Sunny exhaled slowly, feeling fatigue's pull with ever-increasing strength.
It would be a miracle if he had slept or even rested for more than six hours in the past week and six days. The dreams of the Lady of Sorrows weren't restful either, not when he had to fight as hard as he did to escape.
His eyes drifted to the distant moon far in the sky, pale and indifferent, and he knew that there would be no rest to be had until it was over.
Only five hours remained.
"Never an easy time, huh?"
Sunny climbed to his feet and stared somberly at the tower before him. He dismissed [Weaver's Mask] while he did so; he had worn it to hide from the Lady, and she knew perfectly well where he was.
Coiled around it were the remains of Erelia. Even in death, the commander's corpse strained as if still trying to defend her goddess. The sight evoked something soft yet bitter in his chest.
He exhaled slowly to get rid of the foreign -or so he wished to think- emotions and took in the surroundings. Despite the damage brought upon the plaza during the battle, the tower was spotless, not even a single crack marring its surface.
Sunny shook his head ruefully. "Nether sure knows how to make durable buildings."
He allowed himself to take one last look around.
He watched the crumbling buildings of the plaza, the remains of towering spires and edifices that had been reduced to rubble and molten stone. Then, he stared further, at the tall walls still covered in a silvery barrier, separating the city from the world.
At last, his gaze landed on the nightmare creatures populating the streets. The corrupted remains of those he would have called friends in another, better life. Now, only husks that could hope for nothing but an end to their pain.
Sunny stared for a second longer and exhaled slowly. There was no time for regrets or pity.
He turned around, ready to march toward the still-standing tower and put an end to the nightmare.
But before taking the first step, his gaze drifted toward the shadows at his feet. Six of them were looking at him with determined expressions, while the last was just as inert as it had been at the very beginning of the trial.
A mere thought made his sight shift. His lips stretched into a sardonic smile that did not reach his eyes.
"So that's how it is," he muttered quietly.
He shook his head one final time and started walking toward the tower, the shadows trailing behind him.
As he walked, images of a past that never was flashed through his mind. For once, he did not fight or reject them. They were not real, but the emotions they carried were.
For a moment, he reconsidered his choice. It was still within reach; he could still give up and go back to that beautiful lie. He considered it and, one more time, rejected the idea.
His heart wept for what it could have been, nonetheless.
"What a harrowing nightmare this is," he muttered as he stopped before the tower.
With Serpent's help, he pushed one of Erelia's massive coils aside. The dead flesh resisted for a heartbeat before giving way and leaving open a path. The massive doors opened on their own, as if welcoming home a prodigal son.
Sunny stepped forward without doubt or fanfare; he had already walked these halls countless times inside the dreams, and he wasn't going to be cowed now.
Just as he stepped over the threshold, a crushing wave of drowsiness fell on him.
He was Ascended Sunless, and he had been tasked with an important mission for the sake of Aleras. He would leave the city behind, walk far past the Weeping Mountains and the Scar of the World, to meet and guide back a Transcendent woman who had graciously accepted to help defend the city.
Sunless walked through endless rain, harrowing nightmares, and disasters alike, whose scale he could barely comprehend. Mountains split beneath black lightning. The earth groaned. Monstrous shapes stirred in drowned valleys and dying forests. He endured them all in silence, driven by duty alone.
It was a long and merciless journey, but in the end, he reached the meeting place. A lonely mountain resembling a spear aimed at the heavens themselves. There, he found her. The Transcendent woman was beautiful beyond words, her mere presence calm and unshaken by the chaos of the world. When she turned to him and smiled, the weight he had carried across half the world seemed to vanish in an instant.
They began the journey back to Aleras together.
The road did not grow kinder. Calamities still rose to bar their path, and abominations still crawled from the dark. Yet where he once had to battle them all alone, now he had someone by his side.
Between battles, they spoke. He told her of Aleras, of its beautiful parks and tall edifices, of the family and friends who were awaiting him there. She listened with quiet interest. She spoke little of herself, yet at times, her laughter rang warm enough to make him forget about the desolation they walked through.
