Shadow Slave

It was Aiko, who wanted to know where the large hole in the floor of the dining hall had come from.

Sparing his bewildered assistant a neutral gaze, Sunny turned back to the shelves and gave her a non-committal shrug.

«Oh, you know. I just happened to find the Gates of Death, by accident, and decided to take a quick look at what was on the other side. It was quite pretty, actually… sadly, my soul kept disintegrating, and someone shot an arrow through my heart. So, I took offense, and left.»

He sighed.

«But I sort of forgot to close the door after returning. As you can see… we lost a bit of flooring as a result. And an entire display case! The fancy one with silver inlays and tempered glass…»

Aiko stared at him for a while, then lowered her head tiredly.

«Uh-huh. I see.»

Her gaze naturally settled on the two black arrows lying on a table nearby. She studied them for a moment, then shivered.

«W-what\'s that?»

Sunny glanced her way absentmindedly.

«Oh, those? Those are arrows from Death\'s Realm. By the way, can you go clean the one on the left? I got it wet… you know, with my heart blood.»

Then, he scratched the back of his head and added in a doubtful tone:

«Actually, scratch that. Don\'t clean it… in fact, don’t touch it at all. It\'s imbued with a little bit of death\'s essence, so who knows what will happen if you do?»

Sunny was a Saint, but Aiko was merely an Awakened. He still remembered always being killed by a mere glimpse of Nether\'s killing intent, frozen in the reflections of the Great River. So, it was better to keep these arrows away from her… just in case.

The petite girl gave the black arrows a tense look and took a hurried step away.

«H-ha! You and your jokes, boss. Ha-ha!»

Nevertheless, she then took another step back and even floated up a little.

Glancing at Sunny, Aiko hesitated for a moment, then hastily left the warehouse.

He nodded.

«Probably a good decision…»

With that, Sunny returned to his thoughts.

Weaving. There were a lot of Memories that he wanted to create.

His end goal was the sword he had promised Nephis… a blade to slay the gods. Both figuratively and literally. That sword was meant to accompany her into the battle against the Sovereigns, but Sunny was looking further than that. He was looking to what would happen after the Sovereigns were gone — to the time she would be Sacred, and then Divine.

Aside from the sword, Sunny also wanted to craft a few Memories for himself. He wanted to create several soulbound charms, in particular, so that the [Underworld Armament] trait of the Onyx Armor would be finally put to use again. He had some ideas, but wasn\'t certain what these charms would be just yet. He also did not know how many of them he wanted to create…

One would be enough, but seven would be better. That way, each of his incarnations would be able to use a unique soulbound charms, and all of them would be able to use the charms simultaneously.

«Do I even have enough imagination to invent seven suitable charms?»

He was still determined to only use Memories for convenience or to better express his own power, not borrow power from the Memories themselves.

In any case, it was too early to think about crafting the charms. He had not even discovered a way to bind Memories to souls yet, anyway — so, planning to forge them was a bit premature.

Then, there was Saint. Unlike his other Shadows, she could use Memories too. Not any type of Memory, though — only weapons and charms. The graceful stone knight had the ability to either manifest weapons from her darkness or augment existing weapons with it. Currently, she was only doing the former, but doing the latter could push her to even greater strength.

And, just like Sunny, her armor could augment the enchantments of a single charm.

Finally, there was Rain. His sister had been suffering a lot since coming to Godgrave. She had endured many harrowing battles, surviving against all odds when surrounded by Nightmare Creatures far more powerful than her… every soldier in this godforsaken place had. She had also killed quite a number of abominations, and since the Nightmare Spell could not reward her, Sunny had to take its place.

These ones were probably the easiest for him to forge due to her low Rank. Handing Rain Memories of higher Ranks was… an option, but not a very good one. Both because her pool of essence would be swiftly drained by their power-hungry enchantments and because she would not be able to wield them very effectively.

Plus, she would learn to rely on the Memories provided by Sunny too much, which would stunt her own growth.

There was also the matter of people questioning where a young Awakened with no backing had received Memories of great power. Not only would that cast suspicion on Rain, but there was a slight danger that someone would decide to try taking them from her.

Her safety was already guaranteed by his presence by her side, so Sunny did not want to overdo it with her equipment.

«I\'ll start with crafting something for Rain.»

That would be a good start, as well as something that would allow him to realize his recent insights.