Sunny's First Nightmare

After experiencing symptoms of a Nightmare Spell carrier for a week, Sunny surrendered himself to the authorities. He was later fastened into a bulky chair, that looked like a weird mix of a hospital bed and a torture device, inside a room situated in the basement of the police station.^[1]

After Sunny fell into a deep sleep, he was welcomed by the Spell.^[1] There he dreamt of a mountain and witness the flow of time in reverse. Then a slave caravan appeared, moving down the mountain in the clamor of chains. Time slowed, stopped, and then resumed its usual pace. He was prompted by the Spell to prepare for his first trial.^[3]

Sunny started out as a shackled and already half-dead powerless slave. According to a gentle and intelligent slave, the body he was using was born as a slave, a temple slave. The markings on his skin were proof that he came from the temple of Shadow God. The last of which was destroyed by the Imperials protected by the War God.^[3]

The caravan stopped to rest and soldiers gave the slaves food and water.^[4] After some time, rocks and heavy shards of ice began to rain on them. Many were wounded, and a few even lost their lives. The creature who attacked them was a tyrant. It killed a human and transformed it into its larvae. But before it even wreaks havoc, Sunny killed it using the shackles with the help of the shifty slave and scholar.^[5] The remaining larva were decimated by the young soldier and the slaves free themselves using the given key.^[6]

The hero, shifty, scholar and Sunny managed to push the Mountain King over the edge of the cliff. Except for them, every member of the caravan was dead.^[7] While attending to his errand of collecting flagons with water, he encountered the old veteran, who had whipped him for trying to accept Hero's flask, badly injured and dying. He was Sunny's first time killing a human and received a memory, Silver Bell.^[8]

Since the road was gone, they were traversing the rough mountain slope.^[9] While it was Sunny's turn to watch, he noticed Mountain King was eating the corpses left from the caravan and also realized it was blind. At the break of dawn, Sunny had woken the others up. While on the move, the first man down was shifty.^[10] After shifty's disappearance, they have come to the conclusion that the Mountain King is following them by the scent of blood.^[11] Due to this, the hero decided to kill the scholar first due his revolting crimes.^[12] When he was about to kill Sunny, the hero suddenly vomited blood, revealing that Sunny poisoned the water they drank.^[13]

Sunny shook the bell and remained hidden in the shadows.^[13] Sunny's only advantage is knowing that the tyrant was blind. After running away, Sunny reached the peak of the mountain and found the ruined temple. In the end, he was also dying and decided to lie down on the altar inside the temple while unknowingly sacrificing himself to the gods. The Shadow God stirred from his slumber and aided Sunny to kill the tyrant thus ending the nightmare.^[14]

Main article: Ruined Temple

• During the trial, he defeated a dormant beast - Mountain King's Larva, three unknown dormant humans, an awakened human - Auro, awakened tyrant - Mountain King, and received the Shadow God's blessing.^[15]
• His final appraisal is "Glorious" and was bestowed a True Name, "Lost from Light".^[15]
• Evolved Dormant Aspect "Temple Slave" to a Divine Aspect "Shadow Slave".^[15]

• There are poisonous berries called "Bloodbane" that grow in places where human blood was spilled. It is why there are always many of them along the slave trade routes.^[4]
• In the old days, there used to be a path leading to the peak of the mountain. It was sometimes used by pilgrims. Later, the Empire had widened parts of the path and built a proper road on top of it — now leading to the mountain pass instead of the peak.^[9]