Shadow Slave: The Prince of Death

Immediately as the spell finished speaking, sunny found himself plunged into the dark sea.

Ahh, it's cold and dark touch was strangely nostalgic...and utterly cold!

Sunny was blinded by the true darkness of the dark sea, but with the space perception he had through his affinity to shadows— he managed to swim upward.

As he did, he commanded his three shadows to wrap around him. Instantly his strength became four fold— and then grew twice again.

Then, he summoned the Puppeteer's shroud to cover up himself.

Within a second, he broke through the surface of the water and took a deep breathe in.

'Alright where is it where is it.'

Sunny spun around in the dark sea to try and locate his surroundings.

Hundreds of meters away there was a triangular dorsal fin coming towards him. That sight tugged at sunny's lips, causing him to grin.

...finally, his eyes fell on the black mass some distance away.

The neck of the knight's statue.

Not wasting a second, he started to swim towards the solid ground.

Even with three cores and all the augmentation in the world— the shark devil was faster, much faster. But sunny didn't let that bother him.

Afterall he had survived it before too, so it wasn't going to scare him now. Soon he reached the black mass and climbed out of the water.

The moment his fingers brushed against the solid surface, he clawed his way up, rolling onto the rock. With practiced efficiency, he twisted onto one knee, positioning himself to face the oncoming predator.

For a moment, sunny assessed his situation. The shark devil was a couple of dozen seconds away from hitting the statue.

"Should I just dive in and try to kill it? Maybe get inside its maw?"

The devil did look brutally injured now that he thought about it, he could use the nearby abomination to weaken it and then strike it from inside...

The whispers in his mind were tempting him too, ahh it was such a captivating idea. The memory obtained from amthe devil would be incredibly useful too — if it dropped one.

But sunny steeled himself to stop. "No, that is just straight up suicide. Besides, its not like I'm entangled in a weave of madness anyways, I'm actually sane— I'll just shoot it from here just in case.

With that, he stretched out his hands and allowed an icy bow to form in his hands.

At the same time, a pure white crystalline bodkin point arrow manifested in the bow.

Without missing a heartbeat, sunny fired [heartbroken] through the [memory of rejection].

Heartbroken had an active enchantment where it could explode into hundreds of shrapnels, each a much smaller version of the shards fired by the ice elementals.

But sunny didn't have the essence required to use that enchantment— so he simply fired the heavy arrow directly.

The Awakened memory of the third tier streaked across the sky, whistling like a javelin— its pure white colour contrasting with the pitch black darkness of the night.

"Fwhoosh... THWUCK!"

At the same time, the devil collided with the knight's statue, causing it to shudder.

As Sunny watched with anticipation, terrifying jaws appeared from the water, with rows and rows of giant teeth, each one as long as he was tall.

The devil was already injured severely by the tyrant following it, and sunny had hit the shark straight in it's eye.

"Did it work? Did I kill it?"

However, before his question was answered, a colossal tentacle suddenly broke through the water and rose into the air like some strange, black tower. Before too long, it fell down, entangling the owner of the giant maw and pulling it back under the water.

Soon, the shark and the tentacled abominations had faded away, lost from sight.

A few seconds passed...and the spell remained silent.

The tentacle abomination had beaten sunny to the kill.

Sunny was staring at the now calm sea, indifferent waves continued to move silently under the lightless sky.

"Well, that was a massive waste of suspense, Huh."

He exhaled with a shrug. "To be fair it was an absurd idea too. Killing a corrupted devil as a sleeper without any memories suited for it...or any echoes.

Unexpectedly, a voice came from behind him. Ragged but still casual.

"As far as absurdity goes, it was on the highest end of the spectrum."

It was a human voice.

Sunny spun around instantly, curious to see whether it was an actual human or a vile abomination pretending to be one.

To his relief, it was indeed a human. A sleeper from the academy infact— one he actually knew rather well... At least by name.

It was liam, the guy who had ranked right behind caster in his batch.

If it wasn't for sunny and nephis joining the academy, and for caster and dinadan to come following in hopes of assassinating nephis— liam would have ranked at number one.

