shadow slave, Echoes of the forgotten

The weather was cold and ominous, the fog so thick it swallowed everything in its murky embrace. Visibility was reduced to mere inches, turning the world into a blank, grey canvas. Here, in the hollow mountains, reality itself seemed to warp and bend, challenging the very boundaries of existence.

Sunny traversed these treacherous landscapes, his body a testament to a year of survival since defeating the winter beast. His skin bore intricate, shifting markings—those that came from a shadow he passed, it looked alive, every scale moved independently.

Here, instinct was his only companion, constantly battling the oppressive mist that dulled his senses and challenged his very existence. The mountains were more than a landscape; they were a living organism, breathing and shifting with malevolent intelligence. Each step could trigger hidden mechanisms, rock formations that might suddenly come alive or crumble into deadly traps.

Survival demanded continuous concentration. The mist wasn't just an environmental hazard; it was a living entity that threatened to erase him. It carried whispers—fragments of memories not his own, echoes of those who had disappeared in these mountains. Sometimes, these whispers were so vivid that Sunny could almost see the ghostly outlines of previous travelers, their final moments frozen in the spectral landscape.

Worse still were the Nightmare creatures that thrived in this spectral landscape. Some were weak enough to be avoided or distracted, but others radiated a danger so profound that they froze him with pure, primal fear. These weren't mere beasts, but entities that seemed to exist between reality and nightmare—shapes that could dissolve into mist, creatures with impossible geometries that defied natural law.

When his instincts screamed of imminent threat, Sunny would retreat into himself—eyes closed, ears covered, curled into a protective ball. A technique he'd learned to minimize his existence, to become so small that even the most sentient of the Nightmare creatures might overlook him. These abominations had become increasingly frequent in recent weeks, a harbinger of something more sinister approaching—a convergence he could feel brewing in the bones of the mountain.

In quieter moments, his mind would drift to simpler times, to Nephis—his first and only love. She represented hope, a potential future that seemed impossibly distant in this death zone. The memory of her was both a comfort and a curse, a burning ember of humanity in this inhuman landscape. Her image was etched into his consciousness: sharp features, eyes that could cut through illusions, a spirit as unbreakable as the mountain itself.

Perhaps he was here not just to survive, but to escape the possibility of her remembering his abandonment during their third Nightmare. Or was he seeking redemption? The mountain seemed to hold its own judgment, its misty tendrils a constant reminder of unresolved past.

Shelter came in various forms: massive rocks that seemed to breathe, crater-like caves carved by ancient battles, sometimes marked with poignant runes—last testaments of those who came before. These inscriptions told stories of final moments, a stark reminder of the thin line between survival and oblivion. Some runes pulsed with a faint, otherworldly light, hinting at forgotten magic or technologies beyond comprehension.

The cave walls themselves were a mystery—composed of a material that was neither stone nor flesh, capable of absorbing memories, of recording the last breaths of those who sought refuge. Sunny had learned to read these walls, to understand the silent language of survival etched into their surfaces.

Each step was a negotiation with death, each breath a defiance against the overwhelming darkness that threatened to consume him. But Sunny was more than a survivor—he was a testament to adaptation, to the human spirit's capacity to endure in the most nightmarish of circumstances.

And yet, deep within the mountain's heart, something was stirring. Something that had been waiting, watching, and growing more aware with each passing moment of his presence.

Stopping for a moment, Sunny let out a sigh, leaned against the black rocks, and stared into the mist.

'Keep our eyes shut…'

As his gaze wandered across the desolate landscape, something caught his attention—a massive disruption in the rocky terrain that seemed to defy the natural order of things. A cave entrance, so enormous it could have been the mouth of a sleeping titan, loomed before him.

As a researcher who had spent years studying the unknown, Sunny immediately recognized this was no ordinary geological formation. The cave's proportions were impossible, its entrance easily spanning hundreds of meters, its smooth walls suggesting an intelligence far beyond natural erosion.

Strange inscriptions traced the cave's edges—not quite runes, not quite a language, but something that pulsed with an inner life. They seemed to shimmer and move, hinting at complex systems of knowledge that existed just beyond human comprehension.

The mist around the cave behaved differently, curling and retreating as if the entrance itself was breathing. Shadows moved within its depths—structured, purposeful movements that suggested something more than mere darkness resided inside.

Sunny's researcher's mind began to race. This was precisely the type of discovery that had driven his academic pursuits before the Nightmares transformed his existence. The cave represented a mystery waiting to be unraveled, a potential key to understanding the complex, terrifying world he now inhabited.

His marked skin—those living memories of past encounters—seemed to tingle, as if communicating some half-understood warning or invitation. The boundary between threat and opportunity had always been razor-thin in this world.

