Shadow Re: Slave

After that, Sunny and Seishan hunted together every night.

t wasn't easy for her to slip away during the day—there were eyes everywhere in the outer settlement, and she was still a lieutenant under Gunlaug's command.

Like a dog on a chain.

But Sunny preferred the night anyway.

That was when the world made sense to him. When shadows whispered instead of screamed.

So they moved under cover of darkness, carving through abominations in the ruins of the Dark City.

It worked.

And the more they hunted, the more something started to take shape.

A group.

Not a cohort. Not a war band.

Something else.

Sunny called it a clan—though he rarely said the word aloud.

Each of them bore the Mark of Shadows, etched into their skin by Serpent, binding them to him in subtle ways. The mark wasn't control. Not exactly.

It was something deeper.

An anchor. A pathway. A promise.

And they were all handpicked.

Every one of them had wide-area aspects—destructive, cleansing, radiant. The perfect counterbalance to Sunny's surgical, suffocating precision.

There was Niraye, with her Aspect:

[Petals of Ruin]

Releasing ethereal petals that exploded into corrosive mist on contact. Especially effective against rotting flesh and undead armor. The mist dissolved necrotic energy and fractured tightly bound soul cores.

Then there was Evara:

[Radiant Flood]

Unleashing waves of golden light that turned nightmare flesh to ash. The terrain left behind shimmered with crystallized residue—glowing faintly, repelling minor death-entities for hours afterward.

They were weapons.

Beautiful ones.

And Sunny? He was simply building the armory.

One night, as they stood over the remains of a torn-apart horror, Sunny turned to Seishan.

"I have another task for you."

She wiped her blade clean, already expecting it.

"I'm listening."

"I want you to search for Aspect users skilled in stealth, evasion, or sensory disruption. Anyone who could be shaped into an assassin. Subtle ones."

She tilted her head slightly. "So the real purpose of your… 'clan'… isn't war."

"No," Sunny said simply. "It's elimination."

He didn't smile when he said it. And that made it worse.

⸻

And just like that, the week passed.

The shadows deepened.

And the negotiations stood at the door—waiting, quiet, inevitable.