Sunless rolled backward, slipping into his own shadow like it was a pool of oil. A split-second later, a clawed paw—easily the size of his head—ripped through the ground where he'd just been. Stone cracked and dust sprayed as the beast missed him by a breath.
He reappeared on the other side of the training grounds, shadows slithering off his skin like steam.
He didn't look scared. Just tired.
The Awakened in front of him wasn't some reckless amateur. Yuto was one of the rare few to gain a **transformation Aspect** during his First Nightmare—and the result was monstrous.
What had once been a bulky sixteen-year-old boy with a slack-jawed, good-natured grin had become something out of a mythologer's fever dream. Wings like stretched leather jutted from his back. His skin had thickened into the hide of a bear. Catlike claws extended from oversized fingers. He had the hooves and horns of a goat, the elongated snout of a wolf, and a serpent for a tail that writhed and flicked with a mind of its own.
A chimeric horror, towering nearly three meters tall.
But despite the grotesque power of his new form—despite the agility, enhanced senses, and raw muscle that had allowed him to guide two other Sleepers to safety during his nightmare—he still hadn't figured out how to survive Sunless.
Twin yatagans slid free from Sunless's belt with a whisper. [The Honor-bound]. Steel gleamed under flickering lights. Across the arena, the beast-boy roared and charged, hooves thundering against the virtual stone.
Sunless didn't flinch.
Instead, he stepped sideways, just enough, and moved with the effortless flow of Shadow Dance—fluid, reactive, impossible to pin down. As the creature rushed past, Sunless pivoted and swung low.
The blade sliced through the beast's leg like it was paper.
With a blink, the simulation collapsed. Reality reasserted itself in a flicker of blue light. The roar cut off mid-growl.
Sunless sighed.
*That's the second time he's died like this.*
He rubbed at his jaw, not from pain, but out of vague irritation. Yuto was as devoted a student as any instructor could ask for. Showed up early. Ran every drill. Ate every monotonous lecture like it was gold. But in the whole week Sunless had spent teaching at the academy—bouncing between assisting Professors and testing various students—Yuto hadn't absorbed the one lesson that mattered:
How to kill.
Not in theory. In truth.
Sunless tilted his head, studying the boy's last position before the simulation ended.
*Is it a lack of talent?* he wondered. *Or the opposite of one?* Maybe it was a Flaw—something fundamental that prevented Yuto from making the leap between *fighting* and *winning.*
Didn't matter.
The boy would get there eventually. He had the grit. Hell, even Kai hadn't been this consistent. And Kai was the closest thing Sunless had to a real apprentice—if you could call it that.
The two of them had been fighting almost daily. Not real training sessions, not in any official sense. Just bouts in the Dreamscape, structured as staged duels between "Mongrel" and "Dove." A playacted rivalry meant to sharpen Kai's instincts and test the limits of both their swordsmanship.
And it had worked.
Dove was learning. Fast. Relentlessly fast.
Kai wasn't a genius at killing either—but he *listened.* He *watched.* He *grew.*
Sunless wished he could say the same for himself.
He thought of the silver grillz he'd handed off to Effie—snarling, gleaming things that looked like they belonged in the mouth of a vicious beast . They suited her fighting style: fast, vicious, always three seconds from going off. But a part of him still twisted at the memory of where they came from.
Az had worn them. Or something like them.
The more he probed that borrowed past, the more tangled it became—like a net closing over his identity. He knew he was *Sunless,* Lost from Light. But those foreign memories were always there, waiting to blur the distinction between him and Az until it snapped.
The grillz were a line he wouldn't cross.
The book had been easier.
A simple photo album. Just pictures. Just memories. None of which should have existed—snapshots of a life that no one remembered taking. And yet, there were his parents, smiling in scenes he'd never lived. People he hadn't seen in years. Maybe had never seen at all. But he'd kept it. Tucked it away in a place even he barely remembered. Just for the faces.
Especially his parents'. He'd almost forgotten what they looked like.
