In a cursed and forgotten shore stood a crimson spire that once held the sun. But now that spire that stood above all living beings for thousands of years was crumbling alongside the dying sun. And on top of the falling spire two creatures fought, a nephilim and a divine shadow.
They fought fiercely, each not holding back, each fighting for the right to go home...or that's what the shadow at least believed.
At the end the nephilim was defeated. And the shadow won the right to leave this cursed land. But right before he stepped through the gate, he stopped.
For he saw right through the nephilim's performance.
In truth he never stood a chance winning that fight, the only reason he triumphed was because the nephilim had already decided she was the one to be left behind.
The nephilim denied it at first, tried to act cluelessly. But how could she deceive the shadow when he was the one that taught her the art of lies?
Seeing that her performance had been seen through, the nephilim pleaded the shadow to go and leave her behind, to go and meet his family, to go and live peacefully and to go and avoid the bloodshed that will always accompany her.
But as she expected, the stubborn shadow refused.
And so the nephilim had no other choice but to do the thing she hoped she would never have to do.
*****
"Go... lost from light."
Sunny froze. But his hand holding the moonlight shard moved before he could think, heading straight towards nephis' eye.
"Stop" nephis said.
It was just one simple word. But for sunny it was enough to lose control over his entire body and for his hand to stop moving no matter how hard he willed it to move.
"Wha..how?.." sunny asked, his eyes widening in shock and horror.
Nephis smiled sadly, and closed her eyes "how? Cassie told me, she was the first person to understand her vision, she knew we would fight here, so she gave me your true name hoping I would use it to escape." She paused and looked away for a moment then she looked back at sunny again who was still frozen in his place. Her eyes filled with resolve and regret.
"I guess this goodbye then..tak-" she paused again, adjusting her words "I hope you take care of yourself...now go before it's too late."
Sunny who has been in denial and despair this whole time heard an illusionary sound that came from deep within his soul. And once again he lost control of his body.
He became a stranger in his own body.
Step, step.
'stop!' sunny screamed at his body as it moved towards the gate.
Another step.
'no! stop!'
Sunny's mind raced, the remaining adrenaline in his blood produced by his body during the fight and enhanced by [blood weave] allowed him to think faster than any mundane and most sleepers could.
As many ideas flashed through his mind he suddenly remembered a theory he once had about how the bond would potentially work.
Seeing that only a few meters separated him from the gateway. Sunny decided apply his theory and pray it works.
Sunny closed his eyes and instead of trying to stop his body...he willed it to move forward... towards the gateway.
Sunny regained control over his body.
'YES!'
He looked around quickly while taking another step as slowly as he could and noticed a piece of the rubble as big as his torso slightly to his right.
Sunny adjusted his steps and tripped himself over the rock and fell face first to the ground without resisting.
As he fell he allowed himself to catch a glance of his master's figure. Her head was tilted back, her eyes were closed and her white flames were surrounding her injuries. It seems she was entirely focused on healing herself before leaving the spire and heading on her long journey, otherwise she would have noticed Sunny's odd behavior.
But it was already too late.
THUD
.
nephis instantly opened her eyes and looked to towards Sunny's direction. Her eyes widened when she saw him in the ground, only few steps away from the gateway. "What are you doing! get up and leave quickly!" She shouted at him.
Her heart dropped when she saw the gateway flicker.
Sunny heard the illusionary bang once again as his body moved on it's own to get up. He took control once again as he extended his hand to a nearby piece of rubble.
It looked like he was using the debris to support his body to get up but in reality he was using his entire strength to crush it under his weight.
It eventually crumbled under his weight and strength into dust. His body-without anything to support it-fell once more.
Sunny turned his head and looked towards changing star as his body started to move once again. He relished in the panicking face of hers.
Up above them the artificial sun shone brightly one last time before it was extinguished forever.
At the same time the gateway flickered repeatedly. Before it too was extinguished.
The divine shadow has defied his master's orders.
