A Sunless Dream

Making his way out of Valor's camp, Sunny quickly made his way home. Though he spent much of his time within the third nightmare, returning to his home in the waking world always held a special place in his heart. It represented his perseverance, his drive to break the fate of a lowly outskirts kid who was destined to die at a young age. Returning to the place he could call home always held a special place in his heart and allowed him to strengthen his resolve and recuperate from the mental anguish he had subjected himself to.

After roughly three hours of sleep, Sunny took a moment to look over his runes which he had neglected. At a certain point, he had come to realise that it didn't matter what runes he gained and lost as eventually they would all follow the path which his fated attribute had set out for him. However, his assumption couldn't be further from the truth as he observed his new attribute [Grip of Fate]

[Grip of Fate]

Attribute Description – A treacherous insignificant divine shadow who stumbled upon the flame of divinity attempted to fight against his destiny. However, in attempting to break the chains of fate around him they coiled around him even tighter now ensuring the struggles of Lost from Light will continue as long as his feeble mind could sustain it.

Further Descriptions – You are destined for great things, the closer you ally yourself with divinity, the more your humanity slips away from you. Upon full loss of your humanity, you shall replace the role of the long dead shadow God.

Sunny stared at the attribute with wide eyes, initially he thought the spells description of him as a 'treacherous shadow' was merely a play on the type of actions he had taken so far to reach his current status. However, the spell had gone from subtle jabs at his character to overt disrespect, 'Who the fuck does this thing think it is calling me insignificant' he thought to himself. He casted a glare at the runes which would have typically caused lesser men to fall to their knees and beg, however the runes stood indifferently before him letting off a faint glow almost mocking him for his pathetic attempts at intimidation.

Furthermore, Sunny had an even bigger problem which weighed heavily on his mind. What could the spell have possibly meant when it said he would be taking the role of the Shadow God, and losing his humanity? Such an idea was utterly abominable, through all the endless nightmares that his ominous steed nightmare had forced him to experience though he came close, not once did he lose his humanity. Who did the spell think it was to attempt to rip something so integral to Sunny's being away from him.

'The shadow God didn't have to worry about being a slave to his supposed lover, but sacrificing my humanity for freedom? That isn't escaping slavery but just putting on different shackles' he thought to himself, the situation wasn't something he could just brute force his way past and the spell also left it ambiguous as to how he would even go about losing his humanity. Sunny attempted to continue theorising until he was cut off by the sound of his door creaking open, 'Nephis?' he thought to himself with reluctant anticipation. He dismissed his armour and sped around the house looking for the most casual clothes he could possibly have at the moment, finally after a few seconds of awkward silence Sunny made his way to the door wearing a plain black shirt with black shorts as he slowly made his way to the door.

Opening it, he saw the person who he least expected. Rather than Nephis, it was Cassie and Rain who stood expectedly at his doorstep. Before he could even conjure the words to speak, Cassie beat him to it and spoke with a tone dripping with suspicion "Who are you? And what the spell are you doing in this house?" she said, though she had recently transcended the sight of a stranger who didn't even seem slightly affected at the aura her soul dispelled around her was something wary of caution. Sunny looked at her with a broken expression "Don't you remember? I'm Sunny, Sunless, the most honest man in the world. Two worlds even!" he said, raising his voice at the end to accentuate how serious he was being. However, his statement fell on deaf ears as Rain was the one to speak this time "I'm sorry sir, but I've never heard of you in my life" she said, though her tone was not as wary as Cassie's she still had confusion painted all over her face.

Sunny looked at her with an exasperated expression, she had been his reason for living for a good portion of his life, and now not even she remembered him. Putting on a mask of indifference, Sunny said "You're telling me you don't remember? Devil of Antarctica? Mongrel? I was part of your co-" immediately Sunny's sentence was cut off as his hands shot to his head, the pain coursing through his body was sharp and made indescribable. For a brief second, he attempted to supress a scream however quickly failed, falling to his knees at the door of his own home. Cassie and Rain were quickly by his side, trying and failing to stop him from hurting himself. His body was in complete survival mode, attempting to do anything not stopping at self mutilation to marginally reduce the pain he was experiencing.

Clawing at his chest and arms, Sunny continued to roll on the floor as Cassie found herself unable to restrain him. Observing the dire nature of the situation she shouted to Rain "Contact the cohort, tell them to be here as fast as possible! NOW!" she shouted, Rain didn't have time to be stunned at her out of character out burst as she immediately contacted every member of the cohort. Sunny continued to writhe in pain as his screams were barely limited by the soundproofing of his home, the damage he was doing to himself quickly overwhelmed what blood weave could manage as long lines of blood soaked his shirt.

Effie was there first, she tried pinning both of his arms to the floor to stop any further harm Sunny could cause himself and quickly found herself being bucked off him like a mundane civilian against an angry bull. It had been years since she felt herself get completely overwhelmed in terms of strength, however she persisted. Though it reduced the damage he was doing to himself somewhat, her armour was slowly becoming dented as stray blows intended for himself managed to catch her, moving too fast for her to dodge. Soon enough, the rest of the cohort was there attempting to pin him to the ground, the damage got so severe that Kai was forced to use his ascended ability and command Sunny to sleep before the cohort could get even a moment of rest.

With Sunny passed out on the floor, each of them spared the others a look and eventually all eyes were on Nephis. She was the pillar of their cohort who held them all together in times in which they themselves were unsure they would be able to survive, them looking to her for guidance wasn't just expected. It was the norm. However, she too bore a look of barely supressed confusion as she stared at the unconscious bleeding man at her feet. He had slashed one of his arteries, clawed his skin to such an extent in which even his nerve endings were available for the eye to see and worst of all his throat was nearly slashed. If Kai were a few seconds too late the damage might have gone beyond what even Nephis would have been able to help with.

"Who. The fuck. Is that." Effie asked between laboured breaths, from her perspective the situation was entirely bizarre, she had been summoned by Rain to a house who she recognised but couldn't quite explain why and had to wrestle a boy who by all rights shouldn't be able to compare to her physically even for a few seconds. However, he did so anyway. Cassie looked at her in the eye, or at least one could assume she was doing so behind the blindfold "He called himself Sunless, I don't know why but that name seems familiar yet foreign all at once. And even worse, I couldn't take a slight glimpse at his memories without immediately being overwhelmed." She paused, assessing the raven haired man once more "He is undoubtedly a Saint, but what would he be doing...here?" she asked to nobody in particular. Though there were masters who could compete with Saints in terms of physical ability, there was none she had heard of who could do it to the same extent that this man could let alone overwhelm four attempting to restrain him at once.

Moving towards him, Nephis hands displayed a gentle glow of white light as she placed her hands on his chest. Quickly, the wounds which had oddly stopped bleeding as soon as he passed out closed immediately without a scar. Sighing she looked at the rest of her cohort "There's too much we don't know, we only finished our third nightmare earlier today. The best option we have now is to wait for this ma-Sunless to wake up before questioning him further." She said in a tone that left no room to argue. Quickly, she picked him up and made her way upstairs in the house. Though the home itself was familiar to her, the exact reason as to why eluded her continuously.

Gently placing the young man on the bed, she stared at him for a few seconds an unreadable expression still plastered on her face and sat down next to the bed. If he were hostile, she wouldn't even give him the chance to fight back. A few minutes turned into hours, and as she was finally about to make her way downstairs the man began to stir. Eventually, his eyes cracked open and locked with hers leaving the room enveloped in silence.