Shadow Slave: Rise of the Demoness

[Aspirant! Welcome to the Nightmare Spell. Prepare for your First Trial…]

Sunny dreamt of a vast city, and in the middle of that city lies a spire that pierced the heavens with it's protruding form.

The spire looked as if it was made out of pure polished ivory, surrounding the spire were a plethora of colorful clouds. Some clouds were hues of bright purple, pink, light blue, red and sorts of colors sunny had never seen before or even knew existed.

At the base of the spire there was a large gate made out of solid gold . And when sunny set his gaze towards the direction of the door, he could see there were two sleeping guards on each side of the gate.

Curious, sunless continued and to focused his gaze on the gate, and upon its shining surface were meticulous engravings each one looked as if it was etched into the very fiber of the spire's being.

But before he could ever properly surmise and acknowledge the beautiful craftsmanship of the gate, he noticed that strange vines that were covering the surface of the gate. Causing his attention to be taken off of its golden surface and instead turn towards the vines covering it up.

And as sunless's gaze followed the strange vines down the surface of the gate. He saw how the vines flowed into the city streets like a river. It covered the houses, streets, city stalls and all plant life around the city.

Yet despite the epidemic of vines around the city there were still peaple outside. Seeing this confusion and unease spread across sunless's mind as he felt a slight shiver trickle down his back. With uneasy steps sunless continued to follow the flowing vines, but stopped once he caught a glimpse of one of the people outside.

Sunless felt his heart suddenly sink as he saw and old deshevled woman sitting on a bench looking towards the sky. There were rags and ripped garments covering her gaunt body. The woman looked as if she hadn't eaten in months, with how the woman's skin clung tightly around her skeletal frame.

In complete contrast from the woman's unhealthy appearance the vines wrapped tightly around her figure looked healthy and brimming with life. Despite the vines sucking the life and villtality of the woman, the gaunt figure that layed in front of sunless had a peaceful yet twisted smile on her face. It was as if she was experiencing a dream, a dream that would never end .

Startled by the sight sunless turned his gaze around to the golden gate and it's two 'sleeping' guards only to then realize that the gates guardians weren't at all asleep. They were covered in the same vines as the gate and in the same absent minded way they were stareing at the sky.

As the feelings of dread and fear seeped its way into every inch of sunless's mind an allureing sent made its way to him and filled his nostrils calming him almost instantly. Wondering where the sent came from he he looked over his surroundings, and almost as if someone or something beckoned him to look up, so he did.

As sunless began to look up to the sky, the once prestene ivory was covered in an over growth of vines similar to the city below. And as he continued to crain his neck up words so that he could see, that was when sunless saw it.

On the very top of the spire there was a gigantic flower in full bloom. Its pettles spread out like open arms, as if it was offering to embrace and protect any and all who came it's way. It was hauntingly beautiful and when sunny looked closer he was a profusion of purple-ish vines come from the seemingly harmless flower.

But before sunless could get a better look , in a sudden flash the moon fell over the sky's horizon.

As the sun rose from the west, streaked across the sky, and disappeared in the east. From the ashes in the ground, decaying trees were formed and returned to bright tall trees. Sunny realized that he was seeing the flow of time in reverse.

And In an instant, hundreds of years flew by. As the parasitic vines began retreating into the shadow of the ivory spire. And the once blossomed flower slowly began retracting into bulb and then into nothing. As sunny watched this happen he felt cold shivers run down his back as he was brought to the horrific realization that ivory spire was just a sigh of a monstrous creature establishing its home there.

A moment later the spire was gone and the only thing remaining was darkness.

Time had slow, stopped, and then resumed it's usual pace once more.

' wh-what the hell is this? '

Once Sunny opened his eyes he felt a strange silky texture envelope the entirety of his body. Confused he turned his head to servey the unfamiliar area surrounding the Young man.