The third item though—the copper cylinder—was still a complete goddamn mystery. Covered in strange protrusions, like a key meant for a lock no one had built. He was certain it was a puzzle. Probably a relic that needed to be solved to unlock its true function. But after two weeks of study, analysis, and trying everything short of smashing it with a hammer…
Nothing.
No progress. Not even a hint.
It didn't help that he'd been distracted by other things—like the fifth core. He was one kill away from reaching the Tyrant Class. One final shadow. One last life.
He drained the last of his lukewarm coffee, grimaced, and waved Yuto off. The boy bowed, respectfully and silently, and limped away—even though the sim-reset should have healed him. He was probably trying to *learn from the limp.*
Sunless turned toward the exit, feeling the weight of the day settle into his shoulders.
Today, it would happen. One more shadow. That was all it would take.
He stepped into the fading light, shadows trailing him like loyal hounds.
'*'
Prince, the soul-devouring tree, was without question the most formidable tool Sunless had ever bound to himself. Stronger even than Saint. More adaptable than any Memory in his arsenal. A living titan, awakened and ancient, whose very existence placed Sunless in a different category when it came to negotiations—with the government, the academies, and even the three Great Clans.
After all, even receiving an Echo was a rare stroke of fate. But an *awakened titan*? That was more than rare. That was a myth in motion. Titans carried power, yes—but they also carried *meaning.* Symbolism. They were creatures of the of the highest class , monstrous and imposing , whose presence implied power,death , and disaster .
So an echo of such a Creature was seen as a paradoxical status symbol.
A monstrous blessing. A terrible reward .
And yet, despite all that grandeur, all that power—he couldn't use him.
Not in the Chained Isles.
The problem wasn't control. Sunless could call the tree to his side with a thought. No, the issue was size—and physics. Prince wasn't just *big.* He was incomprehensibly massive, a tower of knotted bark and bone-like roots that reached higher than the tallest skyscrapers of the waking world. His trunk was wide enough to crush buildings just by existing. His branches reached like arms of a dying god. Wherever he manifested, he demanded space.
And the Chained Isles didn't allow for that.
They floated like drifting stones over an endless abyss, tethered by chains of unknown origin —and capped by one unbreakable law: *The Crushing.*
It was an invisible ceiling that pressed down with absolute force. No matter how high the islands rose, no matter how many times they shifted and climbed like breathing lungs, nothing—*nothing*—was permitted to rise above that invisible threshold.
Except for one thing.
A single island, suspended above the Crushing, unreachable and serene. On it stood the Ivory Tower.
Everything else stayed below.
That meant Prince would never be able to stand tall here. Summoning him would crush the titan before he could even take shape.
So Sunless didn't call him.
Nor could he summon the tree in the waking world—not anywhere near the densely packed cities, at least. The NQSC was stacked wall-to-wall with concrete, glass, and the stubborn, choking geometry of human civilization. There was no room for roots. No place for Prince fully manifest.
Still—there was *one* exception.
The Awakened Academy.
Its grounds had been built with power in mind. Between its perimeter walls and the main structures was a wide buffer of unused earth, meant for large-scale training and safe demonstrations. A luxury most couldn't afford.
That was why, today, Sunless found himself standing within those very grounds, flanked by high-ranking Awakened from the academy, a few stiff-suited government officials and paparazzi , and a scattering of brand-new Sleepers—nervous, tired-eyed, and clutching notebooks or weapons they didn't know how to use.
At their center stood Headmistress Komuro.
She was a woman of such considerable age that even Julius looked like a spring-legged grasshopper by comparison. Wrinkled, sharp-eyed, and iron-voiced, Komuro had approached Sunless directly with the idea. Her words had been simple:
"These kids have gone soft. Give them something to chew on."
Apparently, this new generation of Sleepers didn't fear the Dream Realm the way they should. They viewed it as a test. A challenge. A badge of honor to wear once survived. They didn't understand what it *really* was.
She wanted him to correct that.
And she knew just how to do it.
Let them see Prince.
