Shadow Slave - After the Third Nightmare - A different Story

In the depths of rocky hills, far from civilization, there were massive boulders. That itself wouldn't be so eye-catching if not for that the place was mostly purple. Scarce vegetation, snowy peaks, and massive landscapes composed of purple rock was another breathtaking sight. Emerald lakes, and rivers completed this place .
This picture was strange, but Sunny knew very well already that this place is very dangerous. While the boulders looked very still, from time to time it would seem they moved. They did. Some of them were Corrupted Devils, and were known for their shapeshifting capabilities.
In a day cycle green lake was emanating with some greenish mist. It wasn't that terrifying mist that enshrouded the Hollow Mountains, but it was still very dangerous. Breathing it would lead one to quick death out of poisoning. That's why even Saints didn't try to conquer this place.

During the night it was much safer, but not enough to want to conquer. Whatever they would clear out during a night, would be lost during the day. Also poison made the place uninhabitable. For Awakened, and many Masters coming here without Memories enabling them to breath was simply death. For Saints that could hold their breath for some time, it was still a considerable risk. With no land to title, and water to drink, and citadels that could isolate the air living there was nothing to gain in conquering this place. However, there were still explorers. Some still decided to venture looking for some unique resources.

And they're mostly dead. If there's no one to report death, there's no one to inform how deadly it is. People of the Song Domain learned about the region's nature in an indirect manner. With explorers going missing teams tried to pinpoint the horde of Nightmare Creatures or eventually that single Creature that caused the Awakened cohort to go missing. After all, it could be a danger to human settlements.

I happened to be not. Boulders don't need much to breathe or eat so they don't care. Poison can't affect them. If he looked at these ones he could see they lacked normal flesh. If they left the hill, the Saints could hunt them down. But these Devils seemed to be intelligent enough to understand how nice it is to sleep in a safe home.

Corruption wanted to spread, and take over everything that lives – that much Sunny could infer from numerous times he used Shadow Dance on his opponents – but corruption rarely could make for the essence of a being. If an animal, noble beast or... whatever wasn't sentient before being corrupted, corruption wouldn't give it sentience. It would just remain with its instincts, though instincts would be corrupted. What kind of instincts a rock could possess? Rock would want to stay still, and wait for something to approach it? Corruption might want to twist that instinct, but there isn't much to twist in the first place.

Sunny observed it from the shadows, and was studying his prey. The purple rock had protrusions resembling amethyst. These were creations of the rock Devil that tried to look like something precious.

A five-tailed fox-cat, seemingly adapted to life in this region, came close. It was lured by the beauty of the purples. It looked around as if he was sure there's no one preying on it. The narration on the encounter of both was ongoing, catching every important, and unimportant movement.

'He doesn't know.'

Cause the moment the fox-cat touched it the maws of the purple boulder with jagged teeth closed on it turning it into bloody paste.

'It's a shame that cameras don't work in the Dream Realm. Recordings could conquer the communicators, and do some education...'

The maw was already hidden inside the boulder, and everything looked like there was no prey in the first place.

'Okay, screw this.'

Suddenly Sunny dived into shadows, and moved swiftly towards the boulder. Sunny then emerged for a short moment, touched the boulder, and dived back. Surprisingly the boulder sank into shadow with him. It was a trick he picked up during some of his hunts. He could use Shadow Step on someone else. But it wasn't without limitations. The greater rank, and class of the creature, the greater expense of the essence.

He didn't take it really far away. Just to a small plain where the air isn't poisonous. He had to do it fast before the boulder learned it could fight back his powers. That would cancel out his Shadow Step, and then he would have to deal with a full-alert purple boulder in an unfavorable environment. Thankfully Sunny succeeded, and on the plain there were his Shadows, Saint, Fiend, and Soul Serpent, waiting for him.

When his figure emerged with the boulder Sunny jumped back, and Soul Serpent started its assault. It turned into a humanoid figure. It was a human he killed long, long ago. Kurt. He ordered four of his shadows to wrap around Kurt. Kurt swiftly striked at the lively shadow of the boulder.

The Boulder screeched in pain.

"NOW!"

The boulder unfolded itself showing an arsenal of amethyst claws, spikes, hands, and other tools of torture like death, mostly made of a crystal resembling amethyst.

