Shadow Slave: The Prince of Death

[Disclaimer: once again, there is no self insert in this fic, but there will be a few new characters due to more people infected and all. Story will revolve around sunny still.]

***

The days at the academy blurred together.

Sunny trained his aspect and his skills over and over again in the next six months everyday. Fighting with caster in the morning's combat class and nephis in the time when she had a free period.

Life in the academy was quite plain. Everyday sunny just continued the same cycle of duels, aspect training, memory practice, and revising his old knowledge about the courses he had completed.

But while the academy's routine felt mundane, inside Sunny, something was changing.

Every night, when the world was going to sleep, Sunny and Nephis clashed under the moonlight...or rather just the illusion of moonlight created by the dreamscape.

Their battles had evolved beyond mere training—there were straight up battles, ambushed, strategic planning and so on and so forth between them.

They had been using the virtual reality simulation of the pods used in the academy— similar to the ones professor julius had used to train sunny in his past life.

They used them to simulate different terrains— jungles, ruined cities, beaches, islands, plains, hills and even the sea itself.

They couldn't practice against actual monsters because it wasn't possible to replicate the madness of the corrupted, but fighting each other in these simulations was more than enough.

They could even kill each other and not face any repercussions aside from severe pain.

It was the perfect method for the dormant demon and monster to grow stronger.

Sunny fought with the strength of one shadow, Nephis with two flames and the shadow he lent her.

And that was the most fascinating part.

He was augmenting her without Shadow Bond.

It wasn't a conscious decision either— rather, it was something he had discovered while unconsciously wanting to empower her in some way— so that she could keep up with his physical stats.

Over the months, he had discovered two things about his lineage's affect on his potency:

1. His connection to shadows had deepened beyond imagination, combined with his Heir of Shadow aspect. His affinity was so strong that, if someone was familiar with him and willing, he could augment them directly— without needing the shadow bond.

2. The longer Shadow's Blood flowed through his veins, the more it merged with him. It wasn't just an external gift anymore—it was slowly becoming his own blood— inseparable and undifferentiable from Sunny.

Something else was also happening...

...combined with the heir of shadow aspect, it was allowing him to generate a nascent shadow mark on people who were following him, essentially those he lead became marked by his nascent presence.

What that did exactly was unknown, as it was nascent so sunny didn't know anything about its functions.

Perhaps it was simply going to evolve into the usual mark of shadows that sunny could bestow to people through serpent.

But for now all he understood was that cassie had come to think of him as someone she followed, like she did with nephis in the last life.

And that nephis did not have such thoughts at all.

'I'll make her follow me. Even if she's my equal, I'm going to lead the world this time, and ruin is going to follow.'

Sunny's newfound conviction was only enhanced by his flaw.

His demon self was boosted twice over by a single shadow and then twice over again by the shadow cradle.

Giving him the twelve times the strength of a dormant human.

While nephis was a monster, boosted three times by her two flames and then that was multiplied by some amount through his shadow.

Bringing them to around the same strength.

Sunny's last shadow was sent to spy around randomly...or just watch the show.

There was also a constant feeling of fragments trinkling into Sunny's soul.

Serpent was working hard.

---

It was the time just some days before the last month—the exact time when, in the original timeline, Sunny had been infected.

That was when he saw a familiar face— one he had checked the sleeper list every month for, hoping he wasn't here.

Ragel.

Sunny found him sitting in the cafeteria, alone.

His friend looked... different.

The once bright, cheerful boy was gone. In his place sat an empty husk, a shadow of his former self. His shoulders sagged, his eyes hollow, his entire being drained of joy.

Sunny hesitated, then approached.

"Ragel? Did you get infected too?"

It was a stupid question, but he didn't know how else to start the conversation.

Ragel looked up, eyes dull.

"Yeah..."

His voice lacked emotion.

"Remember when I couldn't attend your party?"

Sunny nodded.

"My dad was being sued by an Awakened. The bastard tried to steal our land."

Sunny's grip on his tray tightened.

Ragel exhaled. "That whole mess made me... depressed. And, well, you know what the Spell does in response to that."

A familiar rage stirred in Sunny's chest.

'Awakened and their arrogance.'

"...Did you win the lawsuit?" he asked quietly.

Ragel let out a dry, humorless laugh.