Days passed. Then weeks. He found himself watching her when she faced the horizon, her hair fluttering in the wind. She began to stand closer than necessary when danger loomed. Their silences grew comfortable. Their glances lingered.
By the time the distant spires of Aleras pierced the sky, something unspoken had taken root between them.
Under the light of the moon, they spoke about dreams and desires, about the past and a future neither of them could visualize without the other. Before they knew it, their bodies grew closer, their faces mere millimeters away.
The moment their lips met, the dream shattered.
He opened his eyes and climbed back to his feet.
"Good try," he muttered, a rueful smile on his face.
Sunny walked beneath the looming statues of Nether and Storm, their stone gazes heavy with judgment. He did not bow. He did not linger. If they wanted to stop him, they should show up in the flesh.
In no time, he arrived at the stairs, the winding steps unfolding before him, a silent pressure already lingering in the air despite his not having taken a single step up yet.
He drew a deep breath and did just so, his foot landing on the first step with confidence. Another wave of drowsiness hit him as he did.
He was Sacred Sunless. He had ruled the city of Aleras for untold years, and he would rule it for untold more.
Time no longer touched him as it did others. Lives rose and withered beneath his gaze like passing seasons, while he remained, his eyes only ever growing colder and more distant.
One day, an Awakened woman came to his domain bearing grim news: one of his citadels had fallen.
His retaliation was swift and merciless. The nightmare creatures were annihilated before nightfall, and Auro, the vile architect of the attack, met a gruesome end. Justice was served, and yet he felt nothing. His heart had long since stopped feeling anything but dull apathy.
As recompense, he offered the Awakened woman a wish.
"I want to become strong," she had said, her voice trembling with restrained grief. "So that this can never happen again."
Just as promised, he granted it. Sunless guided her personally along the path of Ascension. He trained her through long days and longer nights, corrected her mistakes, steadied her when memories threatened to break her. When nightmares came, he banished them. When doubt crept in, he silenced it.
It was his duty, he told himself.
Yet somewhere between long sparring sessions and quiet conversations beneath dim lantern light, something within him stirred. A warmth he had long ago buried alongside the memory of the betrayal of the woman he loved. A heart he had believed dead began, ever so faintly, to beat once more.
On a moonless night, atop the highest tower of Aleras, she stepped close enough that he could feel her warmth against the chill that clung to him.
"I love you," she confessed.
For a single fragile instant, the distance he kept from the world faltered. He almost reached for her.
The dream shattered before he could.
Sunny climbed back to his feet and resumed the climb.
As he did, the runes embedded in the stone began glowing faintly. Rumors said that they could predict the past and the future, that they could tell you about things you didn't even know about yourself.
The rune for loss came to life, glowing bright enough to blind him.
Step by step, as he kept advancing, more and more runes lit up. On the steps. On the walls. Even on the ceiling.
Family, death, adversity, shadows...
Another wave of drowsiness hit him.
He was Supreme Sunless, and he was tired. The war had been long and harrowing, a nightmare of endless battle and despair from which his empire had barely come out victorious.
Through bloodstained battlefields and dancing halls where words cut like knives, he had done his duty. He had fought, he had bled, he had brought honor to his name and his divine father.
When the time to broker peace arrived, a decision was made for him. He would marry the heir of the rival empire, a way to bring the two lands together, his father insisted. As every other time, he fulfilled his duty.
Theirs was a relationship shaped by distance and distrust, filled with tense conversations and cold nights sharing a bed without daring to even approach each other. And yet, with time and patience, something grew between them. Something that he could even call...
The dream shattered.
"Stop doing that," he hissed to the air, sure that she could hear him.
He took another step; the pressure increased, an impossible weight landing on his shoulders.
For but a moment, he faltered, his foot frozen in the air. Then his gaze drifted upward, to the woman he knew was awaiting him in the throne room and was the key to escaping this nightmare. His foot came down on the next step, and he kept ascending.
