Shadow Slave

While one of Sunny’s incarnations was experiencing the strangest things in the Palace of Imagination — like PTVs that drove on tiny explosions and a whole city of people who had no idea what a Nightmare Creature was — the rest of him was busy with other endeavors.

In fact, he had more free time than usual.

That was because Slayer was still resting in the dark flames of his soul, evolving, so there was no need to fight her every week... and neither was there a need to recover from those brutal fights, either.

So, Sunny decided to do something he had been thinking about ever since returning from Ariel’s Game.

He wanted to write a research paper... and not just any paper at that.

Sunny wanted to write a paper to end all papers. The best and most comprehensive report on the history of the world — its inception, its end, and all the things that had happened since.

After all, he was in a unique position. Sunny was the person who knew the most about the truth of things — the gods, the daemons, the Nine... the Void, the Forgotten God. Most importantly, he knew the most about Weaver and the purpose of the Nightmare Spell.

Of course, there were still gaps in his knowledge. Other people possessed pieces of knowledge that he did not, as well — the Sovereigns, for example, had known much more than he did about certain things. Among them, Asterion probably knew secrets that Sunny could not even dream about. But nobody had such a structured and comprehensive knowledge of the framework that formed all of existence, as well as the main characters of history and the roles they had played.

Knowledge was power, so it was no surprise that the Sovereigns had hoarded their knowledge, refusing to share it with anyone. But Sunny was of a different mind — Nephis was the same, or she would not have given her fateful speech about how Earth was doomed to be consumed by the Dream Realm.

Since he possessed precious knowledge, he wanted to share it with the world. He had an obligation to let people learn as much as possible about the reality they lived in — not only because he knew how fervently those curious about the truth strived to quench their thirst for knowledge, but also because he wanted as many people to be as powerful as they could be.

After all, Sunny was not the only person with a keen mind out there. If many people were armed with the knowledge he possessed, some of them would use it as ammunition to make their own discoveries and help humanity in their own way.

That, in truth, was the greatest power humanity possessed — the ability to accumulate knowledge and, therefore, solve problems collectively. Every new generation of humans was the culmination of everything the numerous previous generations had learned and achieved, so their growth was exponential.

At least that was what Sunny wanted to believe as a former academic.

His tenure at the Academy might have come to an abrupt end, but the spirit of exploration still burned in his heart...

And it was in that spirit that Sunny sat behind a desk in the Dark Castle and stared at an empty journal in front of him.

The journal in and of itself was a mythical artifact — that was because Sunny had been too lazy to go find writing paper and just manifested shadows into a semblance of one, making each sheet permanent. Then, he bound the white sheets with black thread and fashioned a leather cover from the hide of a Nightmare Creature he had slain in the Burned Forest.

The ink was made from the materials scavenged here on the Forgotten Shore...

And since Sunny was now a demigod, everything he made was technically a mythical item.

That said, he would have vastly preferred to just type the entire research paper on a communicator, but sadly, that would require writing it in the waking world — and while Sunny could very well spend some time there, it was never pleasant.

So, with a sigh, he began writing by hand.

The first thing he wrote was the title, of course... which was quite simple and to the point.

On the first page of the journal, a few words appeared under his pen.

The letters read:

The Exploration Report on Everything, by: Nobody. week

Many days later — having already received Mind Weave — Sunny did travel to the waking world, after all.

The journal containing the exploration report felt heavy in his hand.

He put all of the knowledge about the history and fate of the Dream Realm onto these pages. The Exploration Report on the Tomb of Ariel concentrated on the nature of the Great River Civilization and on the stories of Weave told to him by Ananke, omitting the truths learned by him in the Estuary... ŔÁ𝐍Ồᛒ˧

But this time, Sunny shared everything he knew. He wrote about the inception of the world, the gods and their forgotten sibling, the origin of the daemons, the cause of the conflict between the daemons and the gods, as well as the calamitous end of their war, Weaver, and the birth and purpose of the Nightmare Spell.

He wrote about the Seven Divine Realms, as well — about how the Dream Realm came to be, how it consumed the mortal realms, how the Nightmare Spell infected the isolated Divine Realms one after another, and how they still ended up being swallowed by the growing realm of the Forgotten God... with Earth, War Realm, being the last.

And much more.

So much more, in fact, that his hand still seemed to be hurting from holding the pen...and that’s considering that he had manifested a few additional hands out of the shadows to hasten the process.

In fact, Sunny had written two versions of the Exploration Report on Everything instead of one.

The first contained all that knowledge in its pure form. The second replaced the name of the Forgotten God... Dream God... with a rune for someone — or something — unknown.

That was because not just anyone could retain the forbidden knowledge about the Forgotten God. Actually, few people could — and even for them, it was somewhat dangerous. Even mentioning his existence put a strain on the souls of living beings, because the world was still denying his existence. So, Sunny only intended to share the full version of his report with those of higher Ranks.

Now, all that remained was to deliver the fruit of his decade-long quest to uncover the truth into the hands of the public.

Standing in front of the colossal gates, Sunny looked up and studied the familiar shape of a towering alloy wall.

After so many years of having been away, he returned to the Awakened Academy.