Shadow slave: The Prince of Death

Sunny evaded a jab to his jaw and rolled away to catch a second's respite.

'there's no way to survive this monster...if only I had more room to move, but in this tight space I can't kill it.'

The beast lunged at sunny again, now they were right next to the unconscious man.

'I can't kill it as a monster...If only I was a demon.' fueled by his flaw, sunny's thoughts drifted, searching for a source of strength.

'That man...Stine was it? The beast would kill him sooner or later...but if I got his fragments..."

A surge of disgust twisted in his gut.

"But no, that's just evil."

Yet his flaw whispered insidiously in the back of his mind. His body ached, exhaustion weighed him down, and the werewolf showed no signs of tiring.

"Besides I wouldn't survive fighting it while in pain...

But I did survive the same when I became a titan in my last life.

If I could handle it? Then is it fair to take his life?"

Sunny was distracted for a moment, and the moment cost him.

The beast managed to land a hit on him, albeit a shallow one—because of guardian's creed.

Sunny was slammed into a wall. The beast took a step towards him, but then—Its nostrils flared, catching the scent of fresh blood.

Stine.

The monster turned its head, noticing the unconscious Awakened lying defenseless on the ground.

Sunny's heart pounded.

'Its now or never!' Realising the urgency, sunny flung serpent's sword form at the Awakened's heart.

The Awakened, barely awoken by the noises of the fallen, tried to say something...but before he could.

It connected.

The spell sung.

And a world of pain overwhelmed sunny, but he forced himself to get up. His core was being formed, so he couldn't really fight. But he could try his best to survive the beast.

The werewolf, meanwhile, was oblivious to what had just happened. It didn't comprehend Stine's sudden death.The sound of serpent hitting the body did startle it, but since it couldn't sense sunny so easily, it chose to ignore it for a while.

Instead, it leaned down, biting into the corpse as if expecting it to resist.

Then, realization dawned.

The beast's ears perked. Its gaze darkened.

The human was no longer prey. It was carrion.

With a snarl, it looked around for Sunny, finding him a few moments later than it usually would have.

Courtesy of his stealth.

With a furious roar, the werewolf charged, madness plaguing its mind as its jaws snapped open on his shoulder—

But sunny mustered enough strength to raise his sword in time.

Steel pierced through flesh, stabbing into the back of its throat. Blood dripped down its fangs, pooling onto the cavern floor.

And then—

The demon core was formed.

The werewolf felt a subtle change in the world.

It was surrounded by two dormant demons now.

The werewolf froze.

For the first time, it hesitated.

Something in the air had changed.

It was no longer the predator.

It was surrounded by predators.

---

Sunny unsummoned defiance and resummoned it, he slashed at its chest, with a diagonal cut. The beast roared in pain, but before it could retaliate, serpent lunged at its neck from behind.

The duel that followed was grueling. Even with his newfound strength, sunny couldn't make a single mistake, afterall the werewolf was a creature of the fallen rank, it's raw power and madness surpassed anything sunny had fought.

The only exceptions were the nameless guardian, the shadow slave mountain king, and shiaori the white.

But sunny had had help from much stronger beings in killing them, the mountain king and nameless guardian had nearly killed each other, and han li had brought shiaori to near death too.

Now he wasn't the case, sunny was technically alone too, afterall serpent was a part of his own power.

Each strike of the fallen's claws sent tremors through the ground. Each snap of its jaws—even though they were broken now—was meant to crush bone.

But Sunny had clarity now.

A terrifying, absolute clarity.

The same he had felt when facing Morgan of Valor in his previous life. The same clarity that gave him the second step of shadow dance.

He could feel every single aspect of the beast's existence. It's breathe, it's growl, even the madness with which it fought.

Laden with his new strength, he combined the flowing style of the Immortal Flame Clan with Saint's grounded brutality.

And this time—he executed it perfectly.

His movements became a seamless dance of styles, molded into one singular harmony.

And sunless danced like he was in the Colosseum again.

The spell announced something, but sunny didn't care to listen.

He only wanted blood, and that beast...

It never stood a chance.

He and Serpent overwhelmed it together.

And soon—

[You have killed a fallen monster:Child of Zoroark the liar]

[You have...]

---

Sunny sat on the desolate ground, Defiance resting in his lap, his hand on its pommel. His gaze was hollow.

He barely noticed Jet approaching.

"So, how did it go?" she asked casually.

