The fluorescent light hummed above Sunny’s head, its sharp white glare buzzing with the dull, mechanical rhythm of the Waking World.
[Name: Sunless]
[True Name: Lost from Light]
[Rank: Awakened]
[Class: Monster]
[Shadow Core: 1/1]
[Aspect: Shadow Blade]
[Aspect Rank: Divine]
[Flaw: Clear Conscience]
The golden runes hovered in his peripheral vision, completely invisible to the thick-necked police officer currently tapping furiously on his digital tablet across the scratched steel desk.
‘A Divine Aspect,’ Sunny thought, his posture relaxed against the hard plastic backrest, though his senses mapped every corner of the concrete interrogation box.
‘An Echo of a mountain scavenger.
A True Name etched directly into my soul.
And in return for all of it, the universe cursed me with an absolute inability to speak a single lie.’
He tested his vocal cords mentally, trying to imagine saying *My name is John*.
The moment the thought formed, the invisible, suffocating grip clamped down on his windpipe, making his chest tighten until he abandoned the attempt.
‘Terrifying,’ he realized, his dark blue eyes narrowing slightly.
‘If someone asks me if I’m an Awakened…
I’ll have to answer.
If someone asks me what my Aspect Rank is…
I’ll have to tell them.
My only defense is to keep my mouth shut or frame the truth so ridiculously that people think I’m insane.’
The metal door of the interrogation room clicked open with a heavy, pneumatic hiss.
A woman stepped inside.
She wasn’t dressed in the standard blue uniform of the municipal police.
She wore a tailored, charcoal-grey suit made of heavy, reinforced synthetic fabric, her short black hair pinned neatly behind her ears.
A silver badge bearing the crest of the Awakened First Response Taskforce gleamed on her lapel.
The police officer immediately stood up, offering a hasty, respectful nod.
“Inspector Chen. We didn’t expect the Awakened Bureau to respond to a Sub-Level 4 vagrancy call.”
“We track local soul-density fluctuations,” Inspector Chen said coldly, her sharp eyes bypassing the officer entirely to lock onto Sunny.
“Forty minutes ago, a localized pulse of soul essence was registered in transit tunnel 12-B. The signature didn’t match a Nightmare gate opening. It matched a Sleeper returning from their First Trial.”
The officer blinked, his jaw slackening slightly as he looked back and forth between the inspector and the thin, filthy sixteen-year-old sitting in plastic handcuffs.
“Wait… this kid? But he was talking gibberish about divine lineages and mountain beasts—”
“Quiet,” Chen commanded, taking two deliberate steps toward the steel desk.
She pulled out a small, metallic cylinder from her pocket and placed it in the center of the table.
The device let out a soft, high-pitched PING.
[Identity Confirmed: Sunless]
[Sleeper Status: Returned]
[Soul Core Signature: Active / Awakened]
Inspector Chen’s eyes widened by a fraction of a millimeter.
The cold, bureaucratic indifference on her face vanished, replaced by an intense, calculating scrutiny.
“You actually survived,” she whispered, her voice dropping into a serious, low tone.
“A sixteen-year-old from the lower slums, unranked, uneducated, entering the First Nightmare without a sponsor, prep school training, or a single Memory… and you came back alive.”
Sunny kept his mouth shut.
He didn’t offer a single word.
‘Don’t ask me anything,’ he prayed silently in his mind.
‘Just fill out your paperwork and send me to the academy.’
Chen pulled out the chair across from him and sat down, leaning her elbows on the steel desk, resting her chin on her interlocked fingers.
“What is your True Name?” she asked directly.
The invisible iron hand instantly clamped around Sunny’s throat, squeezing his windpipe until his jaw was forced open.
His dark blue eyes flared with helpless rage as his vocal cords vibrated against his will.
“Lost from Light,” Sunny spat out, the words cutting through the quiet room with absolute, ring-like clarity.
Inspector Chen went rigid.
The police officer by the door let out a soft gasp, leaning closer to the tablet screen.
In the Waking World, millions of Sleepers entered the Nightmare Spell every year.
Most died in the dark; of those who survived, less than one percent accomplished deeds grand enough, brutal enough, or significant enough to earn a True Name from the Spell during their First Trial.
To obtain a True Name in the First Nightmare was the mark of a future Saint—a prodigy destined to be fought over by the great Legacy Clans like Valor or Song.