With the gateway gone, changing star orders were nullified and he was free from the bond.
'for now.' sunny thought darkly as he fully stood up to face changing star, her face was frozen and still covered by blood.
"YOU!!" sunny yelled at her, he was already summoning a memory. his entire body radiating killing intent.
[Your shadow is overflowing with power.]
Sunny ignored the spell. Midnight shard taking form in his hand. Though he was very exhausted he could still swing his odachi.
...even if he knew deep down it was not enough, he would still fight for his freedom.
"How could you!!" His face twisted in rage and betrayal. Nephis was still standing opposite to him, her eyes slightly unfocused, as if a part of her was lost in her own mind.
[Your shadow is complete]
Sunny ignored the spell once again.
.
A big mistake.
"How da-aaggghhHHHH" as he was approaching her, something in his soul exploded, it was as if a beast crawled out of Sunny's core and started tearing it apart, his very being was being torn apart and remade once again.
While sunny was suffering from unimaginable pain. the spire quaked and started falling apart.
'Damnation...why...why now of all the times..' sunny thought as his vision blurred. The exhaustion from the siege of the spire, leading the survivors towards the gateway, his fight with caster and his fight with nephis and what followed after it finally caught up to him, plus the pain from his soul...it was too much even for a cockroach like him.
The last thing sunny saw before losing consciousness was nephis' face and her hand grabbing him.
Seeing her face filled his chest with deep hatred and rage.
At the same time, deep within his soul in a place he simply refused to acknowledge, it filled him with relief. Because he wouldn't have to leave her behind in this hell alone.
Because even with shackles around his neck she wasn't able to decide his fate for him.
*****
One year ago
Inside the priestess room, Sunny lay on the floor, midnight shard still in his hand. He had just recovered from the wound the black knight inflicted on him. His body felt so so weak but his mind was running with images of what he would do to the damn knight once he gets his hands on it.
"That damn bastard...I will rip it apart, I will gut him just like he did to me!"
after making his dramatic speech of vengeance sunny sighed tiredly.
'Everything was supposed to be fine after reaching the castle...yet somehow it just keeps getting worse.' sunny lamented his luck.
Damn you, fated.
He thought about everything that happened to him since he arrived to this damn castle, until his mind reached a certain incident.
'Harper...'
He shuddered when he thought how close he was to messing every thing up.
'yeah,I am never drinking alcohol ever again' sunny swore, he would never touch that vile thing again.
.
'what would have happened if I failed to kill Harper before answering him?' sunny wondered for a moment before almost dismissing it 'yeah, as if it could ever happen.'
Harper was dead, nobody was around to hear his answer, his secret was still safe.
'but what if it wasn't someone as weak as Harper? What if it was gunlaug or harus? Could he kill them quickly enough?' sunny seriously doubted it.
"If there's someone like Cassie who can see attributes. Then, why couldn't be someone out there who could see true names?" Sunny muttered to himself, his brows furrowed. He was seriously considering it now.
How can a slave who can't disobey any order kill his master?
With a thought sunny summoned his runes.
Name: Sunless.
True Name: Lost from Light.
Rank: Dreamer.
Shadow Core: Dormant.
Aspect: shadow slave.
Innate Ability: [Shadow Bond].
Ability Description: [Find a worthy master and let them know your True Name. Once they recite it out loud, you will be bound to their will, unable to disobey any command. It is improper for a shadow, let alone a divine one, to walk around without a master.]
Sunny glared at the runes, he silently wished that if he glared hard enough the runes alongside his innate ability will disappear.
"Ah that would be a perfect world, don't you think gloomy?" Sunny ask his (only) trusted companion. Gloomy simply rolled its eyes and ignored sunny completely.
"But nothing in this world is perfect I guess, everything is flawed." Before sunny could think of the philosophical view of flaw and perfection, he reined his thoughts back to the shadow bound.
Sunny read the description once, twice...ten times. The more he read it, the more got that weird sense of familiarity.
