Saint Cor looked upon the corpse with a placid expression, his eyes, however, betrayed the deep concern he truly felt. On either side of him was Saint Madoc of Valor and the newly transcended Saint Revel of Song.
"Tell me again, what happened." The Valor saint commanded.
Cor sighed inwardly, they had been repeating this conversation since sunset, and it is now well into the night.
"There's not much, his death coincides with the unnatural eclipse that occurred earlier today, he was killed by having his soul core violently removed and crushed, and that whoever did this most likely left that coin as a calling card which suggests they're human."
Cor replied to Madoc and pointed to the pitch black coin next to the former sovereigns body.
"Oh, and that there was no struggle." He added with a wry smirk, savoring the sour look on Madoc's face when he said that.
"Can we stop dancing around the subject? It seems rather obvious to me what happened here." Revel said with a scoff while rolling her eyes.
"And what would that be, girl?" Madoc replied, venom dripping from every syllable.
Revel didn't flinch. If anything, she seemed to enjoy the provocation.
"The Dreamspawn had been searching for Shadow god's lineage for years, and he just so happens to die the moment an unknown shadow covers the sky. It's clear to me that whoever has Shadow's lineage didn't appreciate his prodding, and so they decided to make a statement." Revel replied.
"Are you even listening to yourself!? Asterion was a Sovereign! A Supreme! The only human who could kill him-"
"Is another Supreme." Cor finished coolly, cutting off Madoc's raving.
'Or worse.' he thought to himself.
"Indeed, it seems like there's another player on the board." Revel said with a small, satisfied smile as she turned and left, pulling on her tether and disappearing from the rooftop.
Clicking his tongue, Madoc did the same, leaving Cor alone with the body.
Cor exhaled slowly and knelt beside the body. Asterion's face was peaceful—eerily so for someone who had died in such a brutal manner. Cor reached out and picked up the coin, its surface cold.
'What are you? A message, or a warning.' Cor thought as he stood and pocketed the coin. Looking at the body, Cor smiled coldly. 'Good riddance.'
Years Later
Knight Rodrick was terrified.
His task had been simple, given to him by Saint Madoc himself, all he needed to do was assassinate a mere mundane girl.
He should have known it would not been simple when two masters leading two cohorts of awakened to were assigned the same task, but he simply thought that they were to deal with the bodyguards.
Not… Whatever that thing was.
Sprinting out of an alley with all his ascended speed, he slid to a hold in the middle of a brightly lit intersection.
Panting, he surveyed his surroundings, at this time of night no vehicles were on the road. Seeing no obvious threat, Rodrick slowly lowered his sword, reaching for his communicator with his free hand, he froze.
In his peripheral vision, he could see a shadow next to his own, a shadow that did not have an owner.
Trembling, all he could do was watch as the shadow reached into his own shadow, a deathly chill filling his chest as it did, the moment the chill reached his heart, Knight Rodrick esteemed warrior of Valor, like a puppet with its strings cut, he collapsed dead before he hit the ground.
***
Standing in front of the massive red gates of the Awakened Academy, the fortress like compound imposing in its size, he'd read about it in webtoons and novels but never thought he would ever get to see it for himself.
Of course, the fact that he only had four weeks to experience this legendary place put a damper on his mood, not that he was expecting to get up to anything exciting, he needs to spend every moment he has on learning to survive.
Looking around, Sunny could only see one other person, probably a sleeper like him.
She was slender and only a bit taller than Sunny with gray eyes and silver white hair, there was a confident but lonely vibe about her.
He thought about approaching her but thought better of it, who'd want to talk to an outskirt rat like him?
Letting his gaze lower lightly, Sunny narrowed his eyes.
'Something's wrong with her shadow.' Sunny thought as he glanced at Gloomy.
His shadow seemed off too, it felt… nervous, excited, and intimidated all at the same time.
'Is this guy shy or something? Is there such a thing as a pretty shadow?' Scoffing slightly, Sunny started to make his way towards the opening gate
After Sunny fell asleep in the soft bed he was given, Gloomy started to explore the Academy grounds, it's thoughts always returning to the massive presence it felt in the girl's shadow.
Soon finding itself in front of the girl's door it carefully approached, and froze as it felt something looking at it, shakily turning around, Gloomy came face to face with… itself?
Tilting its head in confusion, Gloomy noticed the fading nature of the shadow and stiffened as the other Gloomy put a hand on its shoulder and vanished.