That definitely spoke of his skills and power, but sunny hadn't interacted with him much.

To start off, sunny barely had any classes, and he almost always just fought caster in them, as his aspect was the best grindstone for sunny to train against.

Liam was powerful yes, but he wasn't quite on the level of the top four sleepers of Sunny's batch.

Those guys were a different breed altogether, training to become perfect weapons of mass destruction ever since they could walk.

They had been matured more than an average adult from the time of their school days.

The green haired boy in front of him obviously wasn't going to compare. He was an exceptional archer yes, but that was more or less it.

"What are you doing here?" Sunny knew he could have just been thrown here randomly by the spell, but he had to act natural.

He could also have been sent by the great clans as secret assassin. But that was unlikely.

"The spell sent me here. On this pile of rocks, did it actually throw you in the water though?"

Liam asked with a hint of surprise.

"Oh yeah, it did. I survived though, thankfully." Sunny smiled in a lopsided grin as if reassuring him.

"I can see that." Liam answered, unsure how to respond.

Sunny would have been amused by his expression if his mind wasn't busy recalling if he had said anything suspicious.

Just as he realised something, liam asked.

"But can I ask you how you knew that abomination was a corrupted devil?"

"Oh, I just figured that because of how large and powerful it was. I have seen a fallen tyrant at a raid before you know."

"You have fought a fallen tyrant before!!?"

"No no no, I just saw it from far away. I would be dead if it had attacked me ofcourse. And the shark seemed stronger than it, so I presumed..."

"And yet you wanted to kill that monster!?"

"I mean, it was worth a shot." Sunny shrugged.

Liam sighed in exhaustion from Sunny's logic.

Liam and sunny didn't know each other beyond their names and casual greetings every now and then, so sunny had never told him about his experiences at the raid.

He knew that there was a gap between him and the top 4, but to hear that the strongest sleeper of his batch didn't find it strange and frankly— utterly impossible, was mind numbing.

Shaking his head, he asked sunny. "Do you know where we are? Given your confidence I'm assuming we can get to the nearest citadel with comparative ease?"

Sunny twisted the truth. "All I can think is that we are in an unconquered region of the dream realm. There are no records talking of this place in any books I've read.

Basically we are in the middle of somewhere that the government has no data on, so we'll have to figure things out ourselves."

Liam stared at sunny with a expressionless face.

"So how are we supposed to proceed in this situation? We are trapped in the middle of an ocean. Which is apparently a habitat of corrupted abominations, mind you.

How are mere sleepers supposed to survive this hell?" As he spoke, his voice became filled with more and more anxiety.

It was natural for someone like him, who had found himself on the forgotten shore for the first time, but liam was holding up relatively well.

He also had a slight idea about the answer to his question, but he thought better to ask sunny first, afterall he was the more capable of the two.

"Who knows." Sunny shrugged "What do you think?" Sunny didn't have to adhere to one particular action at the moment.

He could walk around, lie down or even jump into the sea.

He also didn't know how someone was supposed to survive in the forgotten shore, only how to escape it...at least as a sleeper.

Liam didn't like his question being redirected, but he spoke his mind. "Well, we could wait for a while, see if the landscape changes in any way. The spell is reasonable in its judgement afterall."

Sunny smirked. "Correct. This dark sea is very similar to a certain type of anomaly that has been faced by the house of night for years. Though it has never been this voluminous.

If it is the same thing, we should definitely wait, it wouldn't remain the same way for long."

Surprised, liam blurted out. "So you were just checking my knowledge!?"

"I was just seeing your ideas. Helps check how capable someone is."

Liam looked at him for a while, then spoke. "So? What do you think?"

Sunny looked at him for a few seconds, as if analysing him, then he grinned. "I think we will get along just fine."

Then he noticed something...or rather, finally got to thinking about it.

It was liam's armour memory, it was an Ichcahuipilli armor reminiscent of something similar to the aztec tribes.

It had a light green tone to it, and also consisted of animal leather like material that extended to his entire body— with the exception of his head.

His armour was light, more made for stealth than defending.

It was an Awakened memory.

'He had a bow memory too, so at least two memories from his Nightmare. Not bad."

With that thought, sunny dismissed his memories, except for the Puppeteer's shroud and sat down.

"My shadow can keep watch for the night, let's rest until the morning comes up."

Liam was skeptical at first, but soon he laid down and went to sleep.

Sunny on the other hand, focused on meditating, trying to circulate his essence through serpent. He was failing miserably at that, but he could still feel some nascent essence within him.

Soon after a few hours, sunny summoned the bow and arrow memories again and started to slowly pour his essence into the arrow.

Heartbroken easily absorbed the minuscule amount of essence from sunny in an instant, and after a few minutes, it did the same.

Slowly over the period of two hours, sunny fed the memory the necessary essence in incredibly small instalments.

Then, the day broke and the dark sea surged.

Liam was woken up by the movement of the supremely titanic sea— but the first thing he saw wasn't the sea receeding...

...but sunless holding a bow loaded with a huge arrow, aiming downwards for now, he was looking eagerly at the sea.

"Hey, what is happening ?" Liam asked sunny in a sleepy but tense tone.

Sunny glanced back. "Oh hey, you are finally awake huh, the dark sea suddenly surged and receeded when the day broke. So I drew my bow just in case."

Sunny didn't finish that sentence, afterall he had been preparing to launch it at the group of scavengers who would soon emerge at the ground. But saying 'just in case there were hundred of free kills down there' didn't seem very normal.

As liam got up and walked to the edge of the ground, he saw himself standing on the edge of a tall cliff, with a hundred-meter drop separating him from the churning waters. Beneath him, the rock formation broadened and changed shape. However, from his vantage point, it was hard to determine what that shape was, exactly.

At that time, the dark surface of the water began to be punctured here and there by sharp crimson blades. As it dropped even further, it was as though a crimson forest was slowly rising from the black depths. The "trees" were made of something resembling coral, growing chaotically into each other and stretching toward the sky.

They were colossal in size, with irregular protrusions entwining and merging together, looking monumental and eerie in the black and red reality of the sunlit void. The labyrinth formed by this strange reef stretched as far as Liam could see, broken here and there by protruding cliffs, sudden chasms, and distant natural features.

Half an hour later, utterly shocked, Liam stared down and realized that the sea was completely gone. If not for the black seaweed left hanging on wet rocks and scarlet pillars of coral, he would even doubt if it was ever there.

He looked around, only to find no monsters close by. But sunny was still tense— staring at a distance towards a cliff.

"What's wrong?" He asked in anticipation.

"My shadow just detected a horde of nightmare creatures behind that cliff." Sunny had to act tense to look natural, but it was good too in a way, it helped him stay grounded.

Standing up and raising his bow towards the sky at an angel, he continued.

"Don't worry, I planned for such an event." With that, he commanded his three shadows to wrap around heartbroken.

His "heartbroken" memory was a curious one, a similar memory he had in his previous life— the strike of thunder, could not be augmented by his shadows, because that memory released elemental lightning to deal damage.

But [heartbroken] simply broke into hundreds of fragments itself, each of those fragments was still part of the memory— and as such, was still enhanced. This made heartbroken four times as effective if used by sunny.

The pure white arrow turned pitch black, and sunny launched it into the air with one final mental command of activating the enchantment.

He had sent a shadow beforehand to check the horde, that served him three purposes.

1) He was able to figure out the exact position of his enemies and shoot at them with accuracy, even when his eyes couldn't see them.

2) He had summoned serpent close by through that shadow, after serpent had helped him fill the arrow with enough essence.

And 3) He had an excuse to explain to liam how he knew of the enemy's location there.

He had also discovered something strange about the horde, there were a little over 300 of them, as usual but they also had 6 centurions.

Since the forgotten shore had no gates, it made no sense for it to have any extra hordes of abominations, maybe a few more creatures due to the more humans they had to consume.

And yet cassie's vision had things sunny had no idea about, and now he was seeing a change right in front of him.

For the moment however, sunny chose to ignore those thoughts, he had to farm fragments right now...and survive.

As the arrow streaked across the air and hit the carapace scavengers, it lodged deep into the back of a centurion, after a moment, it exploded in all directions.

