Sunny stepped out of the shadows of his room, summoning the Shadow Lantern while he was at it. As the [Gates of Shadow] opened, a torrent of darkness rushed across the room, killing all light that dared to enter it. He could have just turned off the lights, probably... but he didn’t feel like it. Why would he do something as pedestrian as closing the lights when he could bring out shadows from the literal afterlife?

He had just finished talking to March, which was... an enlightening conversation, to say the least. He already knew that she had some kind of personality issue, which, alongside her amnesia, made her quite the unhealthy person. Mentally.

Of course, nobody would suspect any of that from the usually bright and bubbly girl. Honestly, it baffled Sunny how everyone was blind to her mediocre act — besides Bailu, who immediately called her out on it.

March was two-faced. That was obvious to Sunny from the moment she brought up his sister back in Belobog. Her outward personality was something of a mask... which, admittedly, was very well-thought. Although she lacked skill in execution, the character she played was actually quite impressive. If it wasn’t, then everybody would be able to tell what kind of person she was.

Her inward personality, on the other hand... well, considering how she acted and reacted to certain things, it gave Sunny certain suspicions.

...In any case, if Sunny were to be honest, he didn’t like the side that she put on display. Rather, he much preferred the March who aggressively pinned him against a wall for no good reason.

"Hehe..."

He snickered as he walked through the darkness, the Shadow Chair appearing under him from inky darkness as he sat down.

Sunny figured out how to change the coloration of the Essence that Memories were summoned from. He studied Morgan’s Warbow to figure out how it created those scarlet sparks, but he eventually disregarded that idea. It would require him to figure out which parts of the Spellweave changed the summoning effect, which wouldn’t have been too hard, but then he’d need to find the part of it that specifically changed the effects to scarlet instead of white, then figure out how to make it black.

Instead, Sunny directly injected Shadow Essence into the nodes of all his Memories, and managed to change the sparks of light to strands of darkness. Now... it was as if his Memories were being summoned from literal shadows.

Which was completely unnecessary, but it was cool as fuck.

Speaking of things that were cool...

Ability: [Nightmare]

Ability Description: "This Shadow can create and subjugate nightmares. The more nightmares serve it, the more powerful it grows, both inside and outside dreams."

Dormant Nightmares: [40].

Awakened Nightmares: [768].

Ascended Nightmares: [191].

Transcendent Nightmares: [1].

Sunny smiled. It looked like Nightmare had been doing well in the Luofu. He was a little surprised to see that Nightmare managed to subjugate a Transcendent’s dream, but it wasn’t a bad surprise. More importantly, Nightmare’s runes received an update.

Nightmare’s Terror Ability, [Dream Curse], no longer had dim runes. Now, they were bright and vibrant as the rest... for the tenebrous steed managed to subjugate one thousand nightmares, a feat equivalent to having a thousand minions if Nightmare was a regular Terror.

Ability: [Dream Curse]

Ability Description: "This Shadow is a master of a lesser dream Domain. It is capable of lulling living beings to sleep and imprisoning their souls in a labyrinth of nightmares. The souls destroyed within the nightmare maze feed the Shadow; the more powerful the Shadow grows, the faster and further the dream curse spreads."

Nightmares Required: [1000/1000].

’Huh...’

Sunny tilted his head as he read the runes. A Domain... was the source of a Sovereign’s power, right? A Supreme human? Why did Nightmare, who was neither Supreme nor a human, have one of those? And why was it specifically a lesser Domain?

...The Domain itself was Nightmare’s... well, [Nightmare] Ability, while [Dream Curse] was simply how Nightmare used that Domain. Gosh, why did everything have to be named Nightmare?

Back on topic, [Nightmare] was the Tyrant Ability, and the more Sunny thought about it, weren’t Tyrants... basically Sovereigns? They ruled over their thralls, minions, or offspring, which was similar to how Supreme humans held dominion over their Domains — whether they consisted of human subjects or something more abstract. Nightmare fell into the latter category, since he controlled the nightmares that he subjugated, rather than a literal army of monsters.

Moreover, there was a slightly vague correlation between the fact that Supreme was the fifth Rank on the Path of Ascension, while Tyrant was the fifth Class that non-humans could reach. The more he thought about it, however, the more it made some amount of sense. Beasts were mindless, unintelligent creatures, while Monsters were somewhat more developed — similar to the difference between Sleepers and Awakened. The former couldn’t access their Essence, while the latter had a relatively pitiful amount of it, now that Sunny looked back on his time as one.

The Ascended Masters, on the other hand, were able to make the most out of their Essence, which has finally become a decent energy source for them to simultaneously use their Aspects and activate the enchantments of their Memories. On the other hand, Demons have completely developed their intelligence to become equal to, and sometimes even superior, to humans.