Thoroughly frightened, Gloomy fled at full speed back to Sunny's room and hopefully away from any more spooky ghost shadows.
***
Sunny cautiously made his way down the hidden passage, the path twisting and turning under the cathedral, as he approached what he felt to be directly under the statue of the goddess the passage opened up to a larger room.
Sunny frowned.
'What is it with this place and creepy dark wells?'
Going further down was going to place him dangerously close to the catacombs. He knew all too well what kind of danger that would pose — the last time Sunny had ventured into the maze of ancient tunnels below the city, he barely escaped alive.
After hesitating for a while, he stepped onto the staircase and began descending. Deep, ancient shadows surrounded Sunny, giving him a little comfort.
At least he was among his kin.
After a minute or so of walking down the stairwell, Sunny entered a large chamber that seemed to be carved into the bedrock, as opposed to being constructed by human hand.
On the other side of it, a large door forged from black steel stood, illuminated by two burning torches and a pitch black odachi and longsword under them.
Three thoughts entered Sunny's mind simultaneously.
The first one was that the metal from which the monolithic door was made looked eerily familiar. It was the same dark, lusterless, impenetrable alloy that the Black Knight had been made of.
The second thought disturbed him.
'...How come those torches are still burning?'
And the third though shocked him.
'Those swords… They're made of shadows.'
Glancing back to the pale ghostly flames, they gave no heat and instead of flickering on the floor the shadows stayed deathly still as if paralyzed by the light.
After a moment, Sunny ordered Gloomy to stay back. With clear relief, the shadow took a few exaggerated steps back and hid in the darkness of the stairwell.
Summoning the Midnight Shard and approaching the black door in a protective stance, Sunny was prepared for an attack, but none came, only a chill when he entered the torches light.
'These torches are… they are definitely some sort of a protective charm. I am almost sure that their power can harm even shadows.'
The question he had to ask himself, though, was this — were the torches meant to keep something from entering the space that hid behind the black door…
Or were they meant to keep something in?
Ignoring the cell door for now, Sunny reached for the black odachi, feeling it in his grip a surprised gasp left him, this sword, it wasn't a memory, and it didn't shift at all and yet, it fit his grip perfectly.
Admiring the serpentine motifs and dismissing the Midnight Shard, Sunny gave the odachi a few practice swings, it cut through the air with grace.
Approaching the bedrock wall, he raised the sword over his head and swung down, the blade cut through the rock with terrifying ease.
Mouth agape, Sunny looked at the blade in stunned silence.
'...T-this.. this sword, it's, it's sharper than an ascended weapon… could it be transcendent!?'
The thought stunned him as he looked at the blade with avarice and a low chuckle come from him.
After a couple of minutes of basking in the joy of receiving a transcendent weapon, he shifted his eyes to the longsword, scrutinizing it carefully.
'Why is it that I think I know who that sword should belong to.'
It wasn't a hard conclusion to make, considering the blade looked exactly like Neph's Dream Blade, which was weird to say the least. Looking back to the Odachi Sunny wondered what weapon it took its look from.
Deciding to think on that later, Sunny finally diverted his attention to the black cell door, he had felt that the key he took from the Lord of the Dead was connected to this door.
Stepping close to the door, Sunny took the key from the string around his neck and inserted it into the door's lock.
With a burst of the light of divinity, the door clicked and opened quietly.
Beyond was a small room with a carved circle in the center, in that circle lay a mask made of black lacquered wood, its features carved into the face of a demon with four protruding fangs and a crown of three twisting horns inside the eyes was nothing but darkness.
The mask was not what drew his attention, however, what did was the orb illuminating the room like a dim black sun.
Reaching out his hand to the achingly familiar yet not at all object, Sunny's fingers barely brushed it before his mind was barraged by a flood of unfamiliar thoughts, memories and concepts.
Then the pain hit.
A pain far beyond anything he had ever experienced tore through his body.
And Sunny screamed.
A/N: Hey all, thanks for reading the chapter, I figured I should skip straight to the main divergence point of the story rather than start from the very beginning, I included a couple scenes that are different from OG Shadow Slave but other than those everything else before this point is the same as the OG. Full disclosure, from when sunny enters the hidden passage to when he picks up the odachi is pretty much straight from the OG, but that was only really to establish where we are at in the story and won't be happening in the future unless it's for memory descriptions.