More runes lit up. Darkness, sea, danger, friendship, tree.
He was Sunless, a simple, dormant human who owned a small coffee shop in NQSC.
His was a quiet, content life, one that he enjoyed wholeheartedly. From long mornings serving his clients with a smile and idle chatter to evenings spent with friends or on relaxing walks.
One fateful day, he met a beautiful dark-haired woman and...
The dream shattered.
"Why do you keep doing this?" he asked the air.
He took another step. The runes for Fate and blood lit up.
The pressure increased; pain bloomed across his body as he kept climbing. Love, voyage.
"I was happy in those dreams." A smile found its way to his lips despite the admission of weakness. "I hated them all the same."
He was Marine Vice Admiral Sunless, and he had been tasked with apprehending the villainous pirate captain Changing Star.
Accompanying him, there was his helmswoman...
The dream shattered.
Darkness, city, loneliness.
The pressure grew worse, his every step shaky now.
"They were everything I ever wanted."
Reunion, journey, change.
"Everything I ever wished for."
War, spire, fate.
He was Awakened Sunless, a scout in the Aleran army...
The dream shattered.
"And yet, I still want more." He stopped for a second to take a deep breath, his lungs burning.
Duel, pain, betrayal, loss, fate.
"I want to live. Under my own terms. Under my own will." He laughed hoarsely, the pain of the climb only ever increasing. "A slave is still a slave, no matter how kind the master is."
Despair, rain, fate, despair...
The pressure on his shoulders increased tenfold, pinning him into place. It only stopped him for a second before he resumed the climb, still laughing hoarsely.
Temple, despair, fate, journey, nightmare, last will.
He was Sunless...
The dream shattered.
Nightmare, dream, fate, love.
He doubled over, incapable of standing straight anymore under the relentless pressure assaulting him. It was far worse than it had ever been within the dream. And still, on all fours, he climbed.
The pressure increased once more. His arms bulged under the strain, his legs screamed in effort, blood started pouring down his nose.
He kept climbing.
Dream, love, dream, love, determination, dream...
"Haven't you realized yet?" he asked amidst pained breaths that felt like ice shards stabbing his lungs. "I won't give up."
Love, solace, shadow, war, awakening...
"I will never stop. I will keep fighting," he whispered, too strained to do any more. "Until my body breaks... until my will shatters... until I draw my last breath... I will not surrender." He laughed hoarsely once more. "And even then, I will rise once more."
Dream, end.
He was...
The dream shattered.
His head bowed, unable to keep it aloft anymore under the tyrannical pressure.
He kept climbing.
He...
The dream shattered.
The dream shattered.
The dr...
...
His shaky hand rose to grip the next step. It felt like he was lifting a mountain.
Instead of the next step, he found only flat ground.
For a single breathless moment, he thought that he had died, that his body had broken under the pressure. Then, when the pain wracking his body made itself known once more, he laughed.
He had done it. He had reached the final floor.
The pressure left as if it had never existed to begin with, the liberation from the heavy burden so abrupt it left him lightheaded for a second.
His laughter echoed around the tower.
-------------------------------------------
The doors to the throne room stood before him, firmly closed.
Serpent left his tattoo and, empowered by his shadows, attempted to open them with no success. When he attacked with the [Midnight Shard], not even a scratch was left on their surface.
He exhaled slowly, stepping forward to put a hand over the sealed entry.
A laugh almost escaped him; he had overcome a harrowing challenge to reach so far, only to fail at the finish line because the doors were closed. It was so sad it almost became hilarious.
He took one more look at the doors and decided that there was no way for him to open them. He had one more arrow like the last one he had used on Erelia, reserved for the Lady. He knew how ridiculous the idea was now.
The one he had made for Erelia couldn't kill her despite striking straight at her greatest weakness. If this one made even a scratch on the Lady, he would call it a miracle.
Sadly, he didn't think it would have any more luck against doors crafted by the Demon of Choice. It would have less, most likely. Even the divine had to put effort into damaging the tower, after all. The memory he had gotten from Erelia wouldn't be of use here, either.
