Shadow Slave novel Chapter 3003

Sunny felt a chill running down his spine when he imagined Aiko barging into Revel's chambers and finding him there.

Luckily, that did not happen...

Because Revel unceremoniously pushed him out into the corridor, slamming the door behind him with a resounding bang.

So, he was caught in the corridor instead.

‘Damnation!’

Sunny regained his balance and slowly looked up.𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Aiko was there, floating about a meter above the floor. Looking down at him and smiling sweetly.

“Hey, boss."

Sunny sighed.

It was really unfair... considering Aiko's petite stature, he wasn't supposed to have to crane his neck to look at her. And yet, she had developed a bad habit of looming over him as of late, which made him miss the good old days of inhabiting the body of a three-meter-tall Shadowspawn in the Second Nightmare.

"Oh, yeah... hey, boss."

A low voice resounded from behind Aiko, making Sunny sigh once more and look even higher.

The reason why the resident Shadow Fairy was floating high above the floor these days was standing behind her, staring at Sunny with a guarded expression. It was a giant of a man... no, a mountain of a man... whose prodigious height could only be compared to his imposing width.

It was Stev — the Sleeper who had been in charge of the Memory arsenal of the Bright Castle once, serving Gunlaug.

The same Stev who had been killed during the siege of the Crimson Spire.

Seeing him out and about, unmistakably alive, was just as weird for Sunny as seeing Sunny rule the Forgotten Shore must have been for Stev.

‘Is he really alive, though?"

And was Stev really... Stev?

Cassie's Supreme Ability was truly mysterious — bordering on ineffable, even, emanating a subtle scent of divinity. Summoning things she remembered into reality could only be described as miraculous.

And those things weren't simply manifestations of mental images stored in her memory. They weren't illusions or cheap phantoms — once summoned, they were real.

Take the giant man in front of Sunny, for example. He was not merely a facsimile acting out the role of a person who had been Stev, no different from an Echo. Instead, he had a sense of self, carried the memories of the true Stev, and had as much free will as any other human.

He also possessed a soul, a true shadow, could command his Aspect, and was recognized by the Spell as one of its carriers.

If there was one difference between ordinary living beings and those manifested by Cassie, it was that the latter simply vanished after being destroyed, leaving no trace of themselves in the world — not even their shades. Apart from that, though, they were ostensibly real.

Which did not mean that they were the original.

But if they were a flawless copy of the original, then was there really a difference?

‘Hell if I know.’

Sunny did not know if that mattered, either. What mattered was that all the Sleepers Cassie had met in the Dark City — more than a thousand of them — were alive once again.

Granted, they weren't Sleepers anymore. Soon after Cassie summoned them back to the world of the living from beyond the grave, they all tethered themselves to various Citadels in the Dream Realm and became Awakened.

In fact, a few were already Masters, having conquered the Second Nightmare soon after returning from beyond.

With that, Cassie had mostly exhausted the limits of her Supreme Ability.

She could not manifest any more Supreme beings, since that spot was already taken by herself. The Dreamers of the Dark City accounted for all the Dormant and Awakened memories she could summon, constantly drawing on her essence at the same rate as it was replenished. She could still call upon a small number of Transcendent items or beings, and as for Ascended...

According to Cassie, she could indefinitely sustain the manifestation of forty-nine Masters. Only a handful of people she had summoned Ascended so far, so there was still plenty of room for others to grow — seven of them could even become Saints without overwhelming her Aspect.

And by the time more of the former Dreamers of the Dark City were ready to challenge the Second or Third Nightmares, her Domain would have grown stronger, granting her more spirit essence and therefore greater capacity to manifest living beings of all Ranks.

That was the plan, at least.

Sunny stared at Stev darkly, prompting the giant man to shift in discomfort.

"What? Why are you looking at me like this... boss?"

Sunny remained silent for a short while, then shook his head.

"It's because my feelings are hurt."

He threw his hands into the air.

“All the trouble I went to! Collecting every single bone, building a gorgeous grave for you guys... I even wrote such a beautiful, poignant epitaph! How do you think I feel now that you are walking around, brazenly alive? All my efforts were wasted!"

Stev coughed awkwardly.

"Well, uh... thank you? For your efforts."

He paused for a moment before adding politely:

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify