The first thing Lee Jun-seo ever stole was a name.
They called him Number 117 in the orphanage ledger—a faceless tally mark for the annual quota. When the black carriages of the Dream Church rolled into the muddy courtyard to collect sacrificial lambs, the matron read the numbers aloud like a death sentence.
117.
He answered to it—answering kept the beatings short.
But inside his skull, he had already chosen something better.
Sunniless.
A joke.
A curse.
A promise that one day he would stand in the light long enough to cast a shadow worth fearing.
Today was the winter solstice—the shortest day of the year.
Perfect irony for the longest night of his life.
The cathedral of the Dream Church loomed over the capital like a corpse that refused to rot. Inside, a thousand teenagers waited in chains of silver scripture. Some cried. Some prayed. A few noble-born still believed their families had bribed someone for an easy Nightmare.
Sunniless sat in the back row, wrists raw from the blessed cuffs, and counted heartbeats.
Not his.
Everyone else's.
The girl two seats left — 100 bpm, trembling.
The arrogant heir in golden embroidery — 78 bpm, bored.
The priest at the altar — 62 bpm, lying through his teeth.
Sunniless' own heartbeat thudded at 41.
He'd trained it down. A cripple with one ruined lung learns tricks to stay quiet when the bigger boys come looking for fun.
The high priest raised the ceremonial dagger.
Moonlight bled through the broken rose window, painting the blade the color of old bone.
"Children of Eldoria," the priest intoned, voice honeyed and venomous, "tonight you cross the final threshold between mortal frailty and divine potential. Rejoice. The Dream Gate opens for the worthy."
Sunniless nearly laughed.
Worthy.
Half the quota was street trash like him. The Gate preferred unworthy meals.
SHHK— The dagger came down.
SPLAT— Blood hit the sigils.
RRRSHHH— The air tore like wet paper.
Reality folded.
A thousand screams fell upward into the dark.
──SFX: WHUMPH—FREEZE—VOID BREATHES IN
Cold.
Not winter cold.
The cold of a place that had never known warmth, the kind that started between the ribs and crawled outward, freezing thought mid-sentence.
Sunniless opened his eyes.
Blackness.
No—something glimmered.
A faint silver thread floated before him, pulsing like a vein. Words shimmered across it in a language that stabbed behind the eyes.
[Welcome, Sleeper.]
[Preparing First Nightmare…]
[Difficulty: Impossible]
[Survival Probability: 0.3%]
[Generating Scenario…]
TWANG— The thread snapped.
Gravity returned like a falling cathedral.
THUD—!
He hit stone hard enough to bruise bones that had never bruised before.
When the stars in his vision faded, he was kneeling in the ruins of a city that had forgotten the sky.
Colossal skeletons of buildings leaned inward, ribs of black iron and petrified bone. Floating islands drifted above—upside-down palaces, frozen rivers flowing upward into nothing. A moon hung too close and too red, bleeding light like a wound.
And everywhere—shadows.
Not the harmless kind.
These shadows moved when no one cast them. They had weight. Hunger.
A translucent blue screen flickered at the edge of his vision.
Status Screen
Name: Lee Jun-seo
True Name: —
Age: 17
Soul Cores: 0
Memories: 0
Echoes: 0
Aspect: ???
Flaw: ???
Before he could read more, the screen glitched.
Black lines crawled across it like spider legs.
A presence leaned close—its voice the sound of graves closing.
[Awakening Forbidden Bloodline…]
[Aspect Found.]
[Aspect Rank: Forgotten (Unique)]
[Aspect Name: Shadow Sovereign]
The words burned gold—then black—then gold again, as if the Dream Realm hesitated to allow them.
Then Sunniless felt it:
A second heartbeat.
Ancient. Patient.
Smiling.
[Flaw Assigned: Sovereign's Brand]
You carry the last ember of a god the heavens murdered.
Every soul you reap feeds It.
Every soul you spare starves you both.
When the ember becomes a blaze, one of you will wear the crown.
The other will become the throne.
The words dissolved into smoke.
HRAAAAGH— A distant howl echoed.
Metal scraping inside wet meat.
Sunniless rose.
His ruined lung no longer hurt.
The leg that had never carried his weight felt steady as cathedral stone.
Power thrummed beneath his skin, a second set of muscles made of night.
He inhaled.
The air tasted like rust and old incense.
"Okay," he murmured, calm, almost bored.
"Rule one of surviving hell: don't look like prey."
SHFF— Shadows rippled across the ground, stretching toward him like hounds hearing their master.
Sunniless smiled—a thin, unfriendly crescent.
"Let's see who bleeds first."
He walked for hours—or seconds. Time here was only a suggestion.
The city had no streets, only arteries. Every wall bore murals of a war between beings of pure light and creatures with too many joints. The light lost in every scene.
Then he found the first corpse.
A noble-born boy, maybe fifteen.
Clothing shredded.
Silver cuff still glowing on a wrist ending in a charred stump.
He looked… politely surprised by death.
Sunniless crouched.
"…Wrong neighborhood," he muttered.
The shadows reacted before he commanded, sliding over the body like oil.
SFFF—DISSOLVE—
When they withdrew, only clean bone remained.
A pale, screaming wisp tore free and sank into Sunniless' chest.
The second heartbeat purred.
[Memory Acquired: Noble's Signet Ring]
[Echo Acquired: Lost Heir]
The ring formed on his finger—white gold, warm.
The Echo materialized—a translucent silhouette bowing in silence.
Sunniless flicked its forehead.
BONK.
"Stand straighter. You're embarrassing me."
The ghost straightened instinctively.
"…Great," Sunniless sighed. "I bully the dead now."
Time bent.
The red moon refused to move.
Then he found a dying fire and three survivors.
A red-haired girl in half-melted armor; a burning sword on her knees.
A saint-girl in ruined white robes; a cracked halo dripping golden light.
A mountain of a boy shaking around a broken spear.
Sunniless stopped at the edge of their firelight.
"Evening," he said mildly. "Know the way out of this charming tourist trap?"
The red-haired girl rose—WHOOM— her sword blazing.
"Identify yourself."
"Lee Jun-seo. Orphan quota. You?"
"Cassia of House Flameborn."
A Sovereign bloodline. Perfect.
The saint-girl spoke softly. "Aria von Auretias. The Goddess welcomes all—"
Cassia snapped, "Save it, saintess. We're in a Forgotten god's corpse. Your goddess helped kill it."
Aria flinched.
Sunniless watched with lazy disinterest—already measuring how fast he could kill each of them if needed.
Cassia glared. "You're awfully calm for someone half-dead."
"Chronic condition," he replied. "I get better."
The big boy whispered, "Something's hunting us. It took Jorin. Just… shadows."
Sunniless tilted his head.
"Shadows, huh?"
He stepped into the firelight.
For the first time, they saw his mismatched eyes—
Left iris molten gold.
Right iris bottomless black, deeper than the void between the drifting ruins.
FWUP— Cassia's flames faltered.
TZZK— Aria's halo dimmed.
CLATTER— The big boy dropped his spear.
Sunniless smiled, gentle and harmless.
"Relax. I'm very good with shadows."
Behind him, unseen, the darkness thickened—
forming a crowned silhouette towering over the broken spires.
It stared at the three Sleepers with ancient hunger.
Then it looked down at the boy carrying its chains.
And smiled with too many teeth.
Above, the red moon pulsed once—
like a heart remembering how to beat.
The First Nightmare believed it had chosen its final boss.
It didn't realize the boss had already chosen it.