[Change what it means to be trapped.]
Sunless was falling down toward something... No, maybe he was being raised up... Wait, could he just be floating in place? He could not tell. Inside his mind, a single sound repeated endlessly.
It was the soothing, relaxing tune of a harmonica that was barely audible at first, but every few seconds, it grew slightly louder.
'It feels like a good dream.'
From every side, something soft pressed against him, carrying a scent that was... Sweet?
'It smells fucking awful!'
The disgusting stench brought Sunless back to his senses, and his eyes slowly opened. He expected things to start like his first nightmare, where he saw everything from above or experienced a flashback, but instead, he was suffocating inside something thick and white.
'WHAT THE FUCK!'
The calm harmonica grew a little louder.
Sunless could feel it all now. He heard the shift of whatever trapped him, smelled its sickeningly sweet odor, felt the thick white substance choking him, and saw nothing but pure white.
'I am suffocating!'
That was the main problem. He needed to forget the thick white substance for a second and focus on breathing.
The harmonica grew louder still.
Sunless tried to twist against the weight, but it was too strong. Gritting his teeth, he wrapped shadow around one arm, using the extra strength to rotate until his face pointed toward what he assumed was up. Shielding his face with his hands, he pushed upward, but the material was incredibly heavy.
Gaining just a tiny bit of space, Sunless spat out saliva, only for it to travel up straight into the white substance, completely away from his face.
'Uh, I rotated the wrong way.'
Turning back to his original position, Sunless began digging. He used his shadow-infused hand to clear a small space, then reached forward with his other hand, only for it to get stuck.
'Did you fucking forget all your training?'
Sunless stared at his shadow hand, which gave a quick thumbs-up to confirm it remembered.
He started digging again. His right shadow-infused arm reached out first to clear the white substance, then his left arm moved forward as the shadow traveled across his body to reinforce it. Now he was digging upward.
The harmonica grew slightly louder.
'This sound is slowly getting on my nerves.'
Shifting his body into the hole he created, the Treacherous Divine Mole slowly pushed through the thick white material.
He dug until there was nothing left to dig. His hands broke through the surface, and with one final push, he pulled himself out.
'Disgusting.'
The harmonica grew louder once more.
'Aaaaa! This sound just keeps getting louder! It will be unbearable soon.'
Sunless looked around. The white ground stretched as far as the eye could see, shifting unpredictably like swinging platforms on a parkour course. The ceiling and walls were identical. Everything was just one gigantic expanse of white.
'You are not supposed to clear a story in the Dream Realm to leave, so what am I supposed to do here? Dance to the music?'
Sunless took a step, and the ground shifted beneath him, almost knocking him over.
'This is like jelly.'
Despite never having tasted jelly, Sunless immediately compared the white substance to it.
He surveyed his surroundings again, finding nothing but endless white in every direction.
Taking a calm breath, he let his shadow crawl up his body, moving from his hands to his neck until it covered one eye. Closing the other eye, he rotated the shadow-covered eye quickly. Powered by the shadow, his vision cleared completely, removing any blur or peripheral distortion.
'There is nothing here!'
The shadow shifted from his eye down to his foot. Sunless took a step forward, and his foot sank straight into the white floor.
'Fuck, go back.'
The harmonica grew louder, comparable to a breath now.
Sunless grabbed the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. 'I hope you are happy, [Fated]. I have no fucking idea what I am supposed to do here!'
He took a deep breath, shifted the shadow back to his eye, and stepped forward as the ground shifted. Crouching low, he carefully watched the movement with his shadow eye.
'Of course it is this. I fucking called it.'
Sunless listened closely to the harmonica.
Standing up, he tried to swing his body to the rhythm and take a step, but the ground still shifted enough to throw him off balance.
He tried again and failed.
'No, I refuse to do that.'
He tried a third time, hoping it would work, but failed again.
Embarrassment flushed across his face. 'I give up! You win, [Fated].'
Sunless swayed his body, swung his hands from side to side, and then... shook his ass while taking a step forward. This time, the white ground remained solid.
'How did I even guess before that I had to move according to the tune?'
Shaking his ass, our Great Treacherous Sunless began his journey.
***
While shaking his ass and moving forward, Sunless stopped. 'I almost forgot to think about the goddamn message the Spell gave me because of all this.' He started walking and shaking his ass again.
'[Trapped] as in the way I am trapped in shaking my ass? No point in trying to understand what it means without a clue, I will just focus on surviving the moment.'
Just then, the exact thing Sunless worried about happened.
His shadow slowly detached from his body and started mimicking him while shaking its ass. 'I FUCKING KNEW IT' Sunless understandably crashed out.
He needed something else to focus on so he would not just dwell on shaking his ass. His eyes rotated until he remembered something.
In front of him, a few runes appeared.
Aspect: [Shadow Slave].
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Abilities: [Shadow Control].
Aspect Legacy: [Shadow Dance].