"Obviously not. The Awakened bribed the judge. My dad lost his job too because of that."

Sunny clenched his jaw.

Ragel shook his head, his eyes dark.

"But I'm not planning on dying."

There was something there—a faint, flickering spark in the emptiness of his gaze.

"That's my only way of ensuring my family can eat."

Sunny knew that spark well too.

That desperation. That fire.

It was desire.

Desire to survive. Desire to own. Desire to... Be.

"That's true." He nodded. "You have to come back alive from the Dream Realm. So how about I drop some veteran advice?"

Ragel blinked. "Veteran? Aren't you going in for the first time too?"

Sunny smirked.

"Yeah. But I've prepared for it."

Ragel leaned forward slightly, the first hint of interest flickering in his tired expression.

"You don't have a lot of time left, so take as much Wilderness Survival as you can, do not take any other classes, you don't have the time for it.

Your worse enemies are going to be the environment there. The cold, the heat, the nature itself. So prepare well alright?"

Looking at ragel somberly, sunny asked him.

"Do you have any memories? What's your aspect? Tell me about yourself as much as you want to. I'll help you train too."

Sunny had nothing to gain from a random kid he used to go to school with, but to see him die was something sunny couldn't accept.

Being the most skilled fighter amongst all of humanity was something that defined sunny, yes.

Being an overachiever, a hunter of monsters far above his weight class was something that defined him too.

Being responsible for forging marvelous memories, better than anyone else— and having the most powerful army of echoes was also what made him, him.

But under all that— sunny was the person who had gone out of his way to escort 30000 people over a thousand kilometres to falcon scott, he had stayed to defend that same city against a force he could not compare to.

He had stood against a gate and fought hundreds of creatures instead of simply taking his sister and running away.

In the domain war, he had led the sword army alongside nephis and summer knight, and yet he has been responsible for saving more lives than them.

All in all, saving people from needless deaths was also what made him sunny.

Lord Mongrel, The Lord of Shadows, The Devil of Antarctica, Master Sunless of the Brilliant Emporium. And the Crazy kid of the Dark City.

They were all known for saving people. Even if it gave them nothing back.

And sunny wasn't going to ignore a friend after all that.

Ragel studied him for a moment.

Then, for the first time that day, he nodded with actual hope.

---

Ragel's first Nightmare had happened in a place called the Capital city.

He had been the son of a blacksmith, and his winning condition was very similar to his real life problem.

An Awakened blacksmith had wrongly blamed his father for stealing from him, his smithy was going to close soon, so ragel had to stop it from happening.

He did that by going outside the city walls, in a place called the mistshire mountains— and stealing some resources from the mines there that were owned by the Awakened blacksmith.

He had done it to cause a distraction, but ended up discovering that the blacksmith was in cahoots with a rebellion.

By giving that knowledge to a local city guard knight known for his honor, he completed his nightmare.

And he was allowed to take two items from the Awakened's smithy.

---

"And so, I picked up a war hammer and an armour. They both turned into memories when I did, and my nightmare was finally over.

I recieved an Awakened aspect dealing with blacksmithing, so I guess I'm not fit for direct combat..."

Ragel sighed in slight disappointment. Not having a combat oriented aspect was a problem if you were looking to survive.

But sunny wasn't bothered by that fact at all, afterall he himself had a utility aspect— atleast until his awakening, instead he was staring at ragel in disbelief for a different reason.

After a while, he finally spoke.

"So you just straight up robbed a place full of guards somehow, hoping it would slow down the bad guy of your Nightmare!?"

Ragel scratched the back of his head. "Uhh, I guess so? I mean I didn't have any other way to clear it..."

"You got insanely lucky dude. You could have died right there."

"Well that's why they are called nightmares right? I had to risk it."

Sunny sighed slightly, then looked up at ragel again. "Well, all's well that ends well. You have a weapon and an armour, so let's meet up at night after your classes, I'll help you train."

Sunny and ragel spent some time discussing their schedules, sunny then informed nephis of shifting their own training later at nights.

She was confused but she didn't voice it.

---

That night, she left the girl's area an hour later than usual. As she was leaving, her eyes fell on a girl sitting alone in the common room, through a half open door.

Intrigued, she poked her head in.

The girl was someone she had come to know— among other people, as her room was close to her's.

