A giant spider with metal skin fell on top of a roof of a building of the Dark City, pursuing its small prey, the blade-like limbs reaching to kill and capture the new food.
Said prey was Caster, scion of the Han Li, who dodged the spider's attack by rolling beneath its surprisingly articulate limbs, being capable of moving in a complete circle to attack in different angles.
'Damnation! What's taking so long?!'
As the spider was about to hit him with one of the posterior limbs, Caster activated his aspect.
The creature has been following him for a while. The main cohort of the outer settlement had been hunting the spider for a while, it was strong, and the battle had already got the attention of some other nightmare creatures, so as to not overwhelm the cohort, it was decided that Caster would distract the Fallen abomination while the rest dealt with the other ones.
Problem was, Caster did not consent to being the bait, the role was forced upon him by Nephis.
'It's obvious to choose me, shouldn't be surprised.'
Caster sighed as he landed on the other side of the roof.
His aspect let him basically teleport after all, he could engage then disengage instantly and suffer minimal damage, even run away if he needed to. But he couldn't run away anymore, doing that would draw even more nightmare creatures to himself and make the others take even more time to help him.
He strengthened his grip on his spear and got in a running position.
The spider turned to him and started to thrust the two foward blade limbs.
As soon as it did, Caster activated his aspect and turned into a blur, one step he took was done in milliseconds, the spider looked like it was in slow motion, its attack coming down in seemingly hours in the scion's perspective.
He reached the face of the spider in the next moment, thrusting his spear into one of the creature's many eyes. Even if it was of the Fallen Rank, it still had weaknesses, like the soft tissue of the eyes.
The spider screamed, it's horrible, twisted grow hurting Caster's ears. However, the attack didn't kill it, even with his Awakened spear striking the weakness.
The sane choice would be to leave immediately, he had already done some damage, and the creature was two ranks above him.
But Sunny and Nephis were a bad influence. The sane choice wasn't always the logical, or the right one.
The spider kept moving repeatedly, trying to get rid of the pest in his eyes. The roof started to crack and rumble, the weight of the spider challenging the structure of the building.
Caster didn't budge, using all his strength to not move, gripping his spear and the carapace of the spider until his fingers got white.
'Come on abomination… hit me!'
And it did as the scion wanted, raising the blade limbs and aiming at Caster.
'Finally!'
The blades came down, the articulate limbs capable of coming down to itself, they came in such speed that Caster barely reacted.
Time slowed down.
'Come on…'
The blades pierced his armor.
'Now!'
He was too slow, his back screamed in pain.
'Damn it!"
He activated his aspect, ignoring the pain, he let go of the spear and moved to get his body out of the blades, as soon as he did, he jumped, rolling on the ground.
Disengaging his aspect, he looked back at the spider. The blades came down on itself, an even more horrific scream came out, it moved in desperation and pain, hitting itself on the roof beneath it, cracking it even more.
It tried to pull its own blades out, but it couldn't. It turned to Caster, hatred burning in it's bestial eyes, his spear still stuck on one of them.
The scion cursed, it didn't kill the monster, at least he took away two of its weapons, but as consequence, the beast was furious.
To make his situation worse, his back was mangled, taking the blades of him did more damage than he had hoped, and now he had even more disadvantages against the spider.
He stretched out his hand, summoning his reserve spear in white sparks, cursing himself for the situation.
Until an armor-clad figure landed on the roof, its weight threatened the stability of the structure even more, but it seemed indifferent to the situation.
The armor was dark, similar, yet different from his companion, Sunless armor, like they were made by the same blacksmith. A female physique showed it wasn't Sunless. The shield and sword made from seemingly stone, shadows enveloped it, no, it was made of shadows, two red eyes showed indifference.
Caster sighed, in both relief and annoyance.
"How does Sunny get so many Echoes?"
The being known as Saint raised her sword at the Fallen spider, who seemingly ignored her and focused on the Sleeper who made it hurt itself.
It advanced, charging towards Caster at incredible speed.
But it was thwarted by Saint, who got in the way and raised the round shield to impede the spider's advance.
A clash occurred, Saint struggled to hold the enormous strength of the Fallen nightmare creature, grounding her feet and not backing down. The spider began her attempts to hit the new opponent, the rage and fury targeting the Knight.
Seeing this, Caster's mind begin to race, he observed the the fight occurring and got another idea, he activated his aspect once more, he ran and aimed at the creature's articulations, trying to get rid of its limbs.
Saint continued her attack, striking the carapace with her sword and aiming on the blades stuck on the creature's upper body.
Caster first strike didn't do much, the second, annoyed the spider… But after the third, fourth, fifth…
The Fallen spider had the attention split in two.
As it stuck Saint with its body, it tried to hit Caster with the sharp limbs. However the scion was too fast, and the Knight too strong, if it continued, the spider would lose. Its metal carapace was starting to fail.
That proved true once Caster sliced another one of the limbs.
The spider's rage reached the boiling point, using all its strength, it ripped the forward limbs that were stuck in its own body out. Dark blood rained as it ignored the pain and attacked Saint with all its might.
"No!"
Caster knew exactly what would happen.
The spider toppled the Knight, throwing it to the edge of the roof. She crashed in the rampart and struggled to get up, the spider moving upon her.
Caster needed to stop it, that Echo was strong, and they couldn't lose it…
But Caster couldn't move, he dropped to the ground, pain and blood loss catching up to him, the wound on his back got worse than it should have after all the use of his aspect.
'Even with the charm… Damn flaw!'
The spider was about to strike. Saint was already getting up to meet it once again, indifferent to anything.
A shadow wolf appeared from the ground.
"Huh?"
It was sudden, Sunny's other Echo passed through the roof to reach the fight, getting on top of the abomination and biting its fangs deep on the carapace, destroying it instantly. Another scream was heard.