“Lost from Light…” Chen repeated, her voice laced with awe and sudden, sharp caution.
“A True Name. In Sector 25…”
She leaned closer, her sharp eyes searching Sunny’s filthy, pale face.
“What was your evaluation rank?”
Sunny gritted his teeth, struggling with all the strength in his soul core to suppress the urge to speak.
He tried to hum, tried to cough, tried to bite his own tongue—but the Flaw was absolute.
The law of his Aspect demanded truth, and truth would be served.
“Extreme,” Sunny forced out through clenched teeth, his face turning pale from the effort of trying to stop himself.
Chen stood up so fast her chair scraped loudly against the concrete floor.
Her demeanor changed instantly from a casual investigator to an officer dealing with a high-priority asset.
“Extreme evaluation… a True Name…” she muttered, reaching into her jacket to activate her secure comms device.
“A wild Sleeper from the slums pulled an Extreme rating in his First Nightmare.”
She looked down at Sunny, her expression a mix of profound disbelief and intense curiosity.
“What kind of Aspect did you receive, Sunless? Is it a combat aspect? A utility aspect? What rank is it?” You are reading on g.com, the official source.
Sunny’s heart dropped into his stomach.
‘No,’ he panicked internally, his soul core thrashing within his chest.
‘I can’t tell her it’s Divine!
If the government or the Legacy Clans find out a homeless kid from Sector 25 has a Divine Aspect, they’ll either enslave me, dissect me, or murder me before I ever step foot into the Dream Realm!’
The invisible iron hand tightened around his throat with terrifying force, dragging the words out from the absolute depths of his lungs.
He couldn’t lie.
He couldn’t stay silent when directly questioned.
So Sunny did the only thing a roach could do when forced into a corner: he used the literal truth to hide the grander reality.
“It is a shadow aspect,” Sunny rasped out, his voice sounding completely strained and exhausted.
“It lets me control my own shadow to scout and hide in the dark.”
He didn’t mention the rank.
He didn’t mention the word *Divine*.
He didn’t mention his Echo or his innate divinity.
He simply stated the absolute, literal mechanics of his innate ability.
Inspector Chen relaxed slightly, her brow unruffled.
“A scout aspect,” she noted, nodding to herself as she typed into her secure communicator.
“Stealth and utility. That explains how a slum kid survived an Extreme evaluation without high-grade martial training. You hid.”
Sunny let out a long, quiet, ragged breath, letting his head drop slightly as if defeated by exhaustion.
‘Yes,’ Sunny thought, a cold, dark smirk forming beneath his downward-tilted face.
‘I hid.
I hid in the dark, I hid from the monsters, and now I’m hiding the truth right in front of your eyes.’
“Unshackle him,” Chen commanded the police officer.
The officer quickly tapped his keycard against the magnetic restraint bracelets, and the heavy iron cuffs fell away with a sharp CLICK.
Sunny brought his arms forward, rubbing his bruised, pale wrists.
“According to global Awakened protocol,” Chen stated, her voice returning to its professional, authoritative tone, “any Sleeper who survives the First Nightmare and obtains a True Name is immediately exempted from local vagrancy charges and granted provisional citizenship in the Upper Spires. You will be transferred to the Awakened Academy in Sector 1 for processing, evaluation, and training before the Winter Solstice.”
She looked at Sunny, her eyes cold and professional.
“You have three weeks to prepare before you enter the Dream Realm for your real trial, Sunless. The First Nightmare was just a test. The Dream Realm is where people like you actually die.”
Sunny stood up from the cold plastic bench, pulling his dirty, oversized street tunic tight over his shoulders.
He didn’t care about the warning.
He didn’t care about the Dream Realm, the Legacy Clans, or the Awakened Academy.
He looked down at his feet.
The shadow cast by his body beneath the fluorescent light twitched softly, stretching smoothly across the concrete floor, winking at him from the dark corner of the room.
‘Three weeks,’ Sunny thought, a quiet, cold fire burning deep within his dark blue eyes.
‘Three weeks to learn how the Awakened fight, three weeks to understand my divine aspect, and three weeks to make sure nobody ever backs me into a corner again.’
He stepped out of the interrogation room, leaving the police precinct behind, stepping into the towering, rain-slicked neon avenues of the Upper Spire as an Awakened.