Shadow Slave

Not too long after both of them woke up, Sunny found himself sitting on the stone floor, leaning on Neph's bed... while she danced with the Blessing.

Honestly, he was feeling a little neglected. The damned sword seemed to have stolen all her attention. Still, he had gotten the opportunity to watch Neph's lithe body move through the fluid motions of a beautiful sword dance, instead...

That, at least, was a consolation.

Of course, she was not really dancing — she was performing swift sequences of attacks and defensive movements to get acquainted with the soul sword. However, her style had always been graceful and fluid, so she might as well have been.

Her white tunic flew and fluttered with every swift motion, contouring the supple lines of her slender body, and her silver hair shone beautifully in the radiant sunlight. The lustrous blade was like a splendid haze, dancing alongside her.

It was quite a lovely view.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Sunny was still utterly drained and exhausted after forging the Blessing. It was hard to keep track of time in Godgrave, but the process had lasted many days, testing the limits of his physical and mental endurance both. So, for now, he allowed himself to relax and enjoy the sight.

His thoughts drifted lazily to what he had learned about the silver longsword.

Nephis had given him an opportunity to study the Blessing — impatient to try it out as she might have been — before pulling the sword out of his hands. She had also shared most of the information provided to her by the runes.

All except for the description... she seemed strangely reluctant to talk about that part of it.

Now that the Blessing had been Bound to Nephis and became an Attribute, a literal part of her being, it was not a Memory anymore. Therefore, Sunny could not see its weave... only he could, somewhat, due to a special trait of one of the enchantments he had woven. Having personally turned the Dawn Shard into the Crown of Dawn — a Supreme Memory of immense power — he did not wish to lose the potential synergy between his two great creations. So, he made sure that the Blessing retained some traits of a Memory while becoming an Attribute, and could thus be augmented by Neph‘s crown.

So, he was able to confirm that the Spell had indeed improved upon his design, bringing its various elements together like a binding agent... much like his blood had done to the ingredients of the blessed alloy. He was going to need some time to truly understand what changes it had made, but Sunny had no doubt. He would be able to master the crafting of soulbound Memories — no, shadowbound Memories — before too long.

The difference between the two was subtle, and not entirely important. In the end, Sunny did not manage to repeat what Nether had done — instead, he invented his own way of achieving the same result.

What mattered was that the Binding ended in success. One of the seven enchantments that the Blessing possessed was named accordingly, [Bound] — functionally the same as the trait of his Mantle. It made the silver longsword equal in Rank and Class to the soul of its wielder, meaning that at the moment, the Blessing was akin to a Transcendent Memory of the Seventh Tier.

Apart from being [Bound], it possessed two core and four auxiliary enchantments.

The fundamental enchantment of the silver longsword shared the name with the original blade that served as its source — the Dream Blade... a fitting name for a weapon meant to be wielded by a Dreamspawn, and earned by her for slaying herself to destroy a dream in the depths of a Nightmare.

The [Dream Blade] enchantment governed the form of the Blessing. Just like the Mantle possessed two forms — one passive, one active — so did the fiery sword. In its dormant state, the Blessing slumbered in Neph's soul and bestowed several boons upon her.

Among them were increased resistance against soul attacks — now drastically more powerful than the original enchantment of the Dream Blade — as well as an increased rate of both soul essence replenishment and spirit essence absorption.

That last one... was curious. Sunny was not entirely sure how it functioned, but he had an idea. Neph's source element was the longing she inspired in other people, and therefore, the more people were moved by her, the more plentiful the currents of her spirit essence grew. The [Dream Blade] obviously did not increase the number of those who had awoken to a deep yearning because of Nephis...

But if Sunny's guess was correct, it did allow her to draw power from their dreams. In other words, the people ensnared by the web of her nascent Domain were adding to the stream of spirit essence even when they slept.

Which was strange and astonishing simply due to the fact that Sunny had neither woven such an enchantment, nor knew how to weave it. Either the Spell added such a trait to the [Dream Blade] enchantment... or the Blessing itself did, already realizing the potential to learn Sunny had imbued it with.

In either case, it was a welcome surprise. One could never have enough essence, and this ability would only grow more powerful once Nephis became a Saint and fully manifested her Domain, turning a stream of spirit essence into a raging torrent.

For now, though, it was merely a pleasant bonus.

Needless to say, the Blessing was quite like the Mantle as far as augmenting it went, too. Since it was a part of Nephis, augmenting her body meant augmenting the Blessing, as well; therefore, all these traits would only grow stronger and more pronounced for as long as she was wreathed in the beautiful radiance of the soul flame.

That was true for the dormant form of the Blessing, and for its awakened form, as well.

Once the silver blade awoke, naturally, it assumed the shape of a tangible sword.

Wielding the sword, Nephis lost the benefits of having it slumbering in her soul. However, she gained access to its remaining five enchantments, instead.

That concluded the effects of the first of the two core traits of the Blessing.

The four auxiliary enchantments were all formidable in their own regard, too.