The girl was sitting in a sofa, a glass of water in her hand, still full. She was looking at the glass with a expressionless face.

Her eyes weren't even blinking.

Noticing nephis, she turned to look at her.

"Oh, nephis! Coming back from meeting sunless?" Her voice had a carefree and joyful tone to it, but her face was completely blank.

"No, june...our schedule changed so, I'm actually going to meet him now." Nephis shook her head.

"Ohhh, you shouldn't wander off this late at night you know, meeting boys isn't allowed in the academy."

Nephis turned a little red. "I-im going to train with him! Don't get the wrong idea!"

With a small nod, June turned to look at the wall, as if completely dejected from the world.

"Mhm...it's good to train."

Nephis tilted her head a bit and asked with curiosity. "Why...are you sitting here? Shouldn't you go to sleep?"

June sighed. "What can I say... I see monsters like you train without stopping, and then I look at myself, an average aspect, barely any combat skills. And a flaw that makes me lazy...so I can't even train hard now."

She sighed again and took a sip of water.

"It is as if I'm fated to die, come the next winter solstice."

Nephis frowned, her instincts kicking in.

"Don't berate yourself like that. You can still try your best to survive. Just not as hard as everyone else. But still you can't just give up."

She walked up to June and picked her up by the arm.

"W-what are you doing?" June spoke in surprise, her voice laced with actual emotion for the first time that night.

"You go back to sleep today, and from tomorrow, come attend the wilderness survival course with me. It will help you. Trust me."

With that, she helped her get back to her room and then went to see sunny.

Just like that, the cult of wilderness survival was spreading.

By the last month, Cassie had finally learned to move independently with complete precision, though not without relying on Guardian's Creed. Her movements were smoother now, more natural, though she still struggled in combat. That was why she trained tirelessly with the dormant stone sword Sunny had given her, learning its weight and balance as though her life depended on it—because one day, it would.

---

It was just another day in the academy, about a week left before the winter solstice. Nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be going on.

Caster was practising with Dinadan.

Ragel was reading about nightmare creatures, while june was practising her swimming in a reality simulation.

A boy with green hair and brown eyes was shooting at a target, all of his arrows were fired from a much longer range than it was possible for most sleepers, yet the boy managed just well.

Liam, the 5th ranked sleeper of Sunny's batch was training in a simulation with half a kilometre's worth of distance between him and the target.

Nephis was in her room, practising her aspect. Trying to use it's flame control better.

Sunny was eating some biscuits in the cafeteria, unaware that they had honey in them.

Just then...

Cassie woke up from her bed. She had overslept.

But that wasn't on her mind right now— no.

Sweating, she ran towards neph's room.

And soon the two of them found themselves sitting next to sunny.

"Uh why are you trembling so much cas?" Sunny asked with apprehension.

The blind girl was sweating and her blonde hair was a mess, taking a deep breathe in, she let out a stifled cry.

"I had a dream! A...a vision..I think. I saw the three of us in a desolate land of crimson coral, surrounded by hordes of strange Nightmare creatures! They were a weird mix of centaurs and demonic crab like beings...

We were fighting our way through them!"

Cassie stopped to gasp again, clearly terrified of what she had seen. Slowly however, she was calming down.

Sunny hesitated for a bit. Cassia didn't look too well. Her face was still very pale, with a distant, dazed expression on it. Her body at least was no longer trembling.

"Did you see anything else?" He asked.

Cassie stayed silent for a while, then gripped her head in frustration. "It's all in fragments. I can't understand it properly."

Sunny tried to comfort her. " That's alright. Just tell us the fragments."

Nephis caught on to what he was doing. "Yeah, we can help you piece them together."

Cassie hesitated for a while, then she spoke.

"I...saw a ruined city, thousands of Awakened were manning it's walls. Defending it in unison.

Attacking that city was an even larger amount of nightmare creatures, many of them similar to the ones we had fought through.

I didn't see the end of that clash though. My vision shifted again before that.

I saw a giant human like being of pure flesh crawling towards the city, as it did— it's tendons regenerated...slowly reforming it's legs back to their functional state. Then it rose, reaching several hundred meters in height.

And it's speed skyrocketed.

I saw a gigantic tree spread its roots outward. Then it stopped all of a sudden, and retracted them.