"Open the doors," he asked softly.
A wave of drowsiness crashed over him, but he shattered the dream before it could even start.
"I won't leave or stop."
There was a long moment of silence, and then, right as he was about to ask once more, the doors groaned, the sound of moving gears following right after. They swung inward slowly, light spilling out of the room and revealing the hall resting behind the threshold.
The sight brought a pang of nostalgia to his chest. It was just as it had been under the reign of the twins. Even the throne had been replicated down to the smallest detail, making a perfect mirror of the one they used to share.
However, there was one glaring difference. Sitting on a throne meant for two, there was a single woman.
She was beautiful beyond words, with pale skin that glowed under the light of the lamps, her hair a dark river that flowed down to her shoulders. And while her eyes were closed, he was sure that they were mesmerizing.
However, there was something wrong with her. Marring her skin were faint cracks, as if she were made of crystal, with purple light shining beneath. Her veins were visible, dark in color and pulsing slightly, flowing through her mesmerizing face, down to her neck, and disappearing under her dark dress. Resting on the armrests of the throne, one arm was perfectly normal, while the other was wrong. It was too long, darkening past the elbow until becoming pitch black as it reached her hand, which ended in vicious-looking claws. Growing out of her legs was a mass of silver tendrils, writhing violently.
And yet, somehow, he still found her beautiful.
Just as he took in her form, a quiet, chilling realization settled in. They were fated to meet. All the way back in that damn cave, he had seen a black chain pointing north. He was sure that if he were to search that cave on a map, straight north from it, he would find this very tower.
That chain had made promises of respite, of peace, of love and care, of an end to all woes.
To think it had been telling the truth all along... He could almost hear Fate laughing at him.
Sunny shook his head and took a step forward, ignoring it; he could deal with it later.
Her eyes snapped open right as he stepped inside the room. He was half-right. Her left eye was dark, just like in the dream, but the right had become a sinister purple.
"Welcome, Sunny," she greeted. Her voice cracked midway, turning into something rougher until she managed to get it back under control.
"Hey," he greeted back, his voice far quieter than he had intended.
"You should have warned me." A faint smile touched her lips. "I would've done something with my hair. Perhaps chosen a more dramatic dress."
He glanced at her tendrils. "Hard to improve on perfection."
She huffed a soft laugh. "My, what a flatterer. Makes me wonder if you have ulterior motives."
He chuckled weakly. "Sorry, I'm in a hurry."
She chuckled too and leaned forward on the throne to take a better look at him. "The real you is cuter."
"You too."
The Lady laughed. Something writhed beneath her skin. "If I didn't know your flaw, I would think you were lying."
"So would I." He stepped forward. "Good thing you do."
She recoiled, pressing herself flat against the backrest of her throne, as if attempting to distance herself from him.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm approaching you," he answered easily.
"Stay back!" she ordered, her voice growing rough once more.
Sunny kept walking forward.
"I cannot ensure your safety if you come closer."
The warning fell on deaf ears.
"Sunny, please, stop."
Black sparks coalesced on the ground right before her. When they dissipated, an elegant chair stood in their place. Sunny sat right before her, close enough that his knees were almost touching the silver tendrils.
"Sunny?"
He reached forward and gently took her corrupted hand, threading his fingers between her claws.
"I'm here."
She stared at him. Confusion flickered first. Then dread. Worry. Hope. Finally, something softer, almost fond. A faint blush colored her cheeks.
"You are crazy," she muttered, yet did not make any effort to pull away.
"I've been called worse." He smiled faintly. "Many of them by you."
Her lips twitched upward for a moment.
"Why are you here, Sunny?" she asked in a trembling voice. When her corrupted eye started pulsing, she hurriedly looked away. "You know very well that you cannot kill me."
His free hand rose, brushing her chin lightly and guiding her gaze back to him. She did not resist.
"To end this nightmare," he answered softly.
She smiled without humor. "You know very well what it will take to do that."
"Not the Spell's," he replied, "but yours."