But when he did, one of the first things sunless saw was a prethora of beautiful women with there heads down, sitting on their knees, on what appeared to be pillows or another type of soft cushion. When sunny looked closer at the selection of beautiful women he noticed that near them where small glowing orbs.

' what the? '

With a confused look on his face sunny narrowed his eyes towards the glowing orbs of the hollowed eyed woman right next to him. When sunny observed her orbs he suddenly felt a torrent of emotions flooding his mind. He felt defeat, shame, anger, indignation, fear, hatred, and a fearce longing to return home.

As the torrent of emotions flooded sunny's mind he swayed a little to the side catching the eyes of a couple of the women there.

" Dear are you feeling alright? " The hollowed eyed woman asked with a desire smile on her face.

Hearing the hollowed eyed woman's voice sunny snapped out of his stupor and turned towards her and gave her a stiff smile of his own and said in a bit of a rushed manner."No no everything's fine."

Satisfied the hollowed eyed woman nodded and turned her head back and went silent looking straight ahead. Seeing the end of the conversation sunny shifted back into his original position.

' What was the deal with those glowing orbs ? Am I the only one who can see them? If so I must be going crazy then.'

Letting out a sigh sunny took a moment to conceplate the nature of the glowing orbs in his peripheral vision, so he decided to investigate.As he secretly took a glance around the room and its inhabitants and they all showed no signs of being able to see the glowing orbs.

' So I'm the only one able to see them, is this an attribute of mine. ' sunless thought to himself.

Sunny was told the Spell would give both attributes and an aspect ability was given to Aspirants so as much as the 1st nightmare was about challenge as it was about balance. As the old policeman said, it created trials, not executions. So Sunny was pretty sure that, to counter this strange start he's gotten, it would reward him with something good. A useful Aspect, at least.

'Let's see… how do I do this?'

Remembering popular webtoons he 'read' as a child, despite the fact that sunny had never touched a book let alone had any sort of proper eduecation he still enjoyed 'reading'. In actuality the ' reading ' he would be doing was just looking at and stareing at the cool images the rundown terminal would show him and on occasion would add his own sound effects in the mix.

Sunny concentrated and thought about words like "status", "myself" and "information". Indeed, as soon as he focused, shimmering runes appeared in the air in front of him. Once again, although he did not know this ancient alphabet, the meaning behind it was somehow clear.

He quickly found the rune describing his Aspect… and, finally, lost his composure.

'What?! What the actual fuck?!'

Name: Sunless

True Name: —

Rank : Aspirant

Soul Core : Dormant.

Memories : —

Echoes : —

Attributes : [Fated], [Mark of Divinity], [Root of Desire].

Attribute Description :

Aspect : [Lady of the Night]

Aspect Description: [You are the son of a miserable wentch who in debt sold you off as a prostitute. You have no useful skills or abilities to mention, the only thing worth of value is your body, and so with a heavy heart you end up pawning that off too.]

Speechless, Sunny stared at the runes, trying to convince himself that he was maybe just seeing things. Surely, he couldn't be that unlucky… right?

'No useless Aspects my ass the spell basically called me a prostitute!'

Grimacing sunny internally cursed the old police officer who said there were no ' useless aspects '. ' But still... ' sunny thought as anger and confusion plagued his mind.' That doesn't explain these glowing orbs around me, is it perhaps an attribute? '

Setting his gaze towards his runes he crossed his fingers and prayed to the dead gods for good luck and thought in a hopeful tone.

' My aspect might be utter garbage but maybe my attributes might make up for that.'

[Fated] Attribute Description: "The strings of fate wrap tightly around you. Unlikely events, both good and bad, are drawn by your presence. There are those who are blessed, and there are those who are cursed… but rarely both."

[Mark of Divinity] Attribute Description: "You bear a faint scent of divinity, as though someone briefly touched by it once, a long time ago."

