Shadow Slave

Sunny was sprawled in the mud, trying to catch his breath. The subtle voice of the Spell echoed in his ears.

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

Immediately, he felt a slight change. His body grew a little bit stronger, his vision a little sharper, his skin a little smoother. The change was minimal, but apparent.

'What was that?'

He had a guess, and it was easy to confirm. Sunny summoned the runes.

[Shadow Fragments: 14/1000].

Previously, he only had twelve of the mysterious shadow fragments, with no knowledge on how to acquire more. Now it seemed that the process was automatic: he only had to kill an enemy to absorb a part of their shadow and enhance his own core.

More than that, the number of fragments he was able to receive wasn't directly correlated to the number of slain enemies. After a bit of thinking, Sunny came to a preliminary conclusion: dormant soul cores gave him one fragment, while awakened ones gave two. However, only enemies he defeated directly — more or less — counted.

Killing the Mountain King's Larva, a dormant beast, had given him one shadow fragment. Finishing off the veteran slaver, a dormant human — another. Mountain King itself was an awakened tyrant, which meant that it had five awakened cores. With each giving Sunny two shadow fragments, he ended up with a total of twelve. And now, after killing the Carapace Scavenger, he had fourteen.

Interestingly, he didn't receive any fragments from the deaths of Shifty, Scholar and Hero, even though they perished as a result of his machinations. It seems he had to finish an enemy off with his own two hands to absorb a part of their shadow.

Well, or at least by summoning an ancient dead god.

The process was quite similar to how normal Awakened increased their power, with the only difference being that the steps of extracting and consuming the corresponding material, soul shards, were skipped in favor of instant absorption. That meant that shadow fragments could not be stored, and subsequently could not be bought or traded.

He won't have an opportunity to receive them as a reward for completing missions, providing services or selling various spoils. If Sunny wanted to grow stronger, his only option was to fight and kill.

life for me, I

Awakened never left the confines of human Citadels and never faced Nightmare Creatures, choosing instead to perform various jobs in the Dream Realm just as they would in the

which were simultaneously the fuel of one's progression and the universal currency inside the Citadels. Sunny was never set on pursuing such a life,

was a bright side, too. Without the need to use soul shards to strengthen his core, he would be able to spend everything he earns freely and without concern. After

make him twice as efficient in terms of earning and

the matter of

not only increase Sunny's power, but also enhance the shadow. So, if he were to use it to further empower himself, the actual effect would be stacked, producing a twofold enhancement.

Not bad

Provided he survives and gets the opportunity to even have a future,

up, Sunny moved his eyes and found the cluster of runes describing

Memory: [Azure Blade].

Memory Rank: Awakened.

Memory Type: Weapon.

forgotten shore, only steel

'Huh. Interesting.'

informative,

appeared in his hand. It was about a meter long, including the handle. The blade was straight and single-edged, ending in an angular tip.

gather was that the

the sword was

itself around the Azure Blade. Immediately, the steel became bluish-black, with a scattering of white sparks. It looked like

waved the sword a couple of times, getting accustomed to its weight. The sharp edge whistled as

finally look like a

the corpse of the carapace scavenger and grimaced. Eh, this part was not

and cut away a few strips of tender, pink meat. He also did not forget to extract the radiant crystal from the beast's chest — the soul

tried to absorb the shard, remembering how it