He felt it…
A ripple in the world. A shiver through the seams of reality.
His eyes flew open.
'The Nightmare… it's starting to collapse!'
But Sunny had no time to dwell.
No breath to gather thought.
Because something moved in the dark.
A hunched, towering silhouette.
An abomination that twisted instinct into panic.
A shape that did not belong in any sane world.
'H—how did I not notice… before…'
A… a Cursed Terror…
A breath caught in his throat. He staggered back, heart clenched in terror.
Then—those eyes.
Wide, round, and writhing with madness.
A gaze that shattered sense, drenched in lunacy.
And with that look came pressure—
Awful, oppressive, crushing.
Like a mountain crashing into his chest.
From behind Oblivion's grave…
It emerged. Vast. Deranged. Vile.
A bird.
But no bird that should ever be.
Madness given wings.
'D—damnation!'
Sunny stumbled, hands trembling as he summoned the [Shadow Lantern].
To live—he had to live.
But this place, this estuary…
It offered no mercy. Only death.
There was only one path.
He flung open the Lantern's gate, and his form dissolved into shadow.
He surged forward—
Then gasped.
The bird struck.
Talons sliced through his shadow—
Not flesh, but soul.
And his essence screamed.
He forced himself on, dragging his existence toward the gate.
Pain flared like a sun, agony devouring him whole.
The talons clawed deeper.
Something stopped him.
Not force—law.
A rule written into the marrow of reality.
It forbade him passage.
He was unraveling.
Piece by piece, his self came undone.
Too slow…
The claws sank further still—
Into him.
Past him.
Gripping unseen strings coiled around his soul.
The bird shrieked. It pulled.
It tried to rip those strings from his being.
Then—
A sound.
Not the world. Not the spell.
But something deeper.
Something that knew.
Someone
A voice. Low. Certain. Disappointed.
"I warned you."
His voice.
But aged. Burdened. Inevitable.
His future self.
He couldn't move. Couldn't scream.
Pain had made him less than human.
He barely fought.
Then—
A sound.
One perfect cut.
Not steel through flesh—
But something deeper.
A severance of truth.
Not wrong… different.
A weapon had sliced existence.
Not in the world, but beneath it.
'H—how?'
The thought echoed, dim and dying.
His future self…
How strong had he become?
Supreme?
Or maybe even—
The agony blurred all thought.
Until—
The talons slipped.
Their grip faltered.
And finally—
He fell.
Plunged into the waiting dark of the Shadow Lantern.
Through the miniature gate…
And as he passed, one whisper followed him.
A whisper not quite coherent—
[Your mem— …en destroyed.]
[Your nightmare…]
He felt cold.
Not the bite of winter or the chill of wind, but something deeper—emptier. A lifeless sort of cold that wrapped around him like a forgotten shroud.
He didn't know if he lay on sand or soil… or if he lay at all.
Perhaps he was falling.
Falling forever into a void without end.
Everything ached.
Every fiber, every thought, drowned in exhaustion.
Somewhere, faint and distant, he heard the whisper of the Spell.
It said something—
Something important, probably.
He didn't listen.
Didn't care.
He let himself slip beneath the veil of sleep.
Into the hush.
…
Time passed. Or didn't.
But something had moved.
When Sunny awoke… he breathed. He was.
Still alive. Somehow.
For now.
Darkness greeted him—
A boundless, unbroken eternity stretching beyond reason.
Beneath him, the ground was cold.
Not familiar. Not welcoming. But dry. Solid.
He rose slowly, each motion steeped in silence.
Before him lay a vast expanse—
Dark hills undulating across the horizon like the backs of sleeping beasts.
A graveyard of shadowed waves.
The ground was blanketed in a fine, black dust.
Soft to the touch, but firm beneath the feet.
He would've lingered on the bleak beauty of the place…
If not for what came next.
He gasped.
Because the world was not empty.
There was light.
Far away, across the distant hills, shone clouds of ethereal silver.
Radiance danced and shimmered in solemn arcs, gliding across the gloom like mournful ghosts.
And beneath that light—
Terror.
Sunny could feel it.
Even from afar, the weight of the storm pressed against his skin, against his soul.
It was awe. It was dread.
The storm raged in silence—
Not of thunder, but of power.
It was not made of wind or rain, but of essence.
A storm of soul.
Of uncountable sparks, whirling in unrelenting fury.
Magnificent. Horrifying.
His instinct screamed to hide. To crawl into the shadow and vanish.
But there was no time for that.
He had to check the runes.
He closed his eyes. Focused inward.
