All sorts of emotions surged through Sunless's mind when he realized none of this was real. There was not a shred of doubt left in his mind because even after he killed the Nightmare Creature, no message appeared from the Spell.
Still, he looked down at the dead body of the creature he had slain. It was just a child. Another theory bloomed in his mind. He did not want to consider it, but he could not stop himself.
'Those claw marks and the architecture... They cannot be fake. They were once real people.'
The harmonica grew louder.
A regretful expression crossed Sunless's face. Looking at himself through his shadow vision, he saw that the pitch-black transformation had reached his neck.
The harmonica grew louder.
'If this is a mind attack, it is a really sloppy one.'
Forcing others into submission or trapping them in illusions was common in the Dream Realm. Though Sunless had limited experience, he had fought against a mind attack before. That bastard's mental interference had been far stronger, constantly eating away at his memories and forcing him to submit. This attack did not even try to hide its existence.
Sunless was certain none of his memories were missing. He was simply turning into a Nightmare Creature.
'Argh, it better be a Tyrant at most. I am praying it is a Tyrant and nothing beyond that.'
His past experience with a Tyrant had been bloody, and the thought of facing something higher was not a possibility he wanted to entertain.
'Ugh, it is at my neck now. Remain calm. Hurrying is not going to help.'
Slowly, runes appeared in front of Sunless, which he studied while monitoring his body through shadow vision.
'[Fated]... Fuck you too. [Mark Of Divinity], [Child of Shadows].'
His eyes widened as he noticed another attribute listed beneath them.
Sunless quickly ran out of the cave to see how the others would react. To his horror, no one even looked at him. They had returned to standing in place, some holding crude vessels while others stared blankly upward.
The fourth attribute read...
'Requiem: You have fallen for the calm harmonica played by an Ancient Snail. Soon the sound will explode your brain. The pain you have endured your entire life shall be turned into a seductive note, making others scream in agony as they suffer what you endured.'
Sunless looked at the hollow lives around him. They no longer saw him as human. With his face and neck covered by the Requiem, he looked just like another Nightmare Creature to them.
His heart thudded in his chest. He ran through the village trying to find something, anything. Everywhere, these transformed victims stood doing nothing, yet he kept searching frantically while keeping his shadow wrapped around his sprained foot.
'That was just a chil- Stop thinking about him like it matters!'
Sunless told himself he did not care how a child ended up here. He wanted to care, but he forced himself not to.
'That child acted differently from the others. He came to me and hugged me when he saw me in pain. There have to be more like him. He could not have acted like that without learning it from someone.'
He searched for anyone connected to the child, looking for the source of that learned warmth.
Slowly, Sunless stopped running. He found them.
Among the crowd, two figures were turning their heads from side to side, unlike the rest whose eyes spun aimlessly. Their backs were hunched and their bodies trembled.
Sunless tried to call out to them, but he had no mouth. Even if he did, no sound would have carried. He hated everything about this situation.
Closing his eyes for a moment, Sunless ran forward and grabbed both of their hands. They did not react, but unable to keep up with his pace, both figures tumbled to the ground.
Sunless saw them fall through his shadow vision, but he did not stop. He dragged their bodies across the rough surface toward the cave. As they were dragged, black blood seeped from their ankles, leaving a trail that did not disappear.
Reaching the cave entrance, Sunless finally stopped. The two figures stood up, their ankles leaking dark liquid, and walked straight into the white depths. Navigating past uneven ground and formations, they stopped beside the corpse of the child.
Sunless followed close behind, noticing the black coverage had reached the top of his own chest. The harmonica was becoming almost unbearable.
'I can endure this. It will be over soon. I can do this.'
The two figures stood before the child's body. One fell to its knees, reaching out with trembling hands to touch the corpse. White circles in its eyes stretched downward, looking like thin threads holding small balloons.
No tears fell, but those descending white threads made Sunless tense up.
The figure's shaking hands touched the corpse. A sudden jolt ran through its body. Its hands traveled up to its own face, stopping where its mouth used to be. The body shook violently as its fingers began clawing frantically at the smooth skin.
Black blood burst from its ankles and the spot where its mouth should have been. The violent shaking lasted for several seconds before the figure collapsed to the ground, twitching uncontrollably.
A moment later, the twitching stopped. The figure lay still, pooling blood around its face and ankles. The liquid was not absorbed by the white ground, nor did it reveal any vision of the outside world.
