Sunny scrambled backward until his wet palms dug into the rough, splintered edge of the raft.
Water splashed over his legs, but he barely felt the chill.
His heart was hammering against his ribs like a wild beast trapped in an iron cage.
The figure standing before him did not move.
It was a terrifyingly precise duplicate of his own frame—the same pale, porcelain skin, the same messy raven hair, the same dark eyes.
But where Sunny was exhausted, battered, and emotionally drained, this apparition radiated a cold, effortless poise.
A viscous, heavy aura clung to its form like living smoke, coiling and writhing in absolute silence.
And in its right hand…
rested the Sin of Solace.
The dark jian rested casually against the shadow’s shoulder.
Its lightless blade seemed to drink the meager gray light of the mist, pulsing with a faint, insidious hunger.
‘What…
what in the gods’ names is this?’
Sunny’s mind raced through a frantic flurry of calculations.
A Reflection created by Mordret?
A hallucinatory trap sprung by the Great River?
A Corrupted monster taking human form?
None of those explanations made sense.
Drowning in panic, he plunged his awareness into his soul sea—and found the Sin of Solace resting quietly beneath his five shadow cores, wrapped in its usual shroud of lingering madness.
Which meant the weapon in this stranger’s hand was either an impossible duplicate…
or something far worse.
The dark copy tilted its head, its cold obsidian eyes fixing Sunny with a look of boundless, mocking malice.
The corners of its pale lips curled upward, revealing a sharp, cruel smile.
“Done feeling sorry for yourself, Lost from Light?”
The words cut through the muffled silence of the mist like a razor-sharp blade.
Sunny’s breath hitched.
His entire body went rigid, an icy wave of existential horror washing over his soul.
Lost from Light.
The world seemed to lose all sound.
The gentle lap of the current, the whistling wind, the soft rustle of the mist—everything vanished, replaced by the deafening roar of blood pounding in his ears.
‘How…
how does it know?’
Only four living souls in existence knew his True Name.
Nephis, who held the leash to his soul.
Cassie, who had betrayed it.
Mordret, who mirror his Aspect and saw his True Name.
And himself.
It was a secret he guarded with his life, a fatal vulnerability anchored to the very fabric of his being.
To hear those words spoken by a stranger—by a creature wearing his own face—was a terror far deeper than any Nightmare Creature he had ever faced.
A clawing cold gripped his chest.
Sunny’s fingers trembled violently against the damp wood.
He forced his vocal cords to work through the suffocating dread.
“Who… who are you?” he demanded, his hoarse voice cracking against the veil of fog.
The copy stared down at him for a long, agonizing moment.
Then, its chest heaved, and a low, terrible laugh spilled from its lips.
It was Sunny’s own voice, but stripped of all warmth, echoing with a dark, resonant madness that rattled the quiet world around them.
“I am you…” the copy whispered, its eyes flashing with abyssal hunger as its smile widened into something ghastly and sharp.
“…and you are me.”
The statement hit Sunny like a physical blow, sending his thoughts spiraling into chaos.
‘I am you…
and you are me?’
Was this a manifestation of his own corrupted soul?
A temporal shadow cast backward by the twisted laws of the Tomb of Ariel?
Or had the insidious influence of the cursed sword finally shattered his mind, giving form to his inner madness?
Every theory was more horrifying than the last.
If this entity was him…
then what monster had he become?
Sunny opened his mouth to demand answers, to fight against the crushing pressure weighing down on his spine.
“You—”
“You don’t need to understand anything,” the dark copy interrupted softly, its tone dripping with casual cruelty.
“Not yet.”
Before Sunny could move or channel his shadow essence, the dark aura surrounding the apparition erupted.
Like a deluge of ink, living darkness burst forth from the figure and the blade of the Sin of Solace.
It devoured the mist, swallowed the gray light, and surged over the small wooden raft in an instant.
Sunny tried to extend his shadow sense, tried to scream, but the lightless tide surged into his lungs, plunging his world into absolute, suffocating darkness.