Then it sent its roots towards a single point. And the world seemed to expand drastically.

A beautiful man jumped into the mouth of a blueish black dragon, it's mouth breathing wisps of ghostly blue flames.

Then, there was a flash of light that covered the entire world, followed by a devastating sound that shook it.

And then..I...I saw..."

Cassie stopped again, low on breath. She was trembling once more. A few drops of tears coming down her cheeks.

Nephis rubbed her shoulder reassuringly to comfort her. "And then what happened cas? You can tell us...it's alright."

Cassie let out a stifled sound.

"And then I saw the top of a tall tower. A titanic shadow approached it's tip with rapid speed.

Only for a sharp blade of light to cleave it in half.

The shadow grew dull and started to fade away.

When it did, I felt something ripped out from me, as if I lost something close to me."

Sunny, who was listening to her revelations— freaking out in his mind at the completely different scenarios she had seen, finally asked her in a troubled tone.

"And then? Did anything else happen?"

Cassie shook her head.

"Only a blinding light overwhelmed my sight. I didn't see anything else."

The implications of cassie's vision were vast and dangerous, sunny had expected a more or less easy finish to the forgotten shore until now.

Ofcourse, he knew that there would be some differences, but of this scale? He had been caught off guard completely.

With a sigh, he tried to comfort cassie alongside nephis.

The next year was going to be a real pain.

---

The last day on Earth finally came. Sunny had written to the government officials in the observation building already — informing them that he will be taking serpent back today.

And soon enough, his loyal shadow had arrived back to him after he dismissed it.

Taking in serpent back as a tattoo, sunny spoke firmly.

"Status."

Instantly— his runes were in front of him.

Name: Sunless.

True Name: Prince of Death.

Rank: Dreamer.

Class: Demon.

Shadow cores: [3/7].

Shadow fragments: [913/3000]

Memories: [Indecent Desires] [Silver Bell] [Defiance] [Puppeteer's Shroud] [Frozen] [Pale Lily] [Memory of Rejection] [Heartbroken] [The Last Word] [Iron Quiver] [Cerulean Pearl] [Mermaid Scale] [A bunch of useless awakened and dormant memories that I'm not gonna name].

Echoes: ---

Shadows: Soul Serpent.

Attributes: [Fated] [Flame of divinity] [Child of Shadows] [The Solace]

Marked ones: Cassia.

Aspect: [Heir of Shadow].

Aspect Rank: Divine.

Aspect Description: ---

Innate Ability: [Shadow Cradle].

Ability Description:---

Aspect Ability: [Shadow Control].

Ability Description: ---

Aspect Legacy: [Shadow Dance].

Shadow Dance Mastery Level: [2/7].

Flaw: [Hungry Conscience].

Flaw description: ---

Serpent had gathered a good amount of fragments over the six and half or so months he had spent guarding the aspirants.

The Awakened demon was going to be an incredible help in the dream realm too.

Now that Cassie had been marked by the nascent mark of shadows, she was shown in his runes too.

Sunny did not have his dust falcon echo that he got from the failed aspirants anymore though, because he had given that to his friend ragel. The Falcon was a dormant creature and, as such, wouldn't help Cassie in the forgotten shore at all— old or current.

His real arsenal however, was the amount of memories he had this time.

"Alright, let's do this again." Nodding to himself, sunny left his room.

The cafeteria was full of Sleepers, but no one was talking. Everybody was in low spirits and seemed to be uncharacteristically introspective. There was no usual laughter or boisterous conversations — only the Legacies remained calm and collected. However, even they kept to themselves.

Even Caster and Dinadan seemed affected by the incoming trial.

Sunny didn't care though, he got himself some steak, naan and a cup of coffee.

He was going to enjoy himself before spending another year at the forgotten shore eating monster meat.

He spent some time with his friends, though his circles with neph and ragel were mostly separated.

Nephis was still quite unsocial with people on a personal level, and ragel was terrified of actually meeting the equivalent of royalty of their world.

He did interact with Cassie though, as the two knew each other from school too.

Then, the group went to say goodbye to professor julius— apparently nephis had introduced another girl to his classes, which then snowballed into many other people attending his lectures.

After that, sunny basically said goodbye to every teacher he had learnt from. That took him a good amount of time.

