Sunny opened his eyes.
The grand arch of white marble was exactly the same as when he had last seen it. The sun was already climbing the grey dome of the sky, chasing the remnants of the dark sea away. The rest of the cohort had woken up some time ago and were now preparing for the journey ahead.
He had overslept.
However, it didn't matter.
With eyes burning with excitement, Sunny sat up and recalled everything that he had witnessed in his dream.
The memories were still there, clear as day. He could recall every movement, every step, every breath of the dance that the beautiful slave had performed.
..The nameless slave's mother.
His eyes dimmed slightly.
That dream of his, while a precious gift, was also a source of numerous questions. Now that he was awake, Sunny was able to see a few things with more clarity.
The scene that he had witnessed at the very beginning of it was that of the nameless slave's… the original Child of Shadow's… birth. He was born during a solar eclipse, not unlike Sunny.
That fact put a lot of things into perspective. Everyone knew that the Spell did not choose the role an Aspirant would play during their First Nightmare randomly. That was apparent from the fact that the bodies they inhabited in it, while different, were very close to their real ones.
However, the actual principle of how the Spell chose these roles and the events of the Nightmares were largely unclear.
But now, Sunny knew that he shared more than simply outer appearance with the temple slave whose body he inhabited for a few short days.
Both of them were born in similar, extremely rare circumstances. Both of them were at the very bottom of society, oppressed and unwanted, surviving against all odds instead of because of them.
Both of them were left without a family at a young age. The tough life in the outskirts took Sunny's parents and sister away. To the nameless slave, it was the servants of the mighty War God that destroyed his childhood home and life. Sunny didn't know what happened to the beautiful dancer after the last temple of Shadows was destroyed by them... but he doubted that it was anything good.
With a heavy sigh, he looked down.
…Fate. It was fate. What he shared with the temple slave was a similarity of fate.
Sunny was growing more and more convinced that the Spell was connected to the Strings of Fate in some way.
Perhaps it was weaved from them.
Remembering the void he had found himself in after completing his first trial, Sunny looked into the distance with wonder. That void was filled with a myriad of stars that served as nexuses for an inconceivably complex net made of countless strings of silver light.
Were those the strings of fate?
He shook his head.
Whatever they were, and whatever the Spell was, it was not something he could know or understand… yet. Numerous people, most of them better informed and smarter than him, had tried and failed.
It was wiser to concentrate on something within his reach.
The Shadow Dance!
Sunny smiled.
He wasn't so engrossed by the dancing of the beautiful slave girl because it was truly stunning and enchanting. He was riveted beyond belief by it because he recognized the pattern of the battle style hiding in his shadow in her graceful movements.
Turns out, it wasn't a battle art at all. It was a dance.
But was there a difference?
Not in this case, not really.
It wasn't a coincidence that people often described the way true masters of battle fought as dancing. At their core, fighting and dance were very close. That's why combat, when brought to a truly impressive level, was like a dance.
So why couldn't a dance, when mastered to perfection, be like a battle art?
Sunny was certain that he was right. He had already comprehended the essence of Shadow Dance and gained insight into its foundation. With the memory of the beautiful dancer moving as one with her seven shadows, he now had the last piece of the puzzle — the actual set of moves and principles that he could use to create an actual battle style in their image.
He didn't have the battle art yet, but he did now possess all the components needed to create it.
Of course, it was not going to be easy. Even with all that knowledge stored in his mind, he would still have to spend a lot of time and effort and spill a lot of blood, both his own and that of his enemies, to turn the graceful dance of the beautiful slave girl into a deadly dance of steel.
It wasn't even certain that he would succeed.
But Sunny would be damned if he wasn't going to try.
Shadow Dance would become his personal battle art. He was going to make it happen.
As if echoing his last thought, the familiar voice of the Spell suddenly whispered into his ear.
When Sunny heard what it said, his eyes widened.
[You have received an Aspect Legacy, Shadow Dance.]
***
Sunny stared into the emptiness, stunned to his core by what the Spell had just whispered.
Aspect Legacy… did it really just say those words?
He gulped.
Aspect Legacy was something that every Aspect contained, but very few Awakened ever received. Unlike the Boon of the First Nightmare, and every Nightmare after that, as well as the reward Sleepers received after returning from the Dream Realm for the first time, each Aspect Legacy had a unique set of requirements that the owner of the Aspect had to meet to unlock it.
When they did, they were rewarded with a powerful relic. Usually, it was a Memory that synergized perfectly with their Aspect Abilities, or sometimes even an Echo.
Legacy clans weren't called that accidentally. While not every clan possessed an Aspect Legacy, most of them did. In fact, it was the acquisition of the Aspect Legacy that laid the foundation for the creation of many of these clans.
By now, some of the most powerful clans even had several.
But getting an Aspect Legacy was not an easy feat. Most of them were received by Saints, followed by Master, and only a few were won by mere Awakened.
Getting the Aspect Legacy while still being a Sleeper… that was simply unheard of.
'Just like getting a True Name during the First Nightmare, I guess.'
Sunny couldn't believe his luck. Of course, he worked bitterly hard to be able to grasp it. And yet, the magnitude of the harvest he reaped was utterly unbelivable.
However… why was his Aspect Legacy not a Memory, but a battle art?
That was really strange.
Not wasting any time, Sunny summoned the runes and hungrily searched for new ones.
…What he saw made him tremble.