[Root of Desire] Attribute Description: "All beings who live desire for what they can and can't obtain including you, but some of those deep desires should be best kept secret... and away from prying eyes"

Once sunny read over his attributes he was quite perplexed as to how they could help him.

Many people would read Fated and immediately assumed they had bad luck but the description made it clear both good and bad were drawn, and perhaps equally considering the Spell was all about balance.

' I guess I know what to blame for theses pretty strange situation'

Mark of Divinity was another amazing attribute…or at least Sunny assumed. Divinity was never a bad thing at least.

And the final attribute which gave sunny the most joy and confusion.

Root of Desire from what sunny had read and accidentally expiremented with from the hollow eyed woman, he could apparently see the desires and subsequently wishes or wants of the peaple around him.

' I see so this is the reason for the glowing orbs around everyone its a pretty good attribute overall, but how the hell am I supposed to use this to pass the trial?'

Wanting to get a feel for the mysterious nature of his new attribute sunny set his sights to the woman in front of him who, strangely had a wide smile on her face.

He then shifted his gaze to the orbs surrounding her and began to study them, he felt excited for the night, curious on who was going to choose him, and an overwhelming lust for pretty young strong handsome men.

' What... What the hell you got to be kidding me this woman is an absolute freak!!'

As sunny internally cringed at the now not so hidden desires of the woman in front of him. Then he sighed now knowing what the spell ment by some deep desires should be best kept and away from prying eyes. And honestly sunny against his better judgement agreed with the spell.

Now that his little experiment was done sunny decided his next priority was getting the hell out of this whore house he found himself in and clear the nightmare. So naturally he began looking for an exit.

As sunny began serveying around the room he noticed that the majority of the ' orbs ' were coming from in front of him. As he brought his gaze to the front he saw a colorful stained glass window. And on the other side of that window where vaige silhouettes of people, to be specific they were that of men.

Who in all intent and purpose had their eyes on the young women in the building with him and occasionally some would direct their lustful gazes towards him causing him shiver in both fear and discomfort.

One of those men was bald, short, and over weight, he was wearing a purple long sleeve coat with frills at the end of his sleeves over a white buttoned up shirt that was struggling to hold it together. He gave the impression of him being some sort of important official or delegate of some sorts.

But what made the man stand out amongst the others in the crowd was that he was giving sunless a rather perverted look causing sunless to scowl in the man's direction.

Amused, the man in turn whistled at sunny and said in a drunk but rather provocative manner." Heyss ya ther sweat checks wanna hav a fun night whith me?"

Once the man said those words a few chuckles could be heard behind him, causing sunny to turn his glare towards the source of his mockery. When he did, the companions of the perverted man raised there hands in mock defeat.

sunny didn't really care who the man was or what job the man had,he decided then and there he was going to kill the man in what ever way he was able to. So in retaliation sunny opened up is mouth and with a nasty snarl unbefitting of a lady he said with a tone laced with disgust.

" Ha have fun with you as if. No woman with self respect, let alone a prostitute would ever want to sleep with your sorry ass no matter how much you paid them to do it." Once sunny had said those words the room went dead quiet as if someone just died. Every head both inside and outside turned there gazes towards sunless, all speechless to what sunny said.

Unbothered by the sudden change in atmosphere sunny continued his gaze landing on the man's right hand where a gold ring was rapped tightly around his ring finger." Mmm .... now that I'm getting a good look at your hands that ring on your finger tells me your married aren't you? Yet you come here for sex how pathetic, goes to show that not even the woman who's supposed to love you till the day you die would ever want to fuck the sorry excuse of a man right in front of me either!! "

As sunny finished his tangent, he suddenly felt a little winded as his chest began to rise and fall with every breath he took. Sunny then felt a strange shift within the room.

Completely clueless sunny looked left and right only to notice that all the women around him were staring at him but not only that but the people outside as well. Unable to feed the room sunny simply asked with a smug smile on his face.

" What did I say something wrong "