Finally, he called his parents— his father and jet were busy on a mission, so he simply spoke to his mother and rain.

Words could not describe how happy sunny was to actually have his parents in this world.

Hearing the voice of his mother soothed him, calming him down perfectly.

After that, there wasn't much to do.

When the sun was close to setting, Instructor Rock gathered the sleepers in the foyer of the Sleeper Center and led them outside.

In the snowy parks that surrounded the white building, other Awakened were leading their own batches of Sleepers to the same destination. It was the Academy's medical center.

There were over three thousand and six hundred sleepers in the academy this time.

The center looked more like a shrine than a hospital. Its interior contained both highly advanced technology as well as some of the best Healers among the Awakened. For the duration of their first journey into the Dream Realm, the bodies of Sleepers would be kept safe in specially designed pods and sustained by the magical powers of those Healers if anything unfortunate were to happen on the other side of the Spell.

Of course, whether or not they would wake up in the end wholly depended on the Sleepers themselves.

As Sunny had expected, after entering the medical center, Instructor Rock did not take them directly to the wing containing the Sleeper pods. Instead, he led them to a comparatively deserted floor and then opened the doors to a spacious gallery that was brightly illuminated by the beautiful crimson rays of the setting sun.

There, they saw rows and rows of wheelchairs. In each wheelchair, there was a person with a blank, strangely peaceful expression on their face. All these people were completely silent, motionless, and still.

They did not show any reaction to the appearance of guests.

They were the hollow.

"Purple".

Rock asked a sleeper who always had something to ask him during classes.

"Tell me, what are these people?"

The sleeper called purple was dead silent today, an eerie terror creeping all over him.

"I..I don't know sir."

With a sigh, rock explained what the hollow were. After his explanation, he turned to look at the sleepers.

"Each one of them was once either a Sleeper or an Awakened. Some of them were weak, some of them were strong. Some were even incredibly powerful. All of them have perished in the Dream Realm."

He turned to look at caster and dinadan.

"If you're lucky, once your spirit is destroyed, your body dies with it. But if not, you'll become just like them. Hollow."

Finally he glanced in the direction where Sunless and Nephis stood, and then added:

"So don't die out there."

---

Half an hour later, Sleepers had been led to their personal rooms and were preparing to enter the pods.

In one of the rooms, the blind girl, Cassia, was orienting herself in the unfamiliar space, touching the walls and strange pieces of machinery with her hands.

Interestingly, it was super easy for her— barely an inconvenience. Still, tears were streaming down her beautiful, doll like face— in the memory of the loss of her sight.

In the other room, the proud Legacy Caster was staring listlessly at the floor. His lips were moving, repeating two strange phrases over and over again. He was trembling.

"Eliminate Undying Starlight, Do not engage The Prince of Death."

Somewhere else, Undying Starlight Nephis, the last daughter of the Immortal Flame clan, was looking down at her hands. Underneath her skin, soft white radiance was slowly growing brighter and brighter. Her face was smiling brightly— ready to prove herself to the world.

And finally, there was a room where the Heir of Shadow Sunless, Once Lost from Light, turned away from the sleeping pod and glanced down at his three shadows.

"Well? Are you guys ready?"

The shadows nodded at him as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sunny chuckled.

"Yeah, me too."

With that, he stepped forward and climbed into the pod.

In the vast echoing darkness, he heard:

[Welcome to the Dream Realm again, Sunless!]

[End of volume 1: A different beginning.]

***

[Author's notes:

And now for my next trick, I'll drop the fanfic! Just kidding lmao, but I will be going on a 7 day hiatus as stated before on discord

(might, just probably very unlikely might be a couple more days, saying this just in case cuz sm people pointed out it could take longer.)

I'm gonna have to reread the entire fs arc and also some other fanfics to learn how to write like the best writers.

Also, finally we have concluded the 1st part of this fanfic, so I will humbly ask for you guys to give your opinions on this little story in the reviews.

Not only do the reviews help the fanfic grow, it helps the author understand their shortcomings and strong points both. Let's aim for 15 reviews in total alright!

Also special thanks to u/These-Percentage-632 from reddit for letting me use liam.

Finally, thank you to all of you for reading my fanfic, I could NOT have asked for a better audience for my first story. You are all peak!]