The familiar pull answered, and the runes appeared before him—glowing, firm, undeniable:
***
Name: Sunless
True Name: Lost From Light
Rank: Transcendent
Class: Terror
Shadow Cores: [6/7]
Aspect Abilities: [Shadow Control], [Shadow Step], [Shadow Manifestation], [Shadow Incarnation]
Shadow Incarnation: [All of your shadows can be turned into physical manifestations of you.]
***
Sunny tilted his head.
Unsure.
Curious.
His gaze drifted to his six shadows.
They stood still. Waiting.
"…I should at least see how this works, right?"
He reached inward, guiding essence through instinct.
Like a breath. Like memory.
There was a pull.
Not soft—ravenous. The ability drank deep from his core.
And then—
'What the hell?'
Six versions of himself sat in a half-circle, clad in grim onyx armor, each one staring at him with identical, equally baffled expressions.
They were him.
All of them.
And all of them looked just as confused to be here as he did.
---
He had walked for days across the endless expanse of the Shadow Realm.
There was nothing.
No sky. No sun.
Only the bleak kiss of eternal darkness.
At some point, Sunny had tried to summon Serpent—if only to better circulate his essence.
But the shadow… refused.
No, not refused. Resisted.
Like a creature curling into itself, unwilling—not unable.
There was a reason.
And Sunny, wise enough to trust instinct, chose not to force it.
So, he walked.
Step by step. Breath by breath.
'How does this even work…?'
He'd entered the Shadow Realm from within a Nightmare.
Was this the real realm? Or just a stitched imitation?
Had the Estuary warped it?
He didn't know.
Didn't want to guess.
And so, he kept his shadows tight, coiled around him like loyal hounds, unwilling to be caught unready.
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't.
He hadn't eaten.
Should've been starving, even as a Saint.
But not even a flicker of hunger stirred in his belly.
Endless water flowed from the [Endless Spring]—but the lack of thirst, of need, unnerved him more than any monster could.
He walked.
And walked.
Until—
'What… is that?'
Far on the horizon, there was a shape.
Massive. Amorphous.
Oppressive.
Just the sight of it made his soul recoil.
As if existence itself objected to its presence.
A monstrous silhouette woven from pure darkness…
It loomed, unmoving.
Swaying slightly, as if caught in a wind that wasn't there.
Sunny hesitated.
Run? Fight?
His instincts warred.
But curiosity won.
He dissolved into shadow—silent, unseen—and crept forward.
Closer.
Closer.
Then—
His breath caught in his throat.
It was alive.
He peered into the abyss of its being.
No soul cores. No corruption.
Not dead. Not dreaming.
Just… paused.
Frozen. Like the moment before a scream.
It offered no answers. Only unease.
And yet—Sunny made his decision.
He would not flee.
Whatever this creature was, it was the first something he'd found in this desolate world.
And so—
He conjured a blade.
A great, tenebrific odachi, forged from shadow and silence.
He breathed in. Drew in strength.
Wrapped all six of his shadows around the weapon like wreaths of night.
Then—struck.
The blade plunged deep into the creature's form.
No sound. No reaction.
Only ripples.
A tremor passed through the darkness…
Then faded.
And just like that, it was gone.
Snuffed out. Erased.
Sunny let out a long breath—
Just in time for a flood of Shadow Fragments to crash into him.
It was too much.
He buckled, not because he was weak,
But because he was tired.
He curled on the cold, black ground, dazed.
Essence surged through him like wildfire.
The Spell's voice echoed in his skull:
[You have slain a creature of Darkness: Dark Drifter]
He lay there for a while, eyes shut.
Then… he smiled.
Summoned the runes.
And laughed—quiet and strange.
Shadow Fragments: [1212/6000]
'More than a thousand fragments,' he thought, still grinning.
The feeling of strength was palpable—
Like power woven into his marrow, amplified by the very nature of the Shadow Realm.
---
Name: Sunless
True Name: Lost From Light
Rank: Transcendent
Class: Terror
Shadow Cores: [6/7]
Shadow Fragments: [4312/6000]
Master: Changing Star
It had been a long time since then.
Time… was a memory.
A suggestion.
Something distant and untethered.
Though it seemed… time didn't exist here.
At least that was what he made of it.
Everything he had come across refused to move.
Refused to acknowledge existence.
Even distance lost meaning.
Even the rhythm of walking had become just another ritual—
A heartbeat for a world without pulse.
The only things he'd seen were the frozen Dark Drifters, scattered like monuments to silence.
"Ah… how long has it been?"
Weeks?
Months?
Years?
There was no answer.
And truthfully—he'd stopped asking.
He no longer kept track of sunrises, because there were none.
He no longer wondered what day it was, because days did not exist here.
Only the march.
Only him.
And still—he moved forward.
Not for glory.
