The statue depicted a female figure.
She stood tall and serene, carved from pale stone that caught and reflected even the faintest light. Her expression was gentle, almost mournful, but there were no inscriptions, no names, no murals to explain who she was or why she had been revered. No offerings remained. No altars bore fresh marks of devotion.
Sunny had no idea who she was meant to represent.
Perhaps she had once been a goddess. Perhaps a saint. Or perhaps she was nothing more than a symbol whose meaning had long since been forgotten.
Still, something about the place discouraged intrusion.
Sunny couldn't tell whether the statue itself was responsible for keeping the monsters away, or whether the cathedral was simply claimed by something far worse that never showed itself. Either way, the result was the same.
It was safe enough.
As far as the Dark City went, at least.
He had chosen to hunker down.
In one of the side alcoves, tucked away from the main hall, Sunny had found a modest chamber. Based on the old, carefully folded garments left behind in a narrow closet, it had likely belonged to a priestess—or perhaps several, over the years. The thought didn't bother him much. The dead didn't mind sharing.
He made the room his own.
Furniture was rearranged first, pushed and dragged into positions that felt less ceremonial and more practical. Anything that irritated him was discarded without sentiment. Over time, Sunny brought back small trinkets scavenged from the city—useful items, curious fragments, things that might one day prove valuable or simply make the place feel less empty.
Piece by piece, the sterile chamber changed.
Before long, it wasn't just a place to sleep and hide anymore.
It was something dangerously close to a home.
Sunny grunted, muscles tightening as he swung the Midnight Shard downward in a decisive arc. The blade cleaved cleanly through bone and sinew, severing the head of the last Rat Monster with brutal efficiency. The creature's body collapsed—but did not immediately fall still.
For several seconds, it continued to thrash on the stone ground, clawed limbs scraping and spasming as its nerves fired futile signals into a body already doomed. Its mouth opened and closed soundlessly, blackened blood spilling onto the cracked pavement. It had not yet realized that it was dead.
Then the shadow of death finally arrived.
The movements slowed. Stuttered. Stopped.
A familiar, emotionless voice echoed in Sunny's mind.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast — Scarrow Beast]
Sunny let out a slow breath he hadn't realized he was holding and allowed his shoulders to sag slightly. The tension drained from his body in cautious increments as his gaze swept the surrounding alley, searching for any sign of movement. Only when he was satisfied that nothing else was lurking nearby did he relax.
With a thought, he summoned the Shadow Counter.
[650/1000]
Sunny stared at the number for a moment.
More than halfway.
That was good. Encouraging, even. And yet, the remaining distance still loomed uncomfortably large. He did the math automatically, the numbers ingrained through repetition and grim necessity. Four hundred Dormant monsters. Two hundred Awakened. Or—if he somehow managed to pull it off—one hundred Fallen creatures.
All of them would need to die by his hand.
By his shadow.
Sunny still had no real idea what the counter truly represented, nor what exactly would happen once it reached its limit. He only knew that it was tied to his Aspect, to the strange and unsettling power that followed him like a second skin. The ambiguity bothered him—but not enough to stop.
Watching the number slowly climb, notch by bloody notch, was strangely satisfying.
Addictive, even.
He dismissed the counter and wiped the Midnight Shard clean on the corpse's coarse, diseased fur before letting the Memory dissolve back into shadow. His breathing steadied as he leaned briefly against a wall, listening to the distant sounds of the Dark City.
He was stronger now. More deadly than the average Sleeper, without a doubt.
But that didn't mean much here.
In the Dark City, Sunny was still firmly at the bottom of the totem pole.
He could only hunt at night, when the worst horrors retreated or turned their attention elsewhere, and even then he had to be careful. His targets were limited—mostly scavengers on his level or weaker creatures foolish enough to wander alone. Other times, he followed the trails of destruction left behind by stronger monsters, picking over the remnants of their hunts like a vulture.
It wasn't heroic.
It wasn't glorious.
More often than not, it was humiliating.
Sunny survived by avoiding fair fights, by striking from the shadows, by knowing when to run and when to crawl away unnoticed. He scavenged kills, stole opportunities, and settled for scraps rather than risking everything in a single reckless confrontation.
But it worked.
He was alive.
And as long as that counter kept climbing, as long as his shadow continued to grow stronger in silence, Sunny was content to remain exactly what the Dark City had shaped him into—
A patient, persistent predator, waiting for the day he would no longer have to hunt like prey.
Sunny knelt beside the fallen Rat Monsters and began the unpleasant task of harvesting their remains. With practiced efficiency, he dug into the warped flesh and cracked bone, fingers slick with dark blood as he searched for the telltale glimmer buried within. One by one, he extracted the Soul Shards, their cold surfaces faintly luminous even under the oppressive gloom of the city.
Four.
He placed them carefully in his palm and counted again, just to be sure.
Four Soul Shards in total.
Sunny clicked his tongue softly. He should have had five. Unfortunately, one of the shards had shattered earlier—an accident born of impatience and bad luck. He had driven the blade into a rat's kidney at an awkward angle, striking the shard directly and reducing it to worthless fragments.
A waste.
Still, all things considered, today's haul wasn't bad.
He replayed the fight in his mind as he worked. The first rat had gone down cleanly, a kunai driven straight through its eye before it had even realized it was being hunted. The second had been slower, bulkier—Sunny had slipped inside its reach and gutted it in a single motion before it could react. The remaining two had put up more of a struggle. He had danced around them, careful and patient, letting exhaustion and fear do most of the work. One had ended up with a mangled leg, bone crushed and tendons torn.
Finishing that one off had been easy.
Sunny wiped his hands on the corpse's filthy fur, then rose and dropped the Soul Shards into a small sack at his side. The weight inside was modest but reassuring. He hoisted the sack over his shoulder and turned away from the carnage, already planning his route.
His destination was clear.
The Bright Castle.