There was a gaping hole in her torso, but she seemed unaffected.

Sunny had seen her come home from work with a few wounds like that already, so it made sense for his current self to not react to it.

Not when jet herself didn't worry about it.

'Still, she has never recieved a wound that harrowing before...in this life.'

Sunny exhaled slowly. "Why don't you tell me first?"

He was conflicted in his mind.

'I killed an innocent man… But if I didn't, I would have died… Was that the correct decision? Or did I just become something closer to the Mad Prince?'

That thought made him shiver.

Jet, unaware of his turmoil, continued speaking.

"Well, I got an Ascended glaive from that Tyrant."

She tried to sound cheerful, but the weight of battle had left her somber.

She wasn't the same as her past life—where killing had become her second nature. Not that she was weaker. Her flaw wouldn't allow that.

"Hmmm. That's good loot." Sunny forced himself to respond. "I got an Awakened armor from a Terror. An Awakened bow from a demon. And a couple dozen memories—Dormant and Awakened. Didn't check them yet.

Oh, and also—I formed my third core. And completed the second step of my legacy..."

His voice was devoid of enthusiasm. The memory of killing stine reminded of what happened with harper.

Jet frowned, she leaned in, lowering her voice. "Dude, we're still in the battlefield. Don't go around mentioning your core and legacy."

"But Dormant memories? How'd you get those?"

"The Spider Terror had a whole batch of dormant eggs. Like four hundred. It was a feast for me."

Jet's brow furrowed. "So what are you upset about?"

Sunny hesitated.

"I… killed a man, Jet." He exhaled. "He was going to die anyway. The fallen was going to kill him and then it would have killed me. So I killed him before—to form my third core. To survive.

I....I did exactly the opposite of what I'm supposed to do..."

Jet was silent for a moment.

Then, finally, she spoke.

"Don't… tell anyone about this. Not even Dad." Her voice was softer than usual. "You did what you had to do. That man was dead anyway. Don't berate yourself over it, Sunny. We all have to make tough choices in this career."

Whether she believed her own words, she didn't know. But she needed to say them—for his sake.

She then smirked slightly, changing the subject. "So, did you at least get a memory out of the Fallen?"

Sunny's face changed, sighing slightly he spoke "Oh yeah...it's an armour, the third one I've got now...and not a single echo after all that killing.

I honestly don't know if I'm just cursed by fate to not get good loot."

Jet laughed. "Oh—by the way, Dad got the Echo of the Fallen Devil he faced. If that makes you feel better."

Sunny scowled. "How would that make me feel better!? Are you for real?"

Jet chuckled. She had succeeded in her goal—if only for a moment.

---

Sunny found himself sitting in a room with jet. After he killed the fallen werewolf, the fight had basically ended. So soon he found himself waiting for his reward in the room assigned to his dad.

There had been around two thousand human deaths in the conflict.

And sunny fighting to ensure more lives were saved—fulfilled the criteria for defiance to grow.

Even though his absence wouldn't have killed everyone, without him, alot of things could have gone wrong.

The awakened terror would have killed hundreds of Awakened.

Several hundred creatures would have to be killed by other people.

And most importantly Han li wouldn't have a way of attacking the ice elementals while using the lightning veil.

So he would have died.

And that would have snowballed into the death of probably everyone but the masters.

So sunny got the rewards of saving every single Survivor there.

Now defiance had accumulated around 6400 more points, evolving again to become a 4th tier sword and almost reaching the 5th tier.

Sunny looked at his new shadow, due to his condition at the battle, the shadow formed could only be defined as 'loose in the brain, bloodlusted, mad with hunger.'

So the third shadow to join him, was crazy.

'it seems like someone jumped the queue huh.'

Then he checked his runes

Name: Sunless.

True Name: Prince of Death.

Rank: Dormant.

Class: Demon.

Shadow Cores: [3/7].

Shadow Fragments: [24/3000].

He had killed a few more creatures after killing the fallen one. Smiling at the sight of his 3 cores, he looked further.

Shadow: [Soul Serpent].

Shadow Rank: Awakened.

Shadow Class: Demon.

Shadow Description: [When the end came, Shadow was the last of the gods to be destroyed. Many have resented him for creating death, but in the end, death embraced all.]

Sunny now had an Awakened demon serpent to bring to the forgotten shore. While he could not see it's abilities without blood weave, sunny remembered them from his previous life.