They were [Flame Conduit], [Purifying Light], [Change]... and [Ruin].

Shadow Slave

2062 Sacrificial Blade

[Flame Conduit] was perhaps one of the most straightforward enchantments of the Blessing, as well as one of the most consistently impactful. Although other traits of the soul sword were more astounding, Sunny was secretly proud of this one the most.

It had two functions. One allowed the Blessing to serve as a fulcrum for Neph's flames, channeling them in a more compressed and focused manner. In other words, she could use the Blessing to control fire more easily or produce jets of flame — rays of light, maybe — that were narrow and sharp enough to slice apart the most durable of tangible objects.

This was especially useful because these rays had much greater length and reach than the blade of the sword itself. Since Sunny and Nephis often faced enemies of a much greater size than their own, such an ability was exceedingly convenient to possess on the battlefield.

The second function was more subtle, but had been infinitely more difficult to weave into existence. It drew upon the nature of the blessed alloy and the innate affinity of the soul sword to Neph's soul flame, increasing the efficiency of her Dormant Ability when applied to the Blessing.

Simply put, it made the result of augmenting the silver longsword greater without affecting the potency of the Ability itself. The increase was not too drastic, perhaps adding a few tenths to the overall strength of enhancement... for now, at least. Sunny hoped that as the Blessing grew more powerful, this function of the [Flame Conduit] would evolve further, as well.

Needless to say, such an enhancement was a real boon, especially because it did not demand an additional cost to be paid. Even though it did not double the efficacy of the soul flame augmentation, it still increased it by a considerable amount... and if Nephis poured more of her flame onto the soul sword, the effects would only mount.

Sunny was quite satisfied with himself greatly for achieving this feat. That pattern of the overall spellweave had been incredibly intricate and complicated, having demanded a similarly stunning amount of effort to design.

The [Purifying Light], in comparison... was not something he could take full credit for. It was another enchantment that differed from his original design.

The soul sword would grow stronger and more deadly when wielded against creatures who had succumbed to Corruption, as if its light was antithetical to the appalling darkness dwelling within their souls. Purifying it... in a quite final manner.

The [Change] was rather simple when compared to the other two auxiliary enchantments... or simply familiar, perhaps. It allowed the Blessing to change both shape and form.

However, there was another quality to the [Change]. It also allowed the Blessing to shift between states — be it steel, liquid metal, compressed flame, or even pure light. Nephis would have to explore the ramifications of that ability herself and find proper uses for each of the states, but its most important boon was quite obvious.

It was that the Blessing could merge with her Transcendent form in its flaming and radiant states, thus imbuing her with its traits and enchantments — similar to how Serpent could fuse with Shadow Shells Sunny created to grant them its.

This gave Nephis a choice on how to use the Blessing while Transformed — whether to wield it in her hand, or simply make it a part of her hand, as well as of her entire radiant body.

Finally, the last of the four auxiliary traits was [Ruin]. That one... the soul sword seemed to have inherited from the black arrow Sunny had sacrificed to create the blessed alloy.

Bearing a breath of the Shadow Realm and the echo of the killing intent of its mysterious inhabitant, the Blessing had attained a death will of its own. It was very much like the [Slaying Blade] Ability of the Soul Serpent, making the soul sword more lethal to those beings who were able to bend the world to their will... albeit much weaker.

Most of it would still depend on Neph's own murderous will, of course, but the sword itself was going to enhance her lethality. Sunny was not worried about the quality of her killing intent, really, considering that Nephis had been preaching murder from the days they were both teenagers. But every little bit helped, not that the [Ruin] was that little of a boon.

This one, he had designed himself in its entirely. And although it was not as consistently useful as the [Flame Conduit], at the end of the day, it was utterly and undeniably more vital.

Because it was an enchantment meant to tip the scales of those dire battles where everything that could go wrong went wrong, and Nephis was pushed to her very limit. The battles against the truly powerful foes... the ones that mattered the most.

It increased the power and lethality of the Blessing in direct proportion to how heavily Neph's soul was damaged.

That went well with the essence of her Transcendent Battle Art, of course, and would be useful against enemies capable of wounding and destroying the souls of living beings.

But fundamentally, the [Blessing of the Fire] was aimed at something else.

It was aimed at Nephis herself, and her ability to burn her soul in order to ignite with incredible power. Like she had done in Twilight, and while escaping from the clutches of Condemnation as well. Neph's self—sacrificial act of igniting her soul was a form of dealing direct damage to it, too.

So, if she ever had to mutilate her own soul severely — meaning that she had faced a truly overwhelming enemy — the sword would become exponentially more powerful the worse the state of her soul became. If she sacrificed one soul core... two, three, six of them... it would grow stronger and stronger, until its power reached a limit that even Sunny was afraid to imagine.

And that was it, the sword he had created.

A beautiful sword.

A deadly sword...

And would cut down the Sovereigns much sooner.

Sunny sighed.

It was worth the effort.

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