Not as an echo. Not as a pet. But as what he *was*—a Titan. A thing born from the deepest nightmares of humanity and cataclysms, soaked in the souls of the dead. His very presence twisted the atmosphere around him. He exhaled horror. His aura alone could buckle the minds of the unprepared.
Sunless had agreed immediately.
Not because he particularly wanted to traumatize the new Sleepers—he figured the First Nightmare already did a fine job of that. But because this gave him the chance to do something he couldn't afford to do elsewhere:
Harvest a fruit from Prince.
One of the swollen, beautiful things that hung heavy from his branches—each pulsing with dark power and potential.
Each capable of pushing him the last step he needed.
He was close. So close. Just one more shadow, and he would ascend—out of the pit of mere devil , into the echelons of Tyrants.
And it would be safer to absorb the fruit in the quiet of his home.
So he stood there, quietly watching as Komuro barked orders and the officials made polite conversation, his shadow stretching under the late afternoon sun, feeling the tension build in the air.
Soon.
The sleepers would see what the Dream was *really* made of.
*'*'
The first time Sunless had unleashed the soul-devouring tree, Prince had still been an Echo.
Back then, his manifestation had followed the familiar language of Memories—shimmering motes of light swirling into form, graceful and almost beautiful in their ethereal construction. Prince had appeared like a vision stitched from starlight, colossal and dreamlike, woven into existence far above the battlefield.
That high-altitude birth had allowed Sunless to weaponize him in a spectacularly crude way.
When Prince turned corporeal—solid, heavy, *real*—he had plummeted downward like a living meteorite. The impact had shattered the ranks of the Stone Knight army below, a titan crashing from the heavens with the force of an intercontinental ballistic missile. The explosion of bark, and earth had been biblical.
But that had been before.
Prince was no longer an Echo.
Now, he was a Shadow.
And Shadows did not descend like light from the sky.
They rose. Crawled. Bled into the world.
So instead of an elegant fall from above, Prince now came crawling out of Sunless's shadow, inch by monstrous inch, like a god clawing its way back from the grave.
This change came with drawbacks. No more kinetic apocalypse from the clouds. No more theatrical impact.
But it also came with power. Control. Precision.
And something far more intimate.
Sunless exhaled slowly and sent one of his shadows slithering forward, gliding across the stone to the heart of the vast open field. Its edges curled, pulsing like a heartbeat. Then it *opened.*
The reaction was immediate.
From the widening maw in the earth, red and black pollen began to pour out in thick clouds—choking, oily, strangely iridescent. It spewed in unnatural volume, blanketing the air with spores that shimmered with sickly light. Thanks to Prince's new form, just like Saint, he could choose which *part* of him manifested first.
This time, it was the pollen.
The canopy's breath. The hunger before the bloom.
Around him, Sunless could hear the murmurs., Sleepers shuffling nervously, government suits exchanging uncertain glances.
He ignored them.
Adjusting his stance, Sunless planted his feet. He grounded himself, body and breath as still as a sword before the draw.
And then—
Prince *rose.*
Not slowly. Not gently.
He *shot* into the air like a leviathan breaking through an unseen ocean, a surge of motion and pressure so vast it cracked the air like a whip. The sheer force displaced the atmosphere in a pulsing shockwave, strong enough to knock several people off their feet. Even some of the veteran Awakened were caught unprepared, stumbling backward, arms thrown up instinctively.
But the roots—oh, the roots—were precise.
They shot outward like thick industrial cables, black as pitch and veined with dull crimson. They slithered and curled with disturbing grace, weaving between buildings, threading through open space, *carefully* avoiding anything delicate. A dancer's control in a butcher's body.
Then, at last, Prince's full form *arrived.*
He stood—*no, loomed*—over the academy grounds, a structure of darkness and ruin made flesh. Taller than any skyscraper, wide enough to blot out half the field in shadow. His bark was as dark as spilled ink, but laced with glowing veins of ruby red. His leaves were round , glass-like things, shimmering crimson with a slow, unnatural rhythm, like the beat of a distant war drum.
And nestled in the high, twisted canopy, swaying gently in the breathless wind, hung the fruits.