A serpent with black scales appeared right beside Caster. The last of Sunny's Echos.
It transformed into a male version of the other Echo, a Knight of fearsome armor.
And it grabbed Caster… Like he was a princess.
"Wha-?"
He didn't have time to be confused, the knight jumped from the building.
He was in mid air for some seconds, his mind still processing what was happening only to one sentence being repeated again and again.
'Damn it Sunny!!'
Landing with a large boom, he was put on the ground dazed, with a blurred vision, he could barely discern where he was.
Soon he felt an armored hand touch him, he felt warmth and all his pain washed away, his daze and wound were healed, and he saw Nephis getting up from a crouched position.
Effie was right beside her, both looking at the building Caster was on. He sat up and joined them.
"Thank you… What are you waiting for?"
Nephis responded non-chalantly.
"For the building to fall."
Caster snapped his head towards Changing Star. Only for the structure in front of them to collapse on itself.
Dust and debris engulfed the area, the three Sleepers were protected by the Serpent, that transformed into a Carapace Centurion.
Effie bursed in laughter.
"HAHA! Dumfus is crazy!"
Caster couldn't help but nod, even though he had no idea where the nickname came from.
After the dust cleared, they could see a giant figure liberating itself from all the debris on top of it.
The spider survived.
It was mangled, ruined, wounded, but still alive.
Caster grunted in annoyance. But Effie was amused, if anything.
"Ohhhh I can see why he told us to stay back!"
The scion's eye twitched.
'He's not going to do it again will he?'
Nephis stared inidifference, her and the Stone Saint get along pretty well.
It screamed towards them, rage consuming it.
Only for a blade to pierce its head.
Caster rolled his eyes.
'Of course he did!'
[You have slain a Fallen Beast, Metal Spider.]
Sunny stood on top of it, he had dismissed Saint and Wraith before the building collapsed. So they were fine on his Soul Sea.
[Your Shadow grows stronger…]
'I wonder if it's getting old, me going in for the final blow, am I just not creative enough?'
He pretended to think.
"No matter, now I am a-"
He grasped his chest, pain started to grow inside him, not showing any sign of stopping.
[... Your Shadow is overflowing with power.]
Sunny cursed, he forgot how much it hurt.
[Your Shadow is taking shape.]
He knelled, breathing heavily, his consciousness threatening to go away.
'No! I can't! Not right now!'
His companions were going to him, concerned expressions on their faces.
"Hey! Dumfus! What's wrong?!"
"Sunless!"
When they reached him, Nephis touched his shoulder and started to heal him. Warmth invaded him, but the pain of her flaw was surely burning her from the inside…
Not only that, Sunny's own flaw destroyed his mind because of Effie's stupid question.
'Damn it… End already!'
[Your Shadow is complete.]
"I was feeling pain, yes, it's over now!"
Nephis took away her hand, in her face a mask of surprise, but it soon changed to… Compreenshion?
Effie and Caster meanwhile, were confused, having a lot of questions, however, Nephis stopped all of them with a single movement of her hand.
"I know you have questions, but Sunny is fine, let's return."
The scion and huntress looked at each other, but eventually nodded.
Sunless looked at Nephis surprised. She looked back with a small smile.
"We are more similar than I thought."
—
Seishan smiled as she saw Sunny's runes.
He became a Demon, now they were closer than ever to finishing Gunlaug.
Hearing a knock on the door, she dismissed her runes and straightened her posture.
"Come in."
A handmaiden entered, in a way, she was Nix when Nix wasn't in the Castle, a situation becoming more and more frequent.
'I guess she found where she belongs…'
She smiled, happy for her friend.
Leaving the thought aside, she looked at the handmaiden, who bowed respectfully.
"Lady Seishan, we've received information from the Shadow Watchers, Gamma is growing concerned with the outer settlement."
The Princess pondered, the way things were going, it wouldn't be long until Gunlaug began moving, it was one of the few cases where being effective worked against them.
"Alright, keep me informed."
The handmainden bowed, and left the room.
Seishan looked outside.
'They can't retrieve that memory, not yet, the outer settlement still needs more time to grow.
At the same time, even if Gunlaug's arrogance makes him personally ignore everything, Tessai and Gamma won't. Tessai wants absolute control of the status quo, and Gamma sees this resistance as unnecessary death.'
She caressed the old glass of the window. The sun was setting on the horizon.
'Every week someone joins Changing Star, either a guard, an artisan, or a hunter. Gunlaug is slowly losing power… At the same time, he lost nothing at all. There's still so many that follow him out of fear, like he's some sort of God…'
She sighed.
"A Transcendent Echo…"
'As long as he has that, they will think of him as an Immortal…'
As night came… A thought passed through her mind.
'But what if… They saw him as an incompetent immortal?'
Seishan widened her eyes in understanding.
'What if… Something that's never supposed to happen, happened? All while his wards are away dealing with… Kind people? And they fail at even that?'
She smiled in a maleficent way, then proceeded to talk in a mocking tone.
"What if, you are forced to get out of your seat, oh powerful Lord~"
—
Author here, I wanted to talk about Sunny's Shadows, like Saint, Serpent, etc.
In the original work, he has a limit to how many Shadows he can carry, the limit is determined by the number of Soul Cores he has. It was intentional that in this fanfic, that he wouldn't have that limitation because originally, I thought it was only implied and I wanted to give him more Shadows to control, but after some people pointed it out and I read again, it is stated. I have a bad memory for some things… Sorry.
Things will remain as they are, mainly because, as I said, I want Sunny to have more Shadows. In universe, the reason is because of [Shadow Purpose], his 'new' aspect.
You are free to correct me of any present, or future mistakes. I'll answer any questions regarding the changes I made.