The sanctuary of the black pool had given Sunny a brief respite, but the mountain did not care for rest.
Beyond the basalt pillars, the silence broke, replaced once more by the bitter, howling wind of the peak.
‘The final climb,’ Sunny thought, his breath rising in pale, sharp plumes.
‘No more hiding in caves.
No more crawling through chasms.
The only way out of this nightmare is up.’
His bare feet, miraculously healed of their black frostbite by the dark pool’s blessing, crunched into the icy crust of the highest ridge.
The broken ‘Scavenger’s Carapace’ was still strapped across his chest, cracked and battered, but his body felt strangely light.
The unawakened ember in his soul was no longer a dormant spark; it was a cold, pulsing core that resonated with every shadow cast across the mountain.
The ascent was a vertical hell of ice and sheer granite.
Without ropes, pitons, or an Awakened blade to drive into the wall, Sunny relied on nothing but his bare fingers and the strange, quiet awareness granted by his shadow.
His shadow moved ahead of him like a dark fringe, feeling for hair-thin fractures in the freezing rock, testing the structural integrity of every ice ledge before Sunny placed his weight upon it.
‘One step.
Don’t look down.
Don’t think about the drop.’
Far below, the dark ravine where he had lost the Obsidian Shard was swallowed in a sea of thick, rolling white fog.
Above him, the sky was no longer bruised gray, but a clear, terrifying expanse of deep indigo, pierced by sharp, cold stars.
He had climbed above the cloud line.
As he hauled his body over the final, jagged lip of stone, the world suddenly opened up.
Sunny stood at the absolute summit of the mountain.
It was a narrow, wind-swept plateau of dark basalt, completely barren save for an ancient, crumbling altar of grey stone sitting in the center.
Resting upon the altar was a heavy, rusted iron bell, its surface covered in forgotten runes that flickered with a faint, dying light.
Beyond the altar, the mountain dropped off into a vast, breathtaking void.
Below him lay a sea of clouds illuminated by a cold, pale moon, stretching out endlessly into the dark horizon.
‘The end of the road?’
Suddenly, a strange, resonant hum vibrated through the air.
It didn’t come from the wind, nor did it come from the snow.
It came from the ancient bell on the altar.
The rusted iron began to tremble, sending a low, ancient tone echoing across the sky.
GONG…
The sound rolled over the cloud sea, deep and profound, shaking the snow from the basalt rocks.
As the sound faded, the pale moonlight above seemed to bend.
The shadows stretching across the summit shifted, twisting into brilliant, golden text that floated directly in front of Sunny’s eyes.
The Nightmare Spell was reaching its conclusion.
[Your First Trial is complete.]
[Evaluation: Extreme.]
[You entered the Nightmare as a slave, bound in iron, weak of body and lacking a soul core.]
[You survived the massacre of the mountain pass, outsmarted predators, manipulated those around you, and claimed an Awakened Memory from the bones of an ancient warrior.]
[You lost your weapon, stood powerless against the cold, and yet outlived the strong, the ruthless, and the desperate.]
[You claimed sanctuary in the shadow of a dead god.]
Sunny watched the glowing runes, his face stoic, his heart thudding slowly in his chest.
[Calculating True Name…]
The golden script flared with blinding intensity, casting long, sharp shadows across the ancient stone altar.
The air grew impossibly heavy, as if the gaze of a vast, ancient entity had suddenly descended upon the mountain peak, weighing down on Sunny’s soul.
[In the age of darkness, you were bound in chains.]
[In the face of terror, you walked in the shade.]
[In a world consumed by light, you remained unseen.]
[Your True Name is: Lost from Light.] The source of this chapter is g.com.
Sunny stared at the glowing words floating in the freezing air, repeating them softly under his breath.
“Lost from Light…”
The moment the words left his lips, a profound, soul-shaking vibration erupted deep within his chest.
The empty soul core at the center of his spirit flared to life, absorbing the True Name into its very essence.
It wasn’t just a title; it was an indelible mark etched into his soul—a anchor of fate that tied him forever to the realm of shadows.
The golden runes flickered once more, expanding into the final ledger of his First Trial.
[Name: Sunless]
[True Name: Lost from Light]
[Rank: Awakened]
[Class: Monster]
[Shadow Core: 1/1]
[Aspect: Shadow Blade]
[Aspect Rank: Divine]
[Flaw: Clear Conscience]
[You have survived the First Nightmare.]
[Returning to the Waking World.]
The wind on the mountain summit suddenly ceased.
The cold, the ancient altar, the endless sea of clouds, and the dark basalt plateau began to dissolve into millions of glittering, dark particles.
Sunny felt a strange, weightless sensation pulling him backward, dragging his soul out of the ancient realm and back across the boundary of reality.
He looked down at his living shadow one last time.
It waved at him briefly, a quiet, cynical gesture, before disappearing into the void.
As the world dissolved completely into pitch-black silence, Sunless closed his eyes, taking his first breath of reality.