Sunless closed his eyes, then checked his body using shadow vision. The spread of the Requiem had slowed by a fraction of a percent.
Not daring to open his real eyes, he observed the second figure through his shadow.
The remaining figure stood still for a moment, then slowly turned toward Sunless with its spinning eyes. Sunless remained motionless, waiting to see what it would do.
Opening his eyes, Sunless saw the figure drop to both knees in front of him. He wanted to close his eyes again, but hiding would not change what was happening.
The white threads in the figure's eyes dropped further down its face. Raising its hands, the figure tore away a large chunk of its own face where its lips used to be. Black blood splattered everywhere.
The white threads settled along the freshly torn wound, forming upper and lower lips. The figure no longer had eyes, only white lips set against a bloody tear.
Goosebumps covered Sunless's skin as he fought against the deafening sound of the harmonica.
The white lips moved. Blood spilled over them as a few painful words escaped.
"Burn my body... Throw my ashes.... Show me again what I must.... pay just for being an.. innocent and... loving man."
...
Sunless looked down at the figure, then checked himself through shadow vision.
'...'
His shadow crawled up his arm, and Sunless struck the figure. A wave of black blood erupted from the impact, and the body fell lifeless onto the ground.
...
The harmonica surged in volume, causing Sunless to lose his footing and drop to one knee. He stayed there for a moment, recovering his balance.
Getting back up, he grabbed the feet of both fallen bodies and dragged them out of the cave, running with shadow wrapped around his foot.
He sprinted out of the cavern. The dead bodies bounced against the floor, splattering black blood everywhere, but Sunless did not look back.
'If those two reacted that way to the child, how will the other adults react to their peers? To them, everything is white except themselves. They changed when they saw my black shadow, so seeing blood must trigger something too.'
...
'Sunny, who are you trying to fool?'
Regardless, Sunless ran. The dragging bodies left a thick trail of dark liquid that caught the attention of every figure in the village.
Their spinning eyes froze. Their backs hunched, and their bodies began to shake violently.
Every single figure rushed toward the running trail of blood.
Some stumbled and fell, scrambling back up to continue the chase. The adults moved the fastest, leaving the children a few paces behind.
Sunless wanted to stop running. He hated what he was doing, dragging these corpses like bait, but he did not slow down. He threw the two bodies near the entrance of the cave.
The adult figures rushed past him, crawling and scrambling over one another, while the smaller figures lagged behind.
Sunless closed his eyes and covered his ears.
'It is just the harmonica. Just the harmonica.'
His shadow did not mock him. It simply detached from his leg, causing the sudden shift in weight to make Sunless stumble on his sprained foot.
The shadow glided across the white floor toward the children who were following the blood trail, passing right through them. The smaller figures stopped, looking down at the moving shadow. They turned around and began following it away.
Slowly, Sunless stood up and looked into the vast white space.
'Damnation.'
Limping heavily on his sprained leg, he forced himself forward, following where his shadow had led the children.
The shadow lured the smaller figures toward the farthest house, and they followed without resistance.
Returning quickly, the shadow wrapped around Sunless's sprained foot once more. Sunless crouched, scooped up a chunk of the white substance, and shaped it into a sharp wedge.
He sprinted forward, weaving between houses and jumping over low walls until he reached the group of small figures.
...
Sunless did not hesitate.
Unfolding his hand, he drove the sharp wedge forward. The moment his sprained foot hit the ground, the shadow shifted from his leg to wrap around the weapon, reinforcing his strike.
The sharp edge tore through the head of the first small figure. Sunless did not stop. He kept moving, turning sharply to strike down one after another.
A remaining small figure watched the others fall around it. Its eyes stopped spinning, and white threads began to drift down its face in fear.
The weapon tore through it an instant later. It was the last one.
Sunless did not grieve. Surrounded by dead figures and covered in black blood, he collapsed to his knees, covering his ears as the harmonica reached a deafening crescendo.
Blood poured from his nose and ears as his entire body spasmed.
Through the blood filling his eyes and his blurred vision, The Treacherous Lost from Light looked down into the pool of pitch-black.
Through the blood, he finally caught a glimpse of the real world.
The landscape outside was entirely red, covered in liquid thicker than water that reflected a blood-red sky where massive lights clashed against one another. The scale of power was beyond any Nightmare Creature he had ever seen.
