The subterranean gym grew quiet as the initial adrenaline of the first sparring round burned off, replaced by the heavy, damp heat of fifty exhausted teenagers.
Sunny remained glued to the shadowed perimeter of Ring 4, his light short sword resting point-down against the impact mat.
He watched the subsequent matches with quiet, analytical precision, storing every stance, footwork flaw, and habitual twitch of his peers into his memory.
‘Caster fights with textbook elegance—zero wasted momentum, but he relies heavily on his speed to cover his exposed flanks,’ Sunny calculated silently, his dark eyes tracking the golden-haired youth as he cleanly dispatched his third opponent.
‘Nephis is different.
She doesn’t fight to score points or demonstrate form.
She strikes to end the encounter instantly, taking the most direct line to a target’s throat.’
His shadow, stretched flat across the concrete wall behind him, mirrored his quiet observation, its head tilted as if sharing his cold assessment.
“Sunless! Ring 2!”
The evaluator’s harsh voice shattered Sunny’s train of thought.
Sunny pushed off from the pillar, dragging his sword through the air before letting it settle into a casual, low guard.
He stepped onto the blue mat of Ring 2, his dark blue eyes locking onto his next opponent.
It was a girl with short, cropped dark hair and a heavily built, muscular frame.
She held a heavy tower shield in her left hand and a short, thick-bladed broadsword in her right.
Her posture was locked tight behind the steel boundary of her shield, leaving almost no exposed flesh.
“Begin!”
The girl didn’t rush.
She advanced slowly, step by step, using the heavy weight of her shield to force Sunny toward the outer edge of the ring.
It was a methodical, defensive strategy designed to crush agile fighters by running them out of space.
‘A wall,’ Sunny thought, his posture relaxed.
‘She wants me to try and circle her so she can catch me with a shield bash.’
Instead of retreating or trying to flank the heavy shield, Sunny did something that made the evaluator raise an eyebrow.
He walked straight toward her.
Ten feet.
Five feet.
Three feet.
The girl’s eyes flared with sudden anticipation.
As Sunny entered her strike zone, she planted her back foot and thrust the iron rim of her shield forward, aiming to smash directly into his chest and knock him out of the ring.
CRACK!
The heavy shield struck nothing but empty air.
At the exact microsecond her body weight shifted forward, Sunny dropped flat to his knees, sliding across the slick surface of the mat beneath the path of the shield.
His movement was so low his chest nearly grazed the floor.
As he slid under her guard, Sunny didn’t swing his sword.
He simply extended his left hand, grabbing the back rim of her boot, and pulled hard.
“What—?!”
With her weight already committed to the forward strike, losing her footing on her back leg destroyed her balance instantly.
The girl let out a startled yell as her legs slipped out from under her, sending her crashing heavily onto her side, the tower shield clattering loudly against the mat.
Before she could roll over or raise her broadsword, the cold, greasy tip of Sunny’s short sword was resting lightly against the center of her throat.
“Yield,” Sunny said softly, his voice devoid of emotion.
The girl stared up at his pale, calm face, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
After two tense seconds, she dropped her broadsword onto the floor.
“I yield.”
“Winner: Sunless,” the instructor announced, quickly recording the result.
Sunny retracted his blade, offered a brief, polite nod, and stepped off the ring without waiting for applause.
Across the hall, Master Jet stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his crimson cybernetic eye glowing with a bright, steady light as he watched Sunny walk away.
“No formal style,” Jet whispered to himself, a faint, dangerous smile playing on his lips.
“He doesn’t fight like a soldier. He fights like an animal that knows exactly where the trap is set.”
As the afternoon sessions dragged on, Sunny completed four more matches, winning three through minimal, unorthodox tactics and deliberately throwing the fourth against an aggressive spear-wielder by stepping out of bounds ‘by accident’ to keep his overall ranking strictly average.
When the horn finally blew, signaling the end of the day’s physical evaluations, the Sleepers dispersed toward the bathhouses, battered, bruised, and thoroughly exhausted.
Late that night, inside the small, solitary room of Block B, the lights were turned off.
Sunny sat cross-legged on his narrow iron bunk, his eyes closed as he turned his consciousness inward, sinking deep into the quiet depths of his soul space.
In the center of his spirit hovered his newly formed Shadow Core—a swirling, cold orb of dark energy that pulsed with the steady rhythm of a silent heart. The source of this chapter is novelping . com.
Floating beside it were the glowing, golden runes detailing his soul attributes.
[Name: Sunless]
[True Name: Lost from Light]
[Rank: Awakened]
[Class: Monster]
[Shadow Core: 1/1]
[Aspect: Shadow Blade]
[Aspect Rank: Divine]
[Flaw: Clear Conscience]
[Echoes: Mountain Scavenger]
Sunny focused his mind on the Echo entry.
With a simple thought, a faint, white mist spilled out from his chest, pool-ing onto the cold concrete floor of his room.
The mist condensed rapidly, forming the silent, bone-white silhouette of the monster he had slain in the frozen pass.
The Mountain Scavenger stood roughly four feet tall, its jointed, pale armor gleaming faintly in the dark room.
Its razor-sharp claws rested motionless on the floor, its empty socket eyes staring blankly at the wall, completely obedient to Sunny’s soul.
Sunny opened his real eyes, looking down at the creature resting beside his bed.
“A real bodyguard,” Sunny whispered, a quiet, genuine sense of relief washing over him.
“In twenty days, when the Spell pulls me into the Dream Realm, I won’t be entering alone.”
His living shadow detached itself from the floor behind his bunk, gliding up the side of the bone-white creature, examining the Echo with curious, silent interest before wrapping comfortably around its shoulders like a dark cloak.
Sunny leaned back against the concrete wall, looking out the tiny, reinforced window of his cell at the gleaming neon lights of the Upper Spire stretching into the dark sky.
The academy was full of elite heirs, ancient Legacy techniques, and children born with silver spoons and high-grade Memories.
But out in the dark expanse of the Dream Realm, none of that mattered.
Sunny closed his eyes, his dark blue gaze vanishing into the quiet room, a cold, dark smirk settling on his face.
“Let them train their swords,” he murmured into the silence.
“I’ll train in the shade.”