'Soul beast, Soul reaver and Serpentine steel should have been obtained. Now I'm all set for the winter solstice.

I can use serpent as any weapon, summon him as a creature and earn essence whenever it kills something, though how would I use that power is something I have to think...the essence earned would simply leak into the world almost instantly afterall.'

He looked at his memories next.

Memories: [Stone Sword] [Indecent Desires] [Silver Bell] [Defiance] [Guardian's Creed] [Puppeteer's Shroud] [Frozen] [Pale Lily] [Memory of Rejection] [Heartbroken] [The Last Word].

Heartbroken was an arrow sunny earned after he killed the overly aggressive ice elemental. It was a memory that consumed essence to deal area of affect ice shrapnel damage.

The last word was a hybrid between armour and garment, its enchantments weren't understood by sunny yet, but before he could think anything about it—

Sunny was woken from his thoughts as Abel entered the room.

"Congratulations you two! You have done an excellent job in this raid."

He turned to look at sunny.

"Although I still don't understand why you are so hellbent on growing stronger sunny."

"Well it's better to have strength and not need it than to not have it when you need it."

"Yeah yeah and remind me again, when did I pay for you to learn philosophy?

Anyhow you've both been great, jet actually got the highest contribution points out of everyone. Look at you! Surpassing your old man already."

Abel's voice was full of pride and joy, though it was laced with a bit of worry for his children's safety.

"But sunny, you are the one who exceeded expectations the most today, after the 7 masters, your contribution was the highest. So you will get the 8th highest amount of contribution points. Master Han li has also sent some of his points to you, in recognition for saving his daughter. Any plans on what you will do with them?"

"Well I got a bow today so I'll go get a quiver of arrows memory, and also I should get something for underwater movement."

"Ahh...still thinking about the dream realm huh. Well that's good too."

"You don't seem happy dad?"

Sunny had no idea why his dad seemed a little disappointed.

"Well I just, sigh, I just want my children to be more interested in living life yknow, not chasing after more power."

It was one of those few things sunny didn't have a clear understanding of, family.

Or what it meant to live happily without thinking of future tribulations.

But at this stage sunny could not delude himself with mundane entertainment, his father wasn't aware of the upcoming doom.

But he was.

There was also the butterfly effects caused by his regression.

Sunny was aware that the number of awakened had swelled from two hundred and fifty thousands to three hundred and eighty thousands.

The number of masters had nearly doubled too, and yet the saints remained the same.

'It will all change once the domain war begins though, the new saints will be at least two hundred then.'

Sunny needed to gain fame and respect from the Awakened world if he wanted to stand as an opposing force against the sovereigns.

If he wanted to be the one deciding humanity's future and not simply follow nephis blindly.

Abel asked with curiosity.

"So are you going back to your day job at the observation building?"

Sunny thought for a moment. " I'd love to do that, but wouldn't it be easier if I just left my soul serpent there? It's an Awakened demon now, definitely much better for this line of work than me, atleast for now."

"Can an echo really be trusted with such complex work though? What if it lashes on a human who didn't fail the nightmare?"

"My serpent isn't a normal echo. It's alive dad, it's part of my aspect."

"Hmm I'll have to discuss that." Abel replied. "but you will be responsible for whatever it does."

"Thank you so much!" Sunny gleamed with happiness.

"So are you joining the academy next?"

"Yes well, nephis and Cassie must have woken up by now right? So I suppose I should join them."

"Oh Cassie woke up a day before the raid, we didn't tell you because you'd freak out and mess up in the raid.

The situation was anything but joyful though, her flaw was terrible...she lost her sight. So her parents were reluctant on letting her go, but she joined the academy this morning. Nephis on the other hand hasn't woken up yet.

"Oh my God." Sunny tried to pretend being shocked, but deep down it actually did hurt him.

"That's a lot to take in, that flaw is...terrible."

sunny already knew ofcourse, what her flaw would be, but he hoped, just a little bit, that somehow, somehow his actions on improving her battle skills would give her a different flaw.

Ofcourse such minor change would never change the flaw of a person. But it still broke him a little to know that she will never be the same again.

Nephis on the other hand...

She could end up completely different...

She was strong afterall, if she wanted to take a different path, even without knowing her first one, she could end up differently.

Especially with sunny's presence causing a butterfly effect, her fate was no longer the same...it was no longer to be the centre of change already.

So she could indeed end up with a different fate...

Afterall,

If that was her will, who dared to stop her?