creatures of higher ranks.Subsequently, there were not a lot of Memories and Echoes of Supreme rank around, let aloneSacred… or Divine. The same went for Aspects.

And yet Sunny just got one!

He grinned, driven half-mad by joy and arrogance. However, his jubilation was a little muddied. Afterall, there was that weird innate ability. Of course, he had no intention of becoming someone’s magicalslave, with no free will of his own. To hell with that!

But it wasn’t that bad. All he had to do to avoid that fate was to conceal his True Name. No one exceptfor him could see his status. That meant that Sunny just had to keep his mouth shut, and no one willknow that he even had one.

It meant giving up on all the benefits that someone who was bestowed a True Name after the FirstNightmare was entitled to, but it all paled in comparison with a Divine Aspect.

‘Not a problem,’ Sunny thought with a smirk.

If the Spell had the ability to laugh, it would surely do so after hearing his thoughts. However, it didn’t.Instead, it began to speak again:

[The First Seal is broken.]

[Awakening dormant powers…]