"Do you think you're intimidating, you, shiny little rock? You're going to be my jewelry."
Somehow the boulder reacted to this, and threw himself at Sunny, but that's actually what he was hoping for. The attack was quickly parried by Fiend, and Onyx Saint. However, none of them attacked. Instead Soul Serpent repeated its attack directed at its shadow.
*Screech*
The hurtful scream cut through the air. Sunny summoned the Shadow Lantern, and released a dome of shadows. But he didn't turn it into a Shadow Shell. Instead, he manifested a set of black tentacles, and wrapped them around the boulder. The grip was tight to not allow much movement.
Fiend, and Saint also tried to hold some of its protrusions to limit its movement.
Soul Serpent cut the boulder's shadow again, and again, inflicting more damage, making it slowly accumulate.
The form of Kurt wasn't very strong. Its abilities were rather comparable to a much weaker version of Jet, when she still was a Master. When Sunny killed him, he was an Awakened after all, and that was the quality of the form assumed by Soul Serpent. It couldn't do anything to a Corrupted Devil, unless it was stronger. Shadow helpers could do that just right.
To this point the only kind of damage the Corrupted Devil sustained was soul damage. The battle could be finished long ago if Sunny decided to harm it physically. Even as a Master he decimated many of them.

The reason was he didn't want to harm it physically. He only wanted to kill it.

Eventually the damage accumulated, and the boulder stopped wrestling. Sunny turned to Soul Serpent ordering it to unleash the finishing blow. He could see Kurt's shadow taking a big swing, and cutting through the Devil's deep shadow.

Soon he felt something entering his shadow core.

[You have slain a Corrupted Devil: Purple Boulder]

[Your shadows grow stronger.]
Sunny dismissed the Extraordinary Rock, and deactivated his Shadow Manifestation. The battle took a very significant amount of his essence. As for the effect the Devil stood here motionlessly, while physically unharmed, but somehow also devoid of life. Breathing, but not willing to do anything. It was a hollow. Nightmare Creature version of a hollow, if he wanted to be precise about the fact the term was referring to the soulless humans. He used to see some.

"Thanks for your work. Now let's move this corpse inside my Coffer before something spots us."

...

When they got away with the corpse Sunny found a well hidden cave, and started working around it. His plan was to turn the corpse into a Memory, something he had never tried before.

Not because it's impossible. It's just the conditions he had to meet first were problematic. First, it has to be a creature that can function as a thing. Most can't. Nightmare creatures are ferocious walking horrors, not tools. Second, that ferocious walking horror has be dead while unharmed. Which is something you basically can't achieve without some special weapons or powers dealing pure soul damage. Such tools or aspects are incredibly rare. Even after using them the collapse of the soul usually leads to the stop of the body functions.

But thankfully there was a Soul Serpent that could use abilities of all creatures whose souls were stored in Sunny's shadow core. If he killed once a healer... He didn't have much luck there. Instead of killing something that offered some utility he killed mostly people that were either brutes, or madmen, or brute madmen, or honorable idiots...

Operating on a living corpse wasn't an entirely new experience for him, but in this particular things were quite unique. For example, he doesn't need to add any nexuses. The soul shards were already inside the stone body. That meant they would be automatically integrated into the Memory the moment he put first enchantments on it.

Meanwhile got involved into a conversation with his shadows.

"How to name it? How to name it? Purple... I don't like that... Black... it isn't black."

Sunny looked at one of his shadow helpers, Naughty in this case.
"Shiny little rock... Wait! That's an insult!"
He was unsure if he still wanted to talk with his shadow helpers. When the boulder stopped being his enemy, belittling it would belittle his own work. And his work deserved some respect.

"Maybe 'Boulder' isn't bad? After all that's what it is. A boulder."

Creepy, and Gloomy showed some scenes of faked death.

"I know it's a corpse, but I don't like that notion. We shouldn't be so direct about its nature. Come on! Don't you like being vague?"
Then he saw some gestures of Crazy. Sunny listened curiously through sight, and grinned a little.
"Okay, that can be. Purple-Eyed Boulder"
He summoned his white brigandine, and started weaving the name. Because of how big the Devil was, that alone took the rest of the essence he possessed. In general the bigger thing the harder it is to turn into a Memory. Because a boulder is an especially big thing, the process is especially hard, but also quite understandable. There are many big objects created by the Spell, like towering Transcendent Echoes. Sunny had to wait for his essence to replenish itself.
He dismissed his Covetous Coffer with shadows inside, and then deactivated the Avatar, turning again into a shadow.

Waiting turned into another session of falling into a boundless abyss of the Sky Below.

Meanwhile he prepared himself mentally for the next step that would follow.

After binding the Purple-Eyed Boulder to his soul Sunny had to do something about its insufferable size. For this he added another enchantment, in this case [Mendacious Coffer], the same one that could let the Covetous Coffer to turn into different shapes, sizes, and resemble different materials. It wasn't of Mordant Mimic so it couldn't work with the Boulder so well, but it could at least help Sunny turn the body of the shapeshifting creature into a chest.

He restrained himself from weaving the rest of enchantments. If he added enchantments for summoning, dismissing, and self-repair, common for all Memories, before turning the Boulder into a chest then it would result in the Memory being locked in its big boulder form defaultly. That's what he learned from his experiments with weaving the chests for Brilliant Emporium. It was better first to form the boulder into desired form, and only then weave the rest of enchantments.

