Sunny's First Nightmare

Fanart by T9

## Participants

Sunny

**Sunny's First Nightmare** is the event after Sunny, who was already infected with the Nightmare Spell, fell asleep after a week of resisting.

## Nightmare Creatures

**[Awakened Tyrant]**.A creature at least four meters tall, had two stumpy legs, an emaciated, hunched torso, and disproportionately long, multijointed hands — two of them, each ending with a set of horrifying bone claws, and another two, these ones shorter, ending with almost human-like fingers. Its fur was yellowish-grey, ragged, and thick enough to stop arrows and swords.Its head had five milky, white eyes and a half-open terrible maw crowding with razor-sharp teeth. Viscous drool was running down the creature's chin. The strange shapes were endlessly moving, worm-like, under the creature's skin.The tyrant can transform the corpse human it killed into a dormant beast, Mountain King's Larva.

## History

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.

### Prelude

After Sunny fell into a deep sleep, he was welcomed by the Spell. 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.

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.

### The Trial

The caravan stopped to rest and soldiers gave the slaves food and water. 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. The remaining larva were decimated by the young soldier and the slaves free themselves using the given key.

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. 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.

Since the road was gone, they were traversing the rough mountain slope. 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. After shifty's disappearance, they have come to the conclusion that the Mountain King is following them by the scent of blood. Due to this, the hero decided to kill the scholar first due his revolting crimes. When he was about to kill Sunny, the hero suddenly vomited blood, revealing that Sunny poisoned the water they drank.

  ― Sunny to Hero,Chapter 13 Moment of Truth

Sunny shook the bell and remained hidden in the shadows. 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.

## Aftermath

* 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.
* His final appraisal is "*Glorious*" and was bestowed a True Name, "*Lost from Light*".
* Evolved Dormant Aspect "*Temple Slave*" to a Divine Aspect "*Shadow Slave*".

## Trivia

* 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.
* 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.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Chapter 1 Nightmare Begins
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Chapter 2 Slave Caravan
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 3 The Strings of Fate
4. ↑ Chapter 4 Mountain King
5. ↑ Chapter 5 Mountain King
6. ↑ Chapter 7 Three Slaves and a Hero
7. ↑ Chapter 8 Nothing at All
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 9 Wishful Thinking
9. ↑ Chapter 10 First Man Down
10. ↑ Chapter 11 Crossroads
11. ↑ Chapter 12 The Smell of Blood
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 13 Moment of Truth
13. ↑ Chapter 14 Child of Shadows
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 15 Shadow Slave