The Mad Prince had lived through countless cycles, each one ending in failure, despair, and the bitter taste of defeat. His dreams were a shimmering illusion, always within reach but never truly attainable. He fought for an ideal—a vision of freedom, power, and the wish that would set him free from his endless torment. But deep inside, he knew the truth: the dream would always remain out of reach. No matter how powerful, how cunning, how relentless he was, his plans were bound to fail.
This was the nature of his curse. His mind, fractured and warped by his madness, had become his greatest enemy. He battled his own self-doubt, his own desires, and ultimately, he would lose. Fighting against himself was a battle he could never win.
He had tried time and time again to break free, but the loops—the Nightmare Spell—kept dragging him back. Every time he thought he had found the key to his escape, it slipped from his grasp, like water through his fingers. The deeper he delved into the ancient secrets, the more tangled and twisted his soul became. The Tomb of Ariel, the Sin of Solace, the Heart of the Estuary—these were the sources of his torment. Every piece of forbidden knowledge he had uncovered had only deepened his curse.
And so, standing on the edge of his own demise, the Mad Prince closed his eyes, preparing to embrace the oblivion that he thought would be his release. Master Sunless, the version of himself he had long sought to become, had won. The final plan, the last attempt, had ended in failure. Death seemed to be the only release left. There would be no more attempts, no more loops, no more games. He had failed.
His thoughts, once sharp and full of cruel ambition, softened in the face of oblivion. He had done enough. He had lived enough. His soul, battered and torn by countless cycles, was ready to rest.
But just as he was ready to embrace the sweet nothingness of death, a voice—familiar and irritating—pierced through the silence, reverberating in his very mind.
[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]
His heart skipped a beat, and his eyes snapped open. The world around him was no longer the bleak, endless void he had expected. Instead, he found himself staring at a jagged mountain range, stretching high into the sky, its peaks sharp and unforgiving. The mountain chain loomed ominously, its jagged edges cutting through the night like a wound in the sky.
A pale, ghostly light bathed its slopes, casting long shadows across the land. It was his first nightmare, the one that had haunted him long ago.
The familiar path beneath his feet was like a thread connecting him to his past. A sense of deja vu hit him hard. How is this possible? How did I travel back in time? His pulse quickened, the sensation of the past clawing at him. The road was the same, the familiar, twisted path he had walked all those years ago. His chest tightened as old memories resurfaced—memories he had long tried to bury.
Was this some kind of illusion? Another trick from the cursed forces that had manipulated him all this time?
Before he could finish his thoughts, a dull, throbbing ache spread through his head, followed by sharp pain in his foot. He looked down. His feet were covered in dirt and blood, but it wasn't his feet—it was the malnourished foot of the boy he had once controlled in the first nightmare. The same foot. The same wounds. Blood trickled down, staining the dirt beneath him.
His heart clenched with confusion and dread. How is this even possible?
He had been so sure that the loops were over, that the cycle had finally been broken. But now, standing here, in this moment, it was as though he had never left.
The memories crashed into him like a flood, crashing against the fragile dam of his mind. He had been here before. He had been this boy before. He had controlled this body before. He had walked this very path before.
But how could Cassie's influence have affected him this deeply? Even she couldn't…
"HEY, DO YOU WANT TO DIE OR SOMETHING? I DIDN'T TELL YOU TO STOP!"
The voice was gruff, harsh, and unmistakable. The Mad Prince turned sharply, only to see a figure on horseback. A man clad in leather cuirass, wielding a spear and short sword, riding toward him. His eyes narrowed. It was the old man—the very one he had killed, the one who had been part of his first memory. The one whose death had triggered the unraveling of his fate, a death that had set off a chain of events leading to his downfall.
What the hell is going on?
The old man seemed as agitated as ever, pulling out a whip from his side, ready to strike. The movement was familiar, too familiar. The same force he had faced countless times before. But this time, something was different.
The Awaken, the spirit who had once fought alongside and against him, stepped forward. The ethereal being reached out and stopped the old man's whip midair.
The old man yanked the whip back, a sneer curling on his lips. He muttered something under his breath, but the Mad Prince wasn't listening. His mind was already focused on something more pressing.
My stats. I need to see them. There has to be an explanation for this.
His hand trembled as he reached for the power he knew he once possessed. But when he reached deep within himself, he was met with a cold, empty void. It was as if his very soul had been hollowed out. No memories. No power. No fragment of the forbidden knowledge he had once wielded. Nothing.
The familiar weight of his stats began to form in his consciousness, the cold numbers and attributes that defined his existence. Slowly, they unfurled in front of him, like a digital screen displaying his very essence.
Name: SunlessTrue Name: —Rank: AspirantSoul Core: DormantMemories: The Forbidden KnowledgeEchoes: —Attributes: [Fated], [Mark of Divinity], [Child of Shadows]Aspect: [Temple Slave]
The words sank in like a stone. Sunless. His identity, his entire being, had been reduced to this single name. Sunless.
But this wasn't the same Sunless who had been corrupted, who had touched the forbidden knowledge of the Tomb of Ariel, and who had been twisted by the Heart of the Estuary. No, this was something else entirely. Something… clean.
His mind reeled. How was this even possible? He had been corrupted. He had touched the forbidden knowledge. He had been consumed by the Sin of Solace. He had been trapped in the endless loops of the Nightmare Spell. Yet now… now he was free.
The knowledge was still there, stored within him—untouched, untainted, but it no longer dominated him. It was merely a part of him, a shadow of his past, no longer a curse. It was as though he had learned to carry the burden without it weighing him down.
But the freedom was strange. His memories—his dark, terrible memories—were no longer a source of torment. They didn't threaten to corrupt him. They simply were.
Had the Heart of the Estuary… had the Sin of Solace caused this? Was this some cruel form of punishment? Or was it something far worse? Perhaps he had been tricked into a different kind of cycle—a cycle where he could never escape.
A chill ran down his spine. Had he been sent back?
The answers eluded him, like fleeting shadows in a dark room. But the one thing he knew was this: he was not the same person.
The Tomb of Ariel—the place where the Weaver had hidden the Nightmare Spell—was the root of all this chaos. It had been there, in that ancient and forbidden ruin, that the Nightmare Spell had been placed long ago. The Weaver, a being of immense and mysterious power, had not created the spell—but had stored it within the tomb, waiting for the right time to awaken it.
The Nightmare Spell was a weapon, a curse, designed to trap and torment souls, forcing them into endless loops of rebirth. It had been hidden away by the Weaver as a failsafe, for when the world became too chaotic, too unstable. The Weaver had seen the coming destruction of the world, and in his wisdom (or madness), he had decided that the Nightmare Spell would be used to reset time itself—over and over again.
Now, that Nightmare Spell had taken root within him, but it was no longer the controlling force it once was. It was merely a part of him, woven into the very fabric of his existence.
The cycle had begun again, but this time, he was different. He was not the same Mad Prince. He was no longer bound by the old chains, the old torments.
He was Sunny.
For the first time in years, a genuine smile crept across his face. It wasn't the smile of a madman, nor the twisted grin of a tyrant. It was simply a smile—a new beginning.
And as he stood, staring at the road ahead, he knew that the journey was far from over. The Forgotten Shore awaited, and with it, the next chapter of a story he had yet to fully understand. He was no longer the Mad Prince, but a new name and a new destiny awaited him.
And this time, he would not fail.
End of Excerpt.