At the Transcendent Rank, Saints have fused their souls with the world. That connection seemed to result in their Transcendent Ability, which often involved a physical transformation into some kind of creature or entity, resembling Nightmare Creatures more closely. Devils seemed to have the opposite development. An inverse reaction. Unlike humans, who, upon attaining Sainthood, gained an Ability that let them change their form — with some exceptions — Devils gained strange powers similar to that of a human’s Aspect. In a way, it was as if reaching the fourth Rank or Class led to a change meant to closely resemble the evolution of the opposing species.

Of course, Sunny already made the comparison between Sovereigns and Tyrants.

Normally, this would have simply been a neat correlation. However, this led Sunny to look further ahead.

He did not know what the Sacred and Divine Ones were like, nor did he know about the Cursed and Unholy abominations, which he did not hope to encounter. Ever.

However, he did know about Terrors and Titans, and if Sunny continued with the logic he used for all previous Ranks and Classes, perhaps they resembled the unseen Ranks in some way.

For example, Terrors had the Ability to create a large effect on the world around them. Nightmare had his [Dream Curse], which, according to both the dark destrier himself, as well as the runes describing it, was a mind attack that caused all in its range to be assaulted by a labyrinth of nightmares. It had been used on Sunny himself in the Second Nightmare, forcing him through all those horrible encounters.

It was an Ability that actively enforced the effects of ’being lulled to sleep’ and ’being thrown into a labyrinth of nightmares’ on whoever and whatever Nightmare was targeting.

As for Titans... well, they were slightly complicated. To this day, even after seventeen thousand years, any Titans studied by scientists or even just the curious, have only been found to share one common trait.

Not the massive size they were commonly known for. A Titan could be the size of a human, after all.

Rather, it was the fact that they had no minions.

No Titan has ever been known to rule any thralls of any kind. Rather, they were always found alone, in all their madness.

...So, Sunny had two thoughts when it came to what Sacred and Divine humans would be like.

A Sacred Ability might be something like enforcing a specific effect, whatever that could mean in actuality. As for a Divine... well, Sunny had no idea. Perhaps they would no longer have a Domain — though, he wondered if that would make them weaker, somehow. In fact, he wondered if Domains were even relevant in Sacred battles at all.

Who knew, in the end? Sunny didn’t even know if those of the Sacred Rank even existed, though, he didn’t discredit it after learning that there were Sovereigns pulling the strings behind plenty of conflicts across the Universe.

Whatever the case was, Sunny was likely wrong about his considerations. Not that there was anything wrong with considering stuff. In fact, those who didn’t consider stuff were those who usually ended up dead. So, really, he wasn’t delusions of granduer and being some crazy godlike being, but being cool and intelligent.

Wasn’t he the best?

After a few moments, Sunny felt a shadow suddenly appear where the Express’ Space Anchor should be, causing him to smile.

Once again, he was a little surprised that Nightmare was able to infiltrate so many dreams in such a short amount of time. He’d have to ask the terrifying steed about it... oh, right.

The shadows Sunny had been wearing as clothes disappeared. He had been allowing the Silent Mist to recover in his Soul Sea, and it should be decently ready now. After a moment, he was clothed in a dark ensemble, with the white harem pants standing out amongst the tenebrous design. His zipperless jacket had dark clouds etched across the sleeves and back. Murky bandages were wrapped around his arms under the jacket, enshrouding them. His torso was clearly visible due to the form-fitting, sleeveless compression shirt pressing down on his body just hard enough to not be annoying.

From the lacking utility belt, a silver chain dangled, looping back onto the belt. It was matched by the serpentine pendant hanging around Sunny’s neck.

...A moment later, a living shadow slipped into the dark room. From it, a black steed with adamantine horns, a wild mane, and teeth that were so sharp and jagged that they resembled that of a wolf stepped upon Sunny’s floor. The terrifying creature... was Nightmare, Sunny’s personal dream terrorist, striking fear into the hearts of even the mundane, if those forty accumulated Dormant nightmares were any indication.

’...Sounds a little fraudulent, actually.’ 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

Sunny’s Shadows were able to use the Space Anchors, strangely enough. It must have been because he was their master.

Nightmare made a sound that suspiciously sounded like sniffling. Actually, his fur was looking a little puffy.

"F—Friend..."

Sunny sent him a curious look.

"What is it, bud?"

The tenebrous steed turned his head a few times, before saying in an uncharacteristically low voice.

"S—Scary pink human... looks like prey... mad! Mad dreams!"

Sunny paused for a few moments, before figuring that he was referring to Fu Xuan. It seemed that was where he got the Transcendent nightmare from.

"Well, it is a Transcendent nightmare, isn’t it? Uh... that’s where you got it, right?"

Nightmare shivered.

"Just one. Barely conquered one."

His crimson eyes flickered in an emotion he wouldn’t expect from the dreadful being... pure, unadulterated horror.

"Too many... too much terror in pink human’s mind..."