Shadow Slave: Possibilities Without Meaning

After the wave of darkness, the group was in complete silence. 

When it dropped the broken skull back into the dark abyss, the statue continued its march without a hitch.

Once they collected themselves, they continued to anchor themselves to face the storm. It was not over. 

Cassie summoned her golden rope and wrapped it around the prone body of Aldric. Effie held them both close to firm the wavering winds. With nothing but her thoughts to keep her occupied, Cassie immediately thought about what she saw earlier. 

'Whatever that was, my vision didn't see it. What was going on earlier? Is that what it meant?'

She rested her hand against his chest to feel his heartbeat. 

'Ok, his heart rate is steady.'

That was all she could do until the storm stopped and Nephis could take a look at him. If his condition wasn't stable, she would have urged Nephis to heal him now.

Slowly, time passed as they weathered the storm. It proved the point of nature being the worst enemy in the dream realm. While the exchange between the giants finished a while ago, the storm continued its assault with no remorse. 

Hours later, the storm finally died down, and the bright rays of light shone through the lighter clouds. 

The cohort was all bloody and tired but still alive. They came together and sat down on the wet, cold stone. 

Nephis approached Cassie and the prone body of Aldric. She spoke.

"What's his condition?"

Cassie responded immediately.

"He is stable. The bleeding from his eyes and ears stopped. The eye on his forehead closed."

She spoke hauntedly.

Nephis approached him and placed her hand on his chest. Spreading her soul flame through his body, she healed the surface-level wounds like his damaged ears and eye vessels, but that was all she could accomplish. The rest of his internal damage was not visible but was metaphysical. She was lucky she could even do that much due to him not being awake to suppress his darkness.

"That's all I can do. We'll see when he wakes up."

The group focused on themselves. Each reviewing the memories they gained from such a battle and looking at their soul or shadow fragments in the case of Nephis and Sunny, respectively. 

It seemed both Cassie and Sunny received the [Dark Wings] memory. Sunny had also received the [Blood Blossom]. 

Over the course of the day, they slowly recovered from the traumatic experience and got back into their regular routine. Their journey was about to reach its end. 

----------

It was the morning of the second day, and the group could see a mountain range in the far distance. After finishing breakfast, they went about their day until noon.

Cassie was standing nearby watching over Aldric when she heard a small voice whisper. 

"Further...stronger...beyond all of them."

With a jump, Aldirc sat out of his laying position and looked around erratically. Not noticing any danger, he took a deep breath and looked around. 

Cassie was studying him closely, watching his reactions.

He locked eyes with her and asked. 

"What happened? Is that thing still here?"

Cassie noticed the lapse in his memory if he could not recall the ending of the fight. 

"No, the statue defeated it yesterday. Something happened to you. No one knows the cause."

She continued to study his reaction to see if he knew anything. 

Noticing that he was thinking in silence, she went to get Nephis to check over his wounds. 

It was slowly coming back to Aldric. The fight with the locusts and the flower parasites. The tentacled terror and the statue fighting. 

Everything changed when the statue unearthed the skull that it nested within. A feeling of horror and insanity washed over him. He looked up to try to avoid the skull and saw something that should not have existed. A blood-red moon. The red light slowly encompassed everything with a red tinge. All the while, his ears were hearing whispers of madness. 

Like a patient under anaesthesia, he could barely remember the details before he went under. He could only recall a sharp feeling in between his eyebrows. As if a creature was trying to birth itself from under his skin. 

'I guess that was what [Insight] was warning me about'.

When the statue began to reach down to the bottom of the depths, Aldric had the strongest reaction he had ever felt from his attribute. The danger was greater than even the corrupted creature territories in the Dark City. And there was no escaping it. The feeling radiated in every direction, with no room for escape. He could only prepare himself, but nothing could have prepared him for what happened. 

Instinctively, he summoned his darkness. From his core, it slowly seeped through him. Once it reached further across his body, he felt an immense pulse of pain. His darkness would not circle through his body. 

Panic immediately went through his mind. 

'What the hell is wrong with my aspect?'

Taking a deep breath, he calmed himself and dove into his soul sea. 

A familiar sight met his eyes—a black hole far in the distance. The sea of clouds that held his darkness at bay was clearly damaged. The usually still and calm clouds were erratic and changing. Bursts of darkness leaked through the clouds in waves pooling around his feet. 

"Did I receive soul damage?"

Aldric's mind was a mess. He looked around for anything else. Turning backwards, he looked south. There, he saw another black hole. 

There. There was another soul core. He had two.

'Two, when did I gain the second core?' 

He thought to himself in confusion. 

This was a major boon to Aldric. He quickly looked over his runes.

Name: Aldric.

True Name: First-Class Singularity.

Rank: Dreamer.

Dark Core: [2/7]

Class: Monster.

Dark Sprites:[264/2000]

Memories:[Unwavering Spark][Cragborne Armor][Malice Of The Deep][Cavedweller Garms][Water Basin][Charm Of Balance][Silk Robes][Silk Pouch][Warding Eye][Stone Coffer][Tesseract][All-Seeing Eye][Mantle Of The Underworld][Cursed Mirror][Dark Wing][Red Spider Lily]

Attributes: [Insight][Tranquil Core][Destined][Tenebrous Rule]

Aspect:[Made In Abyss]

Aspect Rank: Divine.

Aspect Abilities:[Dark Well]

Aspect Ability Description:[You can manifest the Darkness within.]

The last time he looked at the number of sprites was when they embarked on the statue. It was exactly 658 in number. He could not have gained that much from the battle between the two creature tribes. 