For a moment, he was not just a survivor constantly dancing with death, but a scholar standing at the precipice of an extraordinary revelation. The cave beckoned, promising secrets that could potentially rewrite everything he thought he knew about the Underworld, the Nightmares, and his own fragmented reality.

With a mixture of caution and irrepressible curiosity, Sunny took a step toward the impossible entrance, ready to unravel whatever mysteries lay within its impossible depths.

The cave's interior swallowed Sunny whole, defying all expectations of natural space. Each step echoed with an impossible resonance—sounds that seemed to travel both impossibly far and not at all, as if the very laws of acoustics bent to some alien logic.

Darkness was not absolute. A strange, sourceless luminescence emerged from the walls themselves, casting a pale blue-green light that shifted and breathed like living tissue. The walls were smooth, almost crystalline, with veins of an unknown material that pulsed with a soft, rhythmic glow.

As the passage gradually widened, Sunny realized he was no longer walking through a natural formation. This was architecture—deliberate, ancient, and utterly foreign.

The temple emerged slowly, like a memory materializing from fog. It was vast, impossibly symmetrical, with dimensions that seemed to fold and unfold as he moved. Massive stone columns rose from a floor that appeared to be made of something between stone and liquid, reflecting light in ways that made Sunny question the very nature of perception.

At the center stood an altar.

It was not like any altar Sunny had encountered in his previous research. Constructed from a material that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, it stood as a negative space—a void that defined the entire chamber. Intricate patterns covered its surface, not carved or etched, but seemingly grown or evolved.

Strange runes surrounded the altar, covering the walls, floor, and even the ceiling. They were unlike any writing system Sunny had ever studied. These were not merely symbols, but living mathematics—patterns that seemed to shift and recalculate themselves even as he watched. Some appeared almost organic, with tendrils that seemed to move independently, while others resembled complex geometric equations that hurt the eyes to study directly.

Sunny approached the altar cautiously. His researcher's instincts warred with his survival training. This place felt simultaneously ancient and impossibly new, forgotten yet somehow aware of his presence.

The runes began to pulse subtly as he drew closer, their rhythm matching something—his heartbeat? The ambient temperature? Some calculation beyond his comprehension?

One particular set of runes near the altar's base caught his attention. Unlike the others, these seemed slightly different—less alive, more like a message waiting to be deciphered. They held a quality of intentionality that suggested someone—or something—had deliberately left them as a marker, a warning, or perhaps a key.

Sunny knelt, his fingers hovering just above the surface. He knew that in this world, touching the wrong thing could mean instant death. But the researcher in him, the part that had always sought understanding beyond survival, was pressing him forward.

The temple around him seemed to hold its breath, waiting.

The moment his fingers brushed the runes, everything changed.

A sound erupted—not a roar, not a scream, but something between a mechanical screech and a living howl. The temple itself seemed to contract, walls folding inward with impossible geometry. From the darkness, something materialized—a guardian, a construct that defied description.

It was neither solid nor ethereal, a being composed of shifting shadows and crystalline fragments that moved with predatory precision. Multiple appendages formed and dissolved, each one a weapon, each movement a threat calculated with inhuman intelligence.

Sunny's breath caught in his throat. Panic rose like a tide, threatening to drown him. His lungs constricted, each breath becoming a desperate, ragged gasp. The world began to spin, shadows dancing at the edges of his vision.

'Am I really going to die here?' The thought screamed through his mind. 'In a temple of a forgotten being? A place that might not even exist?'

No.

The panic transformed. Memories flooded his consciousness—Nephis. Her face. The promise he had never fulfilled. The apology he had carried like a wound.

"I will not die," he whispered, the words barely audible above the guardian's mechanical symphony. "I need to return to her. I will not let anything kill me before I apologize."

His breathing became erratic—short, sharp intakes mixed with long, trembling exhales. Classic signs of a panic attack. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his marked skin rippling with nervous energy. For a moment, he felt himself disappearing, his essence fragmenting under the guardian's assault.

But then—concentration.

He never lifted his hand from the runes.

Essence began to pour from his fingertips, not as a gentle stream but a torrential rush, an unstoppable cascade of raw power. The runes beneath his hand responded instantly, their intricate patterns coming alive with a glow that was not light but a darkness so profound it devoured all illumination around it. Shadows twisted and coiled, drawn into the void-like radiance, as if the runes themselves were consuming the world. The guardian faltered, its calculated, mechanical precision giving way to hesitation, its movements suddenly uncertain, as though it sensed an overwhelming force it could not comprehend.

The darkness swallowed him, familiar and terrifying. And then—a voice. A spell. Not just any spell, but one he had lost long ago. A fragment of magic so deeply buried in his memory that hearing it now felt like remembering a forgotten language.