Lying on that red surface was his physical body, bare and unconscious.
Directly in front of his body stood something gargantuan. It stretched as high as the eye could see, leaving a scorched black path where the ground had burned away in its presence.
The creature was inches away from Sunless's real form, crawling forward at an agonizingly slow pace.
Its base was made of countless malnourished, light-green humanoids acting as legs. They moved slowly under the immense weight. Their heads were bare skulls with visible veins, sticking out from the body like trophies.
Above them, thousands of organs were visible through translucent skin, including hearts, livers, and intestines, all protected beneath a massive shell stretching thousands of meters into the air.
Its face was made of pure darkness, just like Sunless's shadow. A faint, dark outline formed a smiling facial structure while the sound of the harmonica echoed directly from it.
Sunless processed everything in a fraction of a second. The white floor was already absorbing the blood, leaving him no time to lose.
'MOVE IT'
Sunless forced his real body to wake up, scrambling away from the Ancient Snail on the red ground.
'RUN UNTIL THE SOUND DOES NOT CATCH YOU'
Inside the Requiem world, Sunless curled into a ball from the sheer pain. He did not check how much of his body had transformed, nor did he care that the change was reaching his feet.
Just then, the white floor absorbed the larger figures, shifting them toward Sunless's position.
They stood there for a moment, taking in the scene around them. All the small ones were dead.
White threads dropped down their faces like tears before settling into newly formed lips. They tore away chunks of their faces, letting blood splatter across the white floor.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Agonized screams erupted from the creatures, echoing through the Requiem realm. Blinded by grief, they reached out and grabbed Sunless, pulling him back.
'MOVE'
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA"
Their painful screams blended with the blare of the harmonica as the white ground rapidly absorbed the remaining blood.
'MOVE IT'
In the real world, the blood view was almost gone, but Sunless managed to drag his real body up a steep hill overlooking a dark ravine.
He checked his state through shadow vision.
'ONLY FEET LEFT TO BE REQUIEMED'
He felt himself being pulled away from the blood pool by the grieving figures in the Requiem world just as the liquid vanished entirely.
'It is all a gamble now.'
Knowing he could do nothing more inside the mind realm, Sunless stopped resisting and let the figures drag him away.
Inside his mind, the noise reached a bursting point. Darkness covered his vision as countless limbs pressed against him.
He closed his eyes.
"AAAAAAAAAAA"
...
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
He was falling through the dark in the real world. The agony in his body was gone, and his vision was completely clear.
A massive smile spread across Sunless's face.
'Fucking [Fated].'
He was plummeting down the dark ravine, but he did not panic. Directing his shadow to his hand, he slammed it into the cliff face to arrest his fall.
He let out a loud laugh.
"FEELS SO GOOD TO SEE SOMETHING RED"
He shouted with all his strength, using his shadow to spring from one side of the ravine to the other.
"HEY YOU FUCKER WAITING DOWN THERE I HAVE ALREADY BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH TODAY"
Shifting his shadow continuously between his hands and feet, Sunless scaled the cliff face, leaping from wall to wall.
'Okay, Sunless, do not fuck this up.'
Reaching the left wall, he pulled himself upward. A gray layer covered his body as [Puppeteer's Shroud] manifested over him.
He leaped across to the right side once more.
'Doubtless, give me just enough resistance please.'
Crossing back and forth, Sunless finally reached the top of the hill. He collapsed onto his knees, taking deep breaths. He was not tired at all, just thrilled to be alive.
"Hah... I hate the color white now."
Slowly standing up, he touched his face, feeling his lips intact. A dark smile formed as he looked up.
"Geez, how big are you? I cannot even see the top of your head, freak."
Standing before him was the Ancient Snail, its smile gone.
Sunless's grin faded, replaced by a cold expression as his shadow wrapped around his feet.
"Hey... Do me a favor. I might not be able to kill you anytime soon, so wait for me."
Sunless jumped backward, clearing the ravine to reach the opposite side.
"Stay high and mighty like you are. One day I will come for you. It will not matter if you are a Tyrant or something beyond it."
Landing on the other side, he turned and vanished from the Ancient Snail's sight, leaving one final promise behind.
"I will be digging two graves."
*******
How was this chapter?
Man, a cold is no joke; it just doesn't want to leave me.
I'm not really sure if I got Sunless's personality right toward the end, but whatever.
I... guess this is it?
Peace.