In an instant, Dozens of scavengers were killed, even more were injured. As they did, the fragments were surrounded by a strange light— and they disappeared. The memory had been unsummoned.

At the same time, the three shadows dashed to a close by spot and serpent emerged from it's hiding spot.

From the moment they left the memory to the moment they merged with serpent, sunny could see the devastation for an instance.

There was going to be even more carnage soon, sunny remembered his first time fighting a centurion— that feind had killed 8 scavengers by itself, without any scratches.

Its demon evolution could do the same to a group of centurions for sure.

And yet that was just a normal awakened demon, serpent was anything but normal on the other hand.

It was a harbinger of death, as soul serpents were supposed to be— it had fought against several echoes of Awakened humans as a dormant creature too.

And now, enhanced by three shadows, it was nothing short of the incarnation of death.

As Sunny's vision cut off, Serpent moved with its astonishing speed and started the culling.

Sunny took a step back and waited. He had no way of checking serpent's condition now but years of experience from his past life allowed him to estimate.

Liam wasn't interrupting him either, seeing the grim expression on his face and his closed eyes gave him enough reason not to.

And after a quarter of an hour, sunny finally unsummoned serpent. With that, he dove into his soul sea.

There were three black suns hanging above the calm, silent waters. One of them was housing serpent. They were orbited by spheres of light that represented his Memories. There were more of them than before now, and also...

...there was a much larger sphere of light hovering much further away.

Sunny commanded both serpent and it to come down.

It was an echo of the carapace scavengers, after that sunny checked on serpent's condition.

It was injured by now, and there were a couple of deep wounds on it, but there was nothing truly lethal that wounded it.

For all purposes, serpent had returned safely.

After returning them both to their spheres, sunny took a look at the creatures in his soul sea.

The shadow lineage had allowed him to observe them now. As he gazed at them, he saw the hulking bodies of the spider terror and the fallen werewolf he had killed, as well as the mountain king.

Even after Shadow had taken the creature as his slave, he didn't take its shadow after its death, instead the shadow was still in Sunny's soul sea.

There was also the Guardian's shadow somewhere, but sunny couldn't pinpoint where exactly.

There were the shadows of auro and the other humans too...as well as stine.

Looking at him made sunny frown, it still hurt him knowing that he had killed an innocent man that day.

There were also many, many shadows of the spiders and ice elementals. Even some bird creatures. There were hundreds of weird monsters of all types, spawned from the dead aspirants.

There were the newly acquired carapace scavengers and even two centurions. They were the topic of interest to sunny right now.

One by one, sunny looked through them all, and eventually came to the conclusion that— The first echo he ever had was not in these scavengers, no it must still be amongst the horde that was left.

Sunny was inclined to turn that echo into his shadow this time, so he had to go kill the rest of the scavengers soon.

With that, sunny left his soul sea and sent a shadow to observe the horde.

'They are mostly beasts, so they should go back to eating the carcass of the devil soon, mistaking the slaughter for some Nightmare creature that happened to be nearby and passed through them

Serpent disappearing into the shadows would sell that leaving part well too.'

As the shadow was making its way towards the horde, liam noticed the shift in Sunny's posture.

With apprehension, he asked. "What's happening?"

Sunny glanced at him and replied. His tone friendly and casual while his face was grim and stern. A complete strange contradiction.

"Don't worry, there's 322 Nightmare creatures, 316 beasts and 6 monsters. I'm going to slowly kill them."

Liam's eyes opened wide. "That many!?"

Before he could press further sunny said dismissingly. "Well they are just Awakened so it's not a big deal."

Liam sighed inwards, no longer having the energy to talk. A sleeper who found killing awakened creatures feasible was extremely extraordinary, but one who considered it 'not a big deal'? That was simply unheard of.

And that was with a few awakened too, Sunless was planning on killing over three hundred! That was insane!

'Well he did try to kill a corrupted devil yesterday, maybe that's his flaw? Being unable to feel fear?'

By the time liam finished, Sunny's shadow had reached the horde. What it saw next however...

...left sunny terrified.