When he went unconscious fighting against Kiyotaka in the Academy, he realized his shadow was actually different from him despite how similar they were. To put it properly, his shadow could change shape and move over others easily, while Sunless was trapped in what he could physically do.
Another thing was that his shadow barely emitted emotions during battle, while Sunless fought with everything he had.
'I mean, I cannot really see emotions coming from the shadow, but you cannot tell me that bastard shaking its ass right now is not making fun of me.'
In the background, the shadow was still shaking its ass.
Shadow Dance Description: [Once an elegant dance, now a deadly battle art. This mysterious style was created by the treacherous Lost From Light after witnessing a graceful slave dancing with her shadows. Who else could have taken something so beautiful and turned it into something so vile?]
Usually, Sunless would deny any allegations of treachery, but right now he decided to embrace it. A good guy would not survive in this world.
'I was so shocked when I saw seven relics.'
Sunless could already imagine his future.
'That Time I Was Beaten to a Pulp by a Freak: Unlocking the Slave's Dance and the Seven Relics of Aspect Legacy.'
The shadow looked toward Sunless and facepalmed while Sunless was still daydreaming.
'Volume 1: World domination with my seven clans. Volume 2: Revenge on the freak.'
Most legacy clans were formed around one Aspect Legacy, and Sunless had seven! He could make seven clans with seven different wiv-
Slowly, the humor disappeared from Sunless's face, and he resumed dancing to travel forward.
'He has three wishes over me, and I do not know how he is going to use them. There was that rule where he cannot put me in danger, but it is still three wishes over my head. Knowing that guy, he already has a plan for those in advance.'
Sunless glanced toward the runes again. He stopped, crouched down, and picked up a handful of the white substance.
The shadow watched him. Sunless threw the substance slightly upward so it cast a small shadow. Sunless's shadow slipped inside the object's shadow, completely disappearing into it. When the substance hit the ground again, his shadow emerged back out.
Sunless continued dancing forward.
'A true shadow is shapeless and ever-changing, able to copy anything and hide behind it. To be a shadow is to be what others think of it, a copy of themselves.'
Sunless cleaned one of his ears.
The harmonica sound grew as loud as a clap now.
'But... I cannot fucking become a ball and fall down from the sky!'
Sunless could not really see how he could copy others given his physical limitations.
A few meters ahead, the ground sloped downward dramatically. Sunless danced his way over to the ledge and slowly looked down, his eyes widening.
The slope was enormous, stretching almost a kilometer down with the white substance cascading like a wave of water. There were several flat surfaces before each drop, but the wave kept rushing downward at high speed.
Sunless looked around the slope. There was no way to go forward. With every passing meter, the drop only grew larger with no path around it, leaving him with nothing to see except the downward descent into hell.
Sunless looked behind him, but there was no alternative route.
Infusing his eye with shadow once more to look farther, goosebumps traveled across his body.
At the very end of the slope was something never written or spoken of anywhere. A cluster of monsters, whose shapes he could not distinguish from this far away, lived in a village setting... Like humans? They were completely opposite to the white world around them.
'How is this possible?'
The harmonica grew louder more frequently now, piercing the air like a whistle.
'They are all black on top of that.'
The Nightmare Creatures down below were pitch black, contrasting sharply against the white world.
...
Just then, the surface beneath Sunless's feet began to liquefy. His shadow traveled to his foot at extreme speed, allowing Sunless to turn using that anchor point.
The shadow shifted to his other foot as Sunless ran, using the shadow's speed to keep his footing before he could slip. He took one step, and the shadow moved to the next foot.
He ran away from the liquid that threatened to send him sliding down, the shadow switching feet with every stride as he picked up speed.
His left foot stepped down... then his right foot hit the ground too fast from his sheer momentum. The shadow could not reach the right foot in time to strengthen it, causing his ankle to sprain. The sudden loss of momentum sent him tumbling onto the surface.
'FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!'
The wave carried Sunless down toward the village.
The harmonica grew louder.
********
Well, I wanted to write a longer first chapter, but I decided otherwise because I am a little busy.
I have a confession to make. I have grown past the age of blood and violence. I have embraced peace, and I advise you all to do the same. Let us all shake our asses together.
I am peaceful, and Shadow Slave has now become Shadow in the Space. We shall all embrace the shaking of ass and turn away from violence.
Amen.
On a more serious note, as I mentioned at the end of the first volume, I wanted to focus more on presentation and pacing, and I think I did a good job improving those aspects.
While writing Kiyo in this volume, I realized that I had grown way too comfortable writing him. As a result, all the other OCS I write somewhat resemble him, remaining quiet and constantly scheming against each other.
So with Sunless, I want to improve the tomfoolery and express more emotion. I do not just want to write thriller or psychological scenes, but also showcase genuine humanity, if that is the right phrase. Essentially, I want to keep my writing from becoming monotonous and emotionless or just way too serious.
That's it ig.
Peace.