Under the mental commands Sunny managed to hide most abomination inside. He didn't know if it was some kind of contortion, or rather it was from the fact the Boulder he killed seemed to possess some serious space distorting capacities to hide more of volume inside. Regardless of the answer now the towering Boulder had shorter height than Sunny, which made its weave much more reachable. He even managed to turn the surface into symmetrical mosaics of bleak purple stone, and amethyst, and basically it could be opened like a chest.

'Now the hardest part.'

Sunny was sitting on the Shadow Chair, and fell into a whirlpool of work.
He spent a lot of time studying the enchantments of Covetous Coffer in hope to prepare better to turn it into an Echo. They were connected to each other very tightly, which made the task more problematic. The functions of [Mendacious Coffer], [Lurid Trunk], and [Capacious Coffer] can hardly be separated from each other. On top of that all of them extend the bond between the Memory, and its master. The level of complexity required of him to hold the enchantment with many manifested shadows arms.
Even then to be able to complete the enchantments one by one he repeated his feat from when he modified the Kinslayer sword for Nephis. Back then he also had to isolate the enchantments. Only in this case he's going to make an isolated enchantment, next connect it to each other.

Sunny also learned to draw a plan in advance. While his capacity to memorize runes is incredible it's also another limiting factor in his work. Some drafts showing him how he should weave could lessen the mental burden of recalling all the details. He also had a decent idea that such drawings can be crucial for teaching someone how to weave or engaging others in the process of deciphering the runes. With drafts the idea of what the enchantments should look like turned out to be much more clear.

When he weaved the last string he glanced at the monstrous enchantment . He sighed in relief it, and let himself to rest a little. It wasn't the strongest enchantment he transplanted up to this point, but it was seriously enormous, and an ascendent one. The Memory was complete. Not only that. He devised Transcendent versions, which can withstand the pressure of the transcendent soul shard, and utilize its power similarly to the artifacts he had modified in the Third Nightmare.
"The moment of truth."
He dismissed the chest, and summoned again to give [Capacious Coffer] an impulse to activate. He opened the chest and glanced inside.

Spatial storages were governed by strange laws. Normally the difference of air pressures should cause the surrounding air to be sucked inside. The rush of air would affect the surroundings, mundanes would be even killed. What's funny is that it doesn't happen. The enchantment somehow reacts to the differences of air pressure, and prevents the sudden rush of air from happening.

And that's good, because he could enter inside. But he didn't dare to do that without first putting inside one of charms, a modified version of Essence Pearl. Without it even if he could stand the lack of air he would also suffocate miserably so it was crucial to drop it inside, and wait. The modification to the Pearl encompassed turning it into an item that generates a lot of air, and releases into the surroundings instead of just making a small 'mask' that makes, and keeps the air in his mouth. Sunny called it [Quintessence Pearl].

He made some of these. The enchantment was pretty simple, and yet it could provide a lot of breathable air for many big rooms, and even open spaces. He used some during his recruitment in the park hoping to encourage people to show themselves, and also placed a few in his Covetous Coffer so everyone could safely breathe inside.

Even though he still didn't dare to enter inside. Before the pearl produced enough air it would take a lot of time. Especially because the room was very vast. Sunny didn't exactly see it. It was dark so he could perceive it only through his Shadow Sense, but he could tell the boundaries were of the very vast shadow. It was so huge, even bigger than the insides of his [Covetous Coffer]. Not only the space inside was proportional to the capacity of his cores, but also the ratio between the two was much more...

"Brilliant"

His face froze in a strange expression between a mischievous grin, and a bright smile.

One would wonder why Sunny needed another spatial storage. One storage would seem to be enough. However recently there was an inconvenience caused by taking apprentices. Every time they came to work on mastering Diamond Weave, and dig out soul shards from them, the Covetous Coffer would be in NQSC. During that time the same storage couldn't be used to throw Nightmare Creatures, which limited his ability to gather more corpses.

Also the preparations to make a storage were a safety measure he decided to take before turning [Covetous Coffer] into an Echo, and then Shadow. There are many alien things about this goal, and possible consequences he has to take into an account. For example, it's very possible that somewhere along the way the enchantments from that Memory would be lost. If he didn't master them before making an Echo, Sunny could be at another loss. Not even to mention that learning this kind of an enchantment was another milestone in his aspirations as a sorcerer.

But there are also different organizational problems to it. He's going to introduce soldiers into picture, the veterans of the Antarctica Campaign. It's a promise he has given to Kim. It's important to keep it. The sooner the better. The preparations are almost finished, and the plan to mass-produce Awakened will be soon put to work.As a matter of fact he could start already. 
There's just a single puzzle he's still missing...