A Sunless Dream

Pale white light flickered in the citadel located within God Grave. If one dared to enter, they would be able to observe a man clad in all black onyx armour with a mask of a demon firmly located where his face should have been. Where eyes were supposed to be located, instead there were holes which only gave way for an endless pool of darkness.

The man said no words, however his presence alone made the world look small. It was as if the world was bending to his will merely by existing within it, every step he took was insidious and formless as he didn't remain focused on a particular style for more than a second.

Swordplay from Valor, Song and even techniques that had never been witnessed throughout all of human history all of which were present in the man's ominous dance. Every move he made was utterly focused on ending the life of his opponent in as little time as possible, and his body radiated bloodlust which was so intense it distorted the air around him

This was the lord of shadows.

Taking a moment away from his dance, he stepped towards his shadow throne and sat upon it. Gazing upon his citadel as though the building itself hadn't earned the right for his pleasure. "I've done it now, all I can see is black and white. What even is my name anyway?" the man asked to nobody in particular, all those who dared to even engage in conversation with this man had ended up dead filling up a catalogue of bloody corpses that were strung out across God Grave for all to see.

Great beasts, Corrupted Titans, Saints all of which were present. Being displayed like a hunter showing off his trophies, taking a second to observe his runes the man looked upon that name once more. Although he couldn't quite put a finger on it, the name appeared oddly familiar to him. The spell told him that was his name, however he felt no sense of relation as he repeated the name to himself over and over "Sunless! Sunless! Sunless! Who is Sunless!"

His mad rants reverberated throughout God Grave, and though his noise surely had attracted the attention of several nightmare creatures. The faint, almost non existent semblance of instinct they still possessed told them to stay completely far away from the ominous soul which inhabited God Grave.

Back in Bastion, Nephis remained at Sunny's side as he fell back to sleep once more. He had to lock down the cafe temporarily as currently his mental state was not stable enough to manage too much human interaction all at once. Although Nephis appreciated the quiet nature of bastion, she still had a job to finish.

Nudging Sunny to rouse him from his slumber, she observed with an imperceptible smile as Sunny slowly sat up and rubbed his eyes chasing away all semblance of sleep from his eyes. "Good morning?" his eyes slowly focused on the person before him as he took in Nephis silver hair and beautiful grey eyes for what had felt like the 60th time this year alone, and quite frankly he wasn't growing tired of it.

"Sunny, you said you had an incarnation in God Grave. What did you mean?" Nephis spoke slowly as to not stress Sunny further than she already had. Though he deserved rest, the world they lived in wouldn't allow for such a thing and both of them knew it. Sunny stiffened at the mention of his incarnation in God Grave, he knew all too well what had happened to it however involving Nephis with that creature would not have been wise.

How he cursed himself for bringing it up in the heat of the moment, although he had known she was planning on encountering it sooner or later so equipping her with information would be the best tool at her disposal.

"It's my transcendent ability, I can split myself off into different clones and imbue them with different personality traits of mine" he paused for a second, taking in a deep breathe as he looked Nephis in the eye "If you go there, he will kill you and everyone you are with" Nephis eyes widened at such a prospect. Although she knew he was strong, the proposition of one of his incarnations killing her as well as all of her allies seemed quite out of the ordinary. Before she could ask however Sunny continued.

"He...isn't like me. He's imbued with all of the personality traits I have directly relating to violence and murder. Reasoning with him is impossible, and if my suspicions are correct then he should have also lost his sense of self. I'll be honest, he's stronger than I am right now" he finished.

His clone was always training. The art of murder had been beaten into his head every second of every day since Sunny had created him, and he had delved into the depths of shadow dance so much, so Sunny was sure he had forgotten what he even looked like now. The rewards he reaped from unlocking new levels of shadow dance were inaccessible to him lest he continues to go down the path of losing his humanity, but his clone had no such concerns.

From Nephis perspective, this whole idea was baffling. Not only had she never once heard of a transformation ability that allowed cloning, but if the clone had possessed aspects of Sunny which were more violent then considering how violent the original body is when threatened encountering the clone seemed much more of a harrowing experience than it was supposed to be.

"If he's your own transcendent ability, couldn't you just deactivate it by cutting off his essence? Surely that would allow for him to be easily controlled, no?" she questioned. Sunny glanced at her briefly, the question was entirely reasonable and was also one of the first options he had considered upon learning how far gone his clone was however, following Nephis suggestion would have more dire consequences than she had even suspected.

"If I do that, I'll 'die'. All my clones require a set amount of essence to be able to function at full strength, if I were to cut off his essence for even a second all his memories and rage would pour back into me at once. I don't think I could manage that, and I'm sure from looking at my runes you'd also know that I can't use shadow dance either." He finished.

Nephis stared at him with wide eyes, what did he mean that he would 'die', the way Sunny phrased it implied that it wouldn't be the typical sort of death that every awakened was bound to face at some point in their life. The vague language used caused a hundred theories to flow through Nephis mind per minute, but her thought process was cut off by Sunny.

"He's the key that's needed for me to become the shadow God, or any sort of God even. Although he has sunk to the absolute depths of shadow dance, he requires my sentience and personality to be completely suppressed for him to finally ascend. Keeping my distance from him allowed me to keep tabs on him while he couldn't sense me, I'm sure if we encountered each other-"

Sunny paused, he was lamenting his own weakness. Sure, he was fine not being the absolute pinnacle of strength that had ever existed. Such a dream was not required for the goals he had in mind. However, losing out in strength to a mere clone of himself was a blotch on his pride that he couldn't stand to see.

"He'd brutalise me till I didn't have the essence to keep us separate, allowing me to ascend to 'Godhood' and quite frankly, I don't want to lose myself to a life of slavery to fate like all the Gods had. I'd much rather remain in my weakened state if it meant being able to enjoy my life as I had been before..." he trailed off, he didn't want to say anything hurtful to Nephis however she caught the implication and looked away from him.

Slowly getting up, Nephis looked at him for a brief moment. "The mission is to either get him on the side of Valor or neutralise him. If I can't get him to the side of Valor through force, then..." she didn't want to do it again. Regardless of how much the clone of Sunny had disconnected from the man who stood before her, who's longing was as clear and pure as the summer sky. She didn't want to rob him of his freedom. "I'll do what I must."

With that, Nephis made her way out of the room. Leaving Sunny to his own thoughts, looking to his side he saw the low blue glow of one of the soul shards he had kept in a big box for future use when weaving. However, what he had forgotten was that it was a reflective surface. Meaning, that the infamous Skin stealer was watching.

And when he smelt an opportunity, he never let it go.