'Tenebrous Rule.'

The increase in a core was confusing but manageable, but a whole new attribute was insane. He focused on the new attribute. 

[Tenebrous Rule]Attribute Description: "Your Chalice is under your command." 

Aldric's mind was racing a mile a minute. Perhaps it would help with his control. He had hit a plateau with his range.

Returning his focus to the present, he noticed Nephis approach him. She placed her hand on his chest, and Aldric suppressed his darkness in turn. It seemed he could at least do that without being in pain. 

"You should be fine."

Aldric noticed that nothing happened. Perhaps she had already healed him when he was knocked out and came to check on him. Aldric appreciated the gesture.

"Thank you very much. Can someone tell me what happened?"

Cassie and Nephis gave each other a look, and Nephis started to speak.

"When the statue surfaced the creature, you had a severe reaction. Blood was leaking from your eyes and ears. Your hair started to change and an eye."

This part began to disturb Nephis of all people. 

"An eye began to form in between your eyebrows. According to Sunny, you mentioned something about a red moon. You were hallucinating. You went unconscious when the statue broke the skull with its hammer."

He could see Sunny in close proximity, giving him a scrutinising look.

"It seems some of those changes stuck." 

Nephis said after analysing his face. 

A spark of panic went through his body as he quickly summoned the [Cursed Mirror].

This was the ascended memory that he gained during his hunts in the Dark City. The creature he killed was a Basilisk, they were frequent residents of the Dark City. It was a mirror that could enthral the user if they stared in it long enough. Finding it useless, Aldric had used it as a regular mirror. With his [Inisght], he could feel the moment it would start affecting its user. He had only done this due to its long requirement time. 

He viewed himself in the oval ornate mirror that was the size of A4 paper.

His black curls remained as luscious as ever; however, he had gained perhaps an inch of length that was white. Not grey or silver but completely white. Creating a stark contrast to the black hair above it. The white streaks were sporadic. Only a few reached to his scalp. The rest stopped one to two inches from the end. It looked as if someone stopped halfway from dying their hair completely. The additional length caused his hair to rest just above his eye.

Locking eyes with himself, he noticed the most stark difference. His previous brown eyes completely changed. Both eyes had a complete black iris. Small specks of white glowed in the dark abyss, spread around like the stars in the night sky. His pupil was pitch black. Absorbing all light that neared it. Aldric had to admit that these were the most unique pair of eyes he had ever seen since his arrival. They did not offer him any benefit or disadvantage when he looked around. 

It seemed the rest of the cohort joined in the discussion. He heard Effie whisper. 

"A damn mirror? What else is this bastard hiding?"

Between his eyebrows, he could see a faint vertical crease. He remembered that was where he felt that exploding pain beneath his skin. 

'Luckily that third eye closed. But it still left a mark.'

Aldric returned the mirror to his soul sea and looked back at Nephis. 

"Did something happen next?"

Nephis responded.

"The destruction of the skull released a wave of darkness that Sunny warned us about. I released light through my sword to battle the wave, but it seemed that the darkness beyond my reach was attracted to you in particular. We could not see what it did to you when you were unconscious."

She levelled him with a long stare. 

"Do you know why this happened to you?"

Aldric's mind was currently elsewhere. Nephis' response to his question explained how he gained a new core. It seemed the destruction of the skull released so much darkness that his aspect subconsciously absorbed a slither of it. Aldric knew that someone else destroying the skull of a [Flesh Weaver] or an [Iron Spider] would not give him any Dark Sprites. Perhaps this was only possible due to the shared affinity between Aldric and the carcass as well as how powerful the creature was. The protection that Nephis gave him was what allowed him to not be overwhelmed and killed. He was not immune to darkness stronger than himself.

The information that Nephis gave him also confirmed what happened to him and how. Recalling the history of the Forgotten Shore, it was theorised that the alien that landed in the kingdom was an unknown or perhaps a creature of the unholy rank. The skull most likely belonged to that creature. Even after more than a millennia from its death, the corpse still possessed such potent corruption. Aldric was hoping to use this as a gauge to learn about his flaw, but the clash of the unknown-ranked tentacle creature and the corpse of what he could only assume was an unholy being made learning from this impossible.

He was starting to realise how improbable his survival was. In the dream realm where death held no preference from the strongest to the weakest, he was lucky to escape its clutches this time. 

It was mind-breaking how unfair this all was. While his flaw did not show itself everytime he spoke or used his aspect, it did guarantee him certain death if he ran into the wrong creatures. Any regular person would try their best to remain in the waking world as long as they could. In their current situation, they would lock themselves in the Bright Castle forever. This could only reflect the strength of his aspect. Potential that he was not realising.

At least he had learned that the next change was visual hallucinations. Aldric was trying his best to view this as a learning experience, but this was the closest to death he had ever been. If the statue was any later in destroying the skull after bringing it out, he would have no longer been human. Would he still even have his sanity? The traumatic experience hadn't fully set in, so he pushed through the panic and thought about how to address the question. 

Aldric relaxed his face and looked at everyone in discomfort. In a resolute and grim tone he spoke.

"The strange reaction I had when I saw the horror was..."

Aldric steeled himself for what he was about to say next.

**********

Thanks for reading. 

Double upload today. Think this might be my longest chapter at 2200 words. Just kept writing and couldn't stop. Didn't want to interrupt my train of thought. 

What do you think about the new attribute? Suprised? What about his new class?

What do you think he will say to them? The truth? or pull a Sunny?

Anywho, till next time.