Heavy. Glorious. Ripe with potential.
The ones Sunless had come for.
Looking back toward the gathered spectators, he had to fight the twitch at the corner of his mouth. Nearly all of them—mundane and sleeper alike—had been thrown on their asses. Wide-eyed. Gaping. One of the younger Sleepers looked on the verge of tears.
Even the officials—supposedly stoic, supposedly experienced—were blinking like deer in headlights, coats coated in red dust.
Only one person remained unmoved.
Headmistress Komuro.
The old woman stood as straight as a spear, back unbent, silver hair fluttering like a banner. And she was *laughing.* Loud, throaty, unrestrained. Not the dignified chuckle of a schoolmaster, but the guffawing bark of someone watching a fight break out at a funeral.
*
Down in the soundproof depths of his newly finished basement dojo, Sunless rolled his neck with a quiet crack. The echo of the motion was swallowed instantly by the padded walls—this space had been built to silence *everything*, a sanctuary cut off from the world above.
He needed that silence.
The paparazzi had delayed him far longer than he liked. Their fascination with Prince—the soul-devouring tree—had bordered on obsession. He had caught it in their eyes, the dull shine, the reverent awe. Some of them were already under its influence, he was sure. Prince didn't just feed on souls—it *lingered* in minds. Wrapped around thoughts like a vine.
Still, he'd managed to unsummon the tree before it rooted too deep into anyone dangerous. He had claimed what he came for: a single, gleaming fruit from the upper boughs.
And with it, he had taken the final step.
The formation of his fifth shadow core had been agony.
Not metaphorical. Not poetic.
*Real.*
It had felt like a thousand red-hot needles hammered directly into his heart, each one thudding in rhythm with his pulse, driving deeper, breaking him open from the inside. Even now, sweat clung to his skin like a second layer, his breath shallow and sharp as glass.
But it had been worth it.
Now, standing bare-chested in the center of the dojo, Sunless raised his eyes toward the wall ahead. There, emerging like silhouettes from the void, his shadows stood waiting.
**Five.**
Each was cast from him—his soul fractured into archetypes, habits, desires—but they were not the same. Not anymore.
The first stood with its shoulders hunched, arms limp, radiating a slow, smothering sorrow. Its aura sagged like wet cloth, heavy with quiet despair. **Gloomy.** It was the weight of memory, the ghost of what had been lost and could never be reclaimed.
The second swayed slightly, hands loose at its sides, posture light and free. Even without eyes, it *smiled*. This one had always carried the flicker of mischief and laughter, the rare sparks of light he let himself feel. **Happy.**
The third stood tall, chest out, motionless as a statue carved to be admired. Its very presence demanded attention, reeked of self-importance. The tilt of its chin was arrogant, its silence thunderous. **Haughty.** The pride he wore like armor when the world demanded perfection.
The fourth stared directly at him, unmoving.
Expressionless.
It didn't shift. Didn't fidget. Didn't blink.
The others moved in subtle, human ways. This one didn't even *pretend.* It simply watched. **Creepy.** The stillness that made strangers uneasy, the cold detachment behind his calculating calm.
And now, the fifth.
It lounged near the others with an air of amusement, posture lazy, fingers twitching like it was forever on the verge of playing a prank—or something worse. Its form shimmered faintly at the edges, like it couldn't quite decide whether to dance or disappear.
It had **Happy's** easy charm, but with something darker just beneath the surface. A coiled tension. A smirk too knowing.
**Naughty.**
The shade of indulgence and temptation. The one who embodied his fondness for nightlife distractions, whispered lies, playful deceit… and the part of him that *enjoyed* it all far too much.
Five shadows. Five aspects.
They stood in a loose semicircle before him now, silent and waiting, the dojo lit only by the cold gleam of overhead lights. The air was thick—not with power, but with *presence.*
He had done it.
He had shaped his soul into a weapon with five blades.
And now, with his fifth shadow at his side, Sunless straightened, breath steadier, body humming with the aftershock of transformation.
It was time.
He was ready to meet with Effie in the Dream Realm.