Not for purpose.
But for something quieter. Something stronger.
Family.
That word…
It still warmed something inside his cold chest.
'What would Rain think?'
'The others… they must be worried sick.'
'It's fine. Neph'll tell them I'm alright.'
He smiled to himself.
The same smile he'd worn long ago, now worn down by solitude.
Not broken—but changed.
The kind of change no battle brings.
The kind only time can carve into bone.
The kind of change that turns a person's shadow into their only companion.
And so, he walked—
Carrying nothing but his thoughts and a dream of warmth.
Alone.
But not lost.
Not yet.
---
He didn't age.
Didn't hunger.
Didn't even thirst.
Why?
He summoned his runes again, if only to remind himself that he existed.
***
Name: Sunless
True Name: Lost From Light
Rank: Transcendent
Shadow Cores: [7/7]
Shadow Fragments: [7000/7000]
Master: Changing Star
***
'Right… I'm Sunless. Lost from Light.'
The words felt foreign now. Like reading a stranger's epitaph.
How long had it been?
Long enough that the silence no longer pressed in—because silence had become his only companion.
Long enough that he stopped measuring time in days or years. There was no sun. No moon.
No stars.
Only the steps he took, each one heavier than the last.
He didn't know if he was human anymore.
A Saint of humanity… what did it matter?
He was a ghost of purpose, a shadow stitched to the memory of a name.
Why was he still walking?
They'd forgotten him by now.
They had to.
Even the most loyal can only wait so long before their grief forgets your face.
The cohort… they would've searched. For a while. For months, years.
Rain… she would have cried for him. At least once. But tears dry. Even hers.
Nephis…
A pause.
Would she still speak his name? Or had she buried it with the rest of her dead?
He wanted to feel something at the thought. Anger. Sorrow. Anything.
But all that remained was… vacancy.
A numb, quiet ache where emotion used to live.
Even hate had withered.
Even love.
At some point, the memories stopped feeling like they were his.
Just echoes in a vessel that walked forward out of habit.
Did they fight the Sovereigns?
Did they win?
Did it matter?
Would anything he once cared about still exist, by the time he found his way home?
If there was a way home?
Or had it all withered down now,
And all he saw, all he was, was nothing but something conjured up by what remained of his sanity.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream. Not because he was strong, but because he had forgotten how.
And in some quiet corner of his soul, there was a mask.
Old, dark, familiar.
Weaver's Mask.
It pulsed faintly. Beckoning.
Promising nothing but truth, if he dared to ask.
Maybe it was time.
Maybe it was time to peer into the tangle of fate, let it consume what was left of him.
Maybe… it would end.
And maybe, that would be alright.
Peering into the hollow ruin of his soul, he reached for the last relic of madness and memory—
The mask of a forgotten daemon.
The Weaver.
It came to him, silent and solemn.
Black lacquered wood, polished like obsidian.
A face carved in cruel angles: feral teeth, four long fangs, three twisted horns like a warped crown.
And eyes—empty sockets brimming with nothing but void.
There was no ritual. No prayer. No final words.
He did not tremble.
He did not kneel.
He did not beg the world to remember his name.
There was no one left to hear it anyway.
He simply donned the mask.
Simple.
Inevitable.
No hesitation. No fear.
Because at the end of everything, even fear had forgotten him.
He fed essence into the mask.
The memory awoke.
[Where is My Eye?]
The last time he had used this power, it nearly killed him.
The only reason it hadn't, was because his soul had been so weak it couldn't maintain the enhancement.
This time?
He had never been stronger.
He had never had more to lose.
He should have screamed.
He should have thrashed as his essence was peeled apart—
But he didn't.
How could he?
What was pain, to someone who had walked alone for an eternity?
What were nerves, when the cold had long since become his only skin?
What were screams, to someone who had forgotten how to make a sound?
He stood still.
Expressionless.
As if death was not a tragedy, but a long-awaited answer.
On a lifeless hill, beneath an eyeless sky, a Saint of humanity stood.
And then—he didn't.
The body fell.
Gracefully.
Almost peacefully.
Not like a warrior dying in battle.
But like a candle finally snuffed out.
His existence unraveled.
From the ruin, a single shadow rose—
Serpent.
It lingered in the empty shell of its master's soul.
Not out of hope.
Not out of rebellion.
But out of loyalty.
Waiting for the end, simply because it had nowhere else to go.
In another world, a student stirred in her sleep—
And awoke with tears on her cheeks, without knowing why.
In another city, a radiant flame dimmed.
A silent tear fell.
Sunny…
A brother.
A savior.
A lover.
Gone.
Not in battle, not in glory.
But in silence.
As if the world itself had looked away.