'...unable to disobey any command... you cannot lie, Aha!' sunny thought, finally finding the reason for the familiarity, it was the same cold sense of finality that the spell gave.
"But I was able to twist what my flaw considered the truth... do you think I could twist the orders too?" Sunny finally sat up, looking at gloomy who simply raised its shoulder as if saying 'who knows' before wrapping itself around Sunny's body.
"You are being pretty useless, don't you think?" Sunny mumbled to himself before standing up and heading towards the bed.
Sunny ran some simple scenarios in his mind first, for example: if his master ordered him to raise a hand, he could probably choose which hand to raise and how high he would raise them.
Then came the more complicated ones as he rested his body on the comfortable bed, like if his master ordered him not to kill him, sunny wouldn't be able to directly harm his master... but he could accidentally lead them towards a strong nightmare creature.
Sunny kept imagining more scenarios. Until the exhaustion of the last few days caught up to him.
The soft bed wasn't helping either.
'Hopefully I will never need to find out if I am right or not' sunny thought before falling into the embrace of sleep.
*****
Sunny opened his eyes, and slowly rose up, "Where am I?" he quietly mumbled to himself.
He felt dizzy and mentally exhausted. But he couldn't afford to let his guard down, he surveyed the area around him carefully. To his left there was a huge pile of debris. 'The spire...it must have completely fell apart when the vessel was destroyed.'
To his right there was a vast field of bodies, the bodies of human and nightmare creatures, it was the aftermath of the siege of the crimson spire.
Weirdly enough there was no nightmare creatures feasting on the remains of the sleepers.
'Right, the fallen terror killed everything with its soul attack so it could evolve.'
As he was looking around sunny finally noticed the shadow of a living being behind him.
It was a shadow he was very familiar with.
It was nephis' shadow.
He turned around and looked at her, she sat on the ground leaning her back against the body of a Spire Messenger, her breathing was steady and quiet.
She was asleep.
Before sunny could move to wake her up, he started to remember.
The siege, the fallen terror soul attack, caster, the fight with nephis, and finally...his enslavement.
Sunny's eyes widened in horror. He quickly opened his runes, and checked his innate ability aility.
...The text was gray and lifeless.
'no...'
Down below his own runes, new ones were shining in the darkness of the Forgotten shore.
Master: Changing Star.
Sunny physically recoiled.
It was as if these three words burned him. And they might as well had
Sunny's body went completely still.
Moonlight shard appeared quietly in his hand.
His eyes shone with murderous gleam as it locked into Changing Star's figure.
It locked into her neck.
'she is exhausted and vulnerable now, I might not get a chance like this ever again, with no source of light I am in my domain, I also possess the element of surprise.'
He slowly and quietly approached her.
He could already imagine his plan of action: aim for the spine, sever her spinal cord...an instant death, she wouldn't be able to heal from.
Yes sunny could see it.
He could feel the blade sinking into Changing Star neck.
He...he could imagine the feeling of her warm blood coating his hand.
H-he could imagine the spark of life extinguished from her eyes... forever.
He wondered what expression she would make...
H-He...he...his hands were shaking violently.
His limbs were frozen in place.
Part of him screamed to kill his master, to earn his freedom back.
But another part that was growing louder and louder with every second, screamed that if he killed nephis now, it would be the worst mistake in his life, that if he did it it would do irreversible damage to him as a person.
fortunately, or unfortunately, for Sunny, nephis opened her eyes at that moment.
She locked eyes with him at first, her eyes drifted to the moonlight shard in his hand. She stared at it for a moment, then raised her eyes and looked deeply into his eyes.
Sunny maintained eye contact with her. He didn't try to hide the stiletto in his hand out of shame.
He would never be ashamed of seeking his freedom ever.
The silence between them stretched uncomfortably, it was like a gunpowder keg, ready to explode with just a single word.
After a few seconds or even minutes, sunny didn't know honestly, he turned around.
"let's go" he said flatly before walking away.
Nephis followed behind him quietly.