The voice was ancient, powerful, speaking words that resonated beyond mere sound—a incantation that existed somewhere between memory and reality.

[Your nightmare is over.]

[Prepare for appraisal…]

Once again, Sunny found himself in the space between dream and reality. The boundless black void was illuminated by a myriad of stars, with countless strings of silver light connecting them together to form an infinite, beautiful pattern.

Sunny was simply confused by hearing this voice. He had lost his access to the spell about a year ago, he had always hoped he would someday wake up and it would turn out all of this was just a dream.

Now that it seemed like his wish came true, he wondered if he was really forgotten and how those runes in that strange temple worked. That was for him to find out later, now he was excited that he could see Nephis again, and maybe even tell her how he truly feels.

[Awakened! Your trial is over.]

It voice continued to resonate in the black void:

[A lonesome shadow came to a land of shattered dreams. It was captured and thrown into a cage, but escaped by weaving sorceries from its own soul. The shadow beheaded itself to take the slave collar off its neck, and lost its heart to win its freedom.

Leaving the coliseum behind, the shadow traveled far and got ensnared. It lived a hundred lives and died a hundred deaths within a dreadful nightmare, forgetting what it was and where it came from. The shadow did not break, and so, the nightmare broke instead.

Free once again, the shadow befriended a mad sorcerer, a feral child, a crippled archer, and a blind prophet. Together, they collected the deaths of the immortal lords and waged a war against the holy city.

The lords were killed, the city was destroyed.

The shadow broke the chains of Hope, and set Desire free.]

With each word Sunny was more and more mortified, this exact same thing happened when he finished his second nightmare. Had those runes truly brought him back to the past, or was all of this just a dream and he had really just become a master.

[You have slain an Awakened…]

The Spell continued by enumerating all the people and objects he had slain within the Nightmare. The Spell completed that portion of the appraisal quickly, which gave Sunny the impression that something odd was happening to time inside the black void.

It did take a while for the spell to name all of the things he killed inside his nightmare, but he was glad it did because he got more time to thinks about what was going to happen.

The top things on his list were Nephis and Antarctic. Will Nephis truly become a master, and will there be numerous gates in Antarctica.

[...You have set free a demoness chained by a god.]

[Your achievements are remarkable!]

[Final appraisal: excellent.]

The appraisal was the same as he remembered, he had once speculated that the nightmare gave the appraisal by how different the nightmare went than the one that actually happened.

[The Third Seal is broken.]

[Awakening dormant powers…]

Sunny was finally going to ascend, would this be the first time or not. Soon he will be a master, and if his knowledge from the future, or the dream were real. He could get a lot of money to fill his pockets and also many powerful memories he could create.

[Awakening Aspect Ability.]

[Aspect Ability acquired.]

Sunny held his breath.

[...Aspect Ability Name: Shadow Manifestation.]

He had really gotten shadow manifestation, he didn't doubt it but he needed to confirm if he was in a dream or he came back to the past.

Surely he could use this to his advantage if he really came back, if he knew the events of the future that Cassie knew to. As well as her plan at the end of her third nightmare, he could manipulate her to stop and keep her closer to himself.

After all, thee was a saying he once heard, it went something like this. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

He didn't know if Cassie was friend or foe, so he needed to find out soon. Before he could think about anything else, the spell spoke again.

[Your Attribute has evolved.]

[Your Aspect Ability has evolved.]

The Spell paused for a moment, and then added solemnly:

[Your Ascension is complete.]

He took a moment before summoning his runes, half expecting this to stop and he looses consciousness and die.

Name: Sunless.

True Name: Lost from Light.

His true name was here, he always hated the spell for giving him this name as well as his aspect. He also hated Cassie and even Nephis for doing what that did. But he did forgive them after some time, not without having a talk with them about it obviously.

Rank: Ascended.

Class: Devil.

Shadow Cores: [4/7].

Shadow Fragments: [744/4000].

Attributes: [Fated], [Flame of Divinity], [Blood Weave], [Bone Weave], [Master of Shadows]

These were the attributes he had when he became a master, although sad he didn't have any other ones from his possible future. He gladly accepted them and would use them to the fullest.

Quickly checking other things such as memories, shadows and his aspect legacy, he was surprised to find that all of the above was the same. He had hoped that at the very least one of them would be the same from the future, but sadly nothing was.

It also felt like the spell decided to give him some time to check everything he wanted to. Almost like it felt bad for cutting him of from his thoughts earlier.

Finally after he got done with everything, he dismissed his runes and waited for the spell to continue.

[...Wake up, Sunless.]

[Your nightmare is over!]