A laugh escaped her, as brief as it was joyful.
"Oh, Sunny…" Her voice wavered. Her claws trembled in his grasp. Desperation clung to her like a second skin. "Why couldn't you have been born earlier?"
He squeezed her hand, an attempt at a smile plastered on his face. "Sadly, time travel isn't among my many talents."
The Lady smiled at him even as the cracks in her skin deepened.
"I was serious. I'm here to end your nightmare."
"You can't," she said simply. "And even if you could, I won't allow it."
Her gaze drifted past him, toward a massive glass aperture that allowed an unimpeded view of the city below them.
"I can feel it," she whispered. "They are suffering, crying for help, for relief, for someone to save them."
He shook his head in fond exasperation. "Even now, you still want to end all suffering."
She stared back at him, her lips arching into an uneasy smile. "I'm a greedy woman, after all. I will never stop until I get what I want."
"And you will never stop until you get what you want," he echoed, his mind drifting to another woman. One with silver hair.
"Yes." The word was barely heard above their breaths. "No hunger. No fear. No betrayal. No grief. No lonely child crying alone in the dark. No woman forced to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders." Her grip grew tighter, the claws drawing faint red lines on his skin. He did not flinch. "I will do it, Sunny. I promised it, and it's a promise I won't break. I will rip suffering out at the roots of this ugly world, even if I have to rip it apart in the process."
Purple light flared beneath the cracks in her skin, bright enough to sting his eyes. The dark veins pulsed violently.
"And then what?" he asked.
She hesitated. Then gave him a jagged smile. "I don't know."
"You never thought about it?"
She laughed hoarsely, her voice growing rougher by the moment. "I did, back at the beginning," she admitted. "Back when I was still naive and foolish. When I thought that I could actually succeed." She stopped briefly; her eyes grew distant, reliving a memory of a past long gone. "Then that hope was slowly but inevitably ground down by reality. Calamity after calamity, tragedy after tragedy, through endless battles against the insane and the sane alike. All of it capped by a loneliness that was far heavier than any other burden."
"And so, you stopped dreaming," he whispered, his hand squeezing hers gently, "stopped thinking about a future in which you could be anything but the Lady of Sorrows."
"I did," she agreed easily.
"If you want to end suffering..." He stared her straight in the eyes without flinching. "...then what about yours?"
Her grip grew painful. The silver tendrils writhed beneath her and lashed out, striking the ground hard enough to cause the faintest of cracks.
"I'm not suffering," she denied quickly, too quickly.
Sunny studied her face. The cracks kept spreading, the purple glow beneath growing in radiance. And yet, worse than all of them, was the quiet pain that she refused to recognize. The way her brows were permanently scrunched, as if already preparing for the next blow the world would deliver. The way she always stopped short of fully smiling, as if she had forgotten how to do it outside a dream.
"You are lying," he said gently.
"I..."
"You are," he interrupted, his tone softening instead of rising. "Look at you."
"I'm not suffering, Sunny," she repeated.
He squeezed her hand softly, ignoring the way her claws were lengthening, growing sharper.
"Can't you really see? The cage you have built around yourself? The chains you have bound yourself with?" he pleaded.
"I'm..."
"You are not fine," he hissed, leaning forward, close enough that they could feel each other's breath. "In the dreams, you could have sent us anywhere. To lands where the sun never sets, in which everyone is happy, with a full stomach and no fear for what tomorrow might bring. You could craft a perfect world where nothing bad ever happens."
He closed the distance even more when she tried to answer. Now, mere millimeters separated them. Whatever she was trying to say died in her throat, the faint blush on her face growing darker instead.
"Instead, you keep bringing us to this accursed city. You keep watching over it even in your dreams, keep trying to defend it, keep trying to carry all its burdens on your back. Can't you really see? You are not its ruler..."
He stared at her sadly.
"...You are its slave."
She tried to laugh, but failed; tried to smile, but failed; tried to speak and failed too.
