Shadow Slave

There had been a time when Sunny studied Changing Star's runes like a man obsessed. His whole life had been built around the desire to overtake her on the path to power.

He might have even done a few careless things in that pursuit.

At some point, however, Sunny had lost the desire to compare himself to Nephis, at least in this way. The first change had happened because of her return from the Dream Realm. The second... sometime in the Antarctic Center, he had lost the habit of summoning her runes every day.

Shadow fragments, soul fragments - those were not a true measure of strength, anyway. Sunny had seen countless mundane soldiers stand and fight against the Nightmare Creatures, never surrendering despite the dire disparity of power between them. If those people were weak, then he did not know whom to call strong.

And so, at some point, he had stopped paying constant attention to Neph's runes without even noticing it.

Now, however, Sunny had the Mirror of Truth. So, he decided that it was worth taking another look.

The familiar symbols shimmered, forming into strings:

Name: Nephis.True Name: Changing Star.Rank: Ascended.Class: Tyrant.Soul Cores: [5/7].

He stared at that number for a few moments.

After years of lagging behind, Sunny had finally caught up to her... wasn't it so very funny that he had only been able to do so after stopping caring about the race?

A light smile appeared on his face.

'Whatever... she still has more fragments than I do. She'll be a Terror sooner than me.'

But did it really matter? In the end, they would both be Titans. That day was not as far away as it had once seemed, now.

Sunny continued to read:

Soul Fragments: [2719/5000].

Nephis had received many soul shards from the treasury of clan Valor after being adopted by them. However, she could not reveal the fact that she possessed a Divine Aspect and multiple soul cores - requesting more than a thousand would have been strange and aroused suspicion.

She had not been hunting down many Nightmare Creatures while Sunny had been going from one dire battle to another almost every day in the Antarctic Center, either, so her progress was slow as of late. Now that Changing Star had arrived in Antarctica, though, that was bound to change.

Sunny wondered how many soul fragments she had received in the recent battle, then turned his attention back to the runes.

Memories: [Dream Blade], [Starlight Legion Armor], [Dawn Shard], [Dark Wing], [Nameless Sun]...

There was a long list of Memories. Some of them she had received while wandering the Dream Realm and challenging the Second Nightmare... in fact, Sunny could learn a few things about what kind of trial she had faced from reading their descriptions.

But since Nephis did not want to talk about her harrowing experience, he held himself back. Perhaps it was stupid, but... he did not want to invade her privacy.

He also wanted her to tell him herself. Sunny knew what a precious and fragile thing trust was... it had taken a lot for him to extend his own trust toward Effie and Kai. Before that, his friends had respected his desire to remain silent and did not push him to reveal his secrets. He was very thankful for that.

...Sunny was not a Saint, though. He felt no qualms about studying the Memories that clan Valor had provided to Neph. They were incredible Memories, indeed, no less outstanding than Morgan's Warbow - each crafted for the specific purpose of slaughtering Nightmare Creatures and tailored to the user.

In fact, he really wanted to borrow a few to study their weaves. He just did not know how to phrase that request.

'Hey, Neph, could you please take off your armor? I need it for a couple of weeks... no, no I won't wear it... shut up, Effie!'

Just thinking about it made him wince.

Chasing away the dreadful image, Sunny continued to study the runes.

Attributes: [Dreamspawn], [Nephilim], [Flame of Divinity], [The Fire].[Dreamspawn] Attribute Description: "You are born of two worlds, belonging to both, but welcomed in neither. Your soul exists on the edge between nightmare and reality."

[Nephilim] Attribute Description: "There once were terrible creatures born of an unholy union between the divine and the profane. Nephilim were the most beautiful, and the most harrowing of them all."

[Flame of Divinity] Attribute Description: "Your soul is aflame with the light of divinity."

[The Fire] Attribute Description: "You have inherited the lineage of Sun God."

Those had not changed. Sunny himself had received a couple new Attributes in the past years, but Nephis had not. Neither had she unlocked her Aspect Legacy... which was not very surprising. Each Aspect was unique, after all, and possessed unique requirements for acquiring the Legacy.

Awakened who received their Legacies were rare, and most only accomplished that feat after becoming Saints, with an even smaller number doing so as Masters. Otherwise, there would have been countless Legacy clans in the world.

So, it was Sunny who was an anomaly.

He sighed wistfully, thinking of Serpent, and turned back to the shimmering symbols.

Aspect: [Light Bringer].Aspect Rank: Divine.Aspect Description: [You are a creature of light that was banished and doomed to exist in the darkness. You bring radiance and warmth to wherever you go, but with it comes indescribable longing.]

Innate Ability: [Halfbreed].[Halfbreed] Ability Description: "You can directly absorb a portion of the soul essence of any Nightmare Creature destroyed by your flames, as well as of any human."

Aspect Abilities: [Soul Flame], [Flame Manipulation], [Longing].[Soul Flame] Ability Description: "Your soul burns with the purest of flames. That flame can both restore and destroy, and is both a blessing and a curse."

He was perfectly familiar with the first of Neph's three Aspect Abilities - it had grown slightly more versatile since the Forgotten Shore, now augmenting the soul, as well, but otherwise remained the same.

The other two Abilities - her Awakened and Ascended ones, respectively - were new. The Awakened Ability was rather straightforward:

[Flame Manipulation] Ability Description: "You can bend all fire to your will."

That was how Nephis was able to control fire, turning it into her weapon. That fire did not have to be her own - although she could produce flames if there were none around at the cost of feeling terrible pain.

The Ascended Ability, on the other hand... was a bit strange.

[Longing] Ability Description: "Your soul is incorruptible."

And that was all. Not only was it a passive Ability - which was incredibly rare for Ascended Abilities - it also did not do anything. It did not even raise Neph's protection against soul attacks, or improve the rate of her essence regeneration.

For all intents and purposes, [Longing] was useless.

...Of course, Sunny knew a thing or two about the type of Corruption the runes spoke of. So, he understood how incredibly special that Ability was.

In theory.

In practice, they had never even faced Corruption. Sunny did not even know of anyone who knew how Corruption happened. All humans were familiar with was the result of it... the Nightmare Creatures.

Against those, having a pure soul was of no help.

A pure soul...

Sunny sighed and looked at the last string of runes.

Flaw: [Pristine Soul].Flaw Description: [You must suffer to use your power.]

He lingered for a while, staring at them, and then dismissed the symbols.

'I don't think I'll be using the Mirror of Truth on Nephis... unless I'm about to kill a truly powerful Nightmare Creature - or human - and want to absorb an incredible amount of shadow fragments.'

But then again, would it even work? The description of the [Halfbreed] Innate Ability spoke of soul essence, not shadow essence.

No, he would have to find better targets.

And speaking of better targets...

His shadows were already getting close to the emissaries of Song and Valor.

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