"Please, stop. Just stop. It's time to let go," he pleaded. "You cannot help it anymore; no one can. You said it yourself, this world is nothing but a facsimile, a play orchestrated by the Spell." His voice grew softer. "So please... stop. Let go. Allow yourself to breathe, to stop thinking about others, to just be."
She closed her eyes. When she opened them, grief shone brightly. "You know I can't."
He stared at her for a long time, and then he asked a single, quiet question.
"What is your name?"
The Lady did not answer for a moment. Then she smiled sadly and shook her head. "I don't know."
"You don't know," he echoed.
"I don't," she repeated.
"You forgot it."
"I did," she agreed quietly. "I have been the Lady of Sorrows for so long that I can't remember who I really was before."
She tried to laugh, but what came out was a sob instead.
"What point is there in remembering? The woman to whom it belonged was of use to no one, while the Lady is a goddess, someone upon whom everyone can place their hopes and dreams."
The other arm started to grow darker too, her nails slowly growing into claws.
"I cannot create a world without suffering," Sunny started gently. "I cannot become divine nor kill the gods. What I can do is end your loneliness and pain. Here and now."
She smiled sadly. "And how do you intend to do that?"
He extended his free hand for her to see, and on it the [Moonlight Shard] appeared. "By offering you the mercy of shadows. I can grant you peace, an end to your nightmare, a place of rest in which you will never be alone again."
Something shone behind her eyes, a quiet calculation, a flicker of vulnerability, fear, hope, and finally quiet resignation.
For a second that felt eternal, she stared at him silently and then asked a single, quiet question.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes," he answered without pause.
For the first time in the conversation, she leaned forward and closed the distance between them, sealing their lips in a gentle, tender kiss that stole his breath away.
It was... it was his first kiss. The first in the real world, at least.
There were no sparks, no fireworks, or any of the other dramatic things that tended to happen in the webtoons he used to read. It was all the more perfect for it. This was just a quiet proclamation of love, a moment meant to be shared between them and them alone. A memory that he would treasure for as long as he lived.
After a few seconds that felt too short and too long at the same time, she pulled back.
Both of her eyes burned purple.
She smiled, just like she did inside the dreams. It was filled with joy, with confidence, and a quiet certainty that she would succeed in whatever she intended to do. It stole his breath away once again.
"Do it," she said simply.
He hesitated for a moment, searching her face for any sign of second thoughts, that she didn't want this, maybe even wishing that she would think of an alternative, a miracle that would allow both of them to leave this harrowing nightmare behind. He found none.
Sunny steeled himself and, not letting her hand go even for a moment, pushed forward with the other, wet eyes and a shaky grip guiding the stiletto. It pierced through her eye and into her brain, ending her suffering once and for all. It was only possible because she had willed it so.
Her grip tightened, then loosened. The tendrils fell still. The cracks froze in place. The purple glow faded and died completely.
[You have slain a Sacred Shadow, Eirene]
[Your shadow grows stronger]
For a moment, the Spell was silent.
[...You have acquired a shadow]
Her body sagged against him.
The purple light in her eyes flickered out, leaving them dull and human. The black veins receded beneath the skin. The darkness withdrew from her arm until only pale fingers remained tangled with his.
In the ensuing silence, he could hear his heart beating slower, as if echoing his grief.
Sunny lowered her carefully to the floor. Without the glow, without the strain, she looked younger. Peaceful.
The Lady of Sorrows was gone.
Eirene remained.
A tear slipped free before he could stop it. He brushed it from her cheek with his thumb.
"I'm here," he whispered. "You are not alone. You will never be, as long as I live."
He stared at her corpse for a long time before the Spell spoke again.
[Your nightmare is o-]
The interruption did not surprise him. He had been expecting it, after all.
Sunny's gaze drifted to his seventh, unexplainable shadow, which he stared at with cold, resentful eyes.
"Did you have fun?"
For a moment, it remained still.
Then a thin white line split its face, curving into a grin of pearly teeth. Two eyes opened, blacker than the shadows that formed them.
"I did…"
The grin widened.
"…son."