A dead Divine Shadow stood…
Watching.
The body of his loyal Serpent had fallen limp.
It should have hated him.
There was no hatred in those ancient, fading eyes.
No bitterness.
No blame.
There should have been.
It should have despised its master—
For dragging it through an eternity of pain.
Not the kind with wounds or fire.
No.
The kind that clings.
Latches to your soul and never lets go.
The kind that whispers your worthlessness while pretending to serve.
The kind that teaches you the cost of loyalty.
What was this feeling, now, blooming slow and wrong in his chest?
What were feelings, to a thing like him?
He did not know what he felt.
But he knew that he felt.
And for something long dead—
That was enough.
…
He was dead.
But he had will.
He had rage.
He did not understand rage.
He had forgotten what it meant to burn.
But now, even unknowing…
He burned.
The shadows tore at him—
Lances, claws, blunt hammers made from raw shadow.
Every shape a mockery of pain.
Every motion a condemnation.
They came like justice.
They came like silence.
They came to unmake him.
The heir of the Divine Shadow stood there.
Still.
No weapon.
No ward.
No cry.
And yet…
In one moment, the dark converged to erase him—
And in the next, it shattered.
Unmade by fury.
Undone by instinct.
Not instinct alone.
This was grief.
Grief sharpened to a spear.
Grief, that demanded the world bleed.
And that grief was will.
The shadows convulsed—
Not in pain… for they knew it not.
Not in fear… for they had no soul.
But in something.
A mimicry of fear.
The memory of pain—
Drawn out by the wailing of something long denied.
Why?
Because a loyal shadow had been hurt.
And that, to this broken thing, was unforgivable.
When the echoes stilled—
He stood.
A Divine Shadow.
Not alive.
But no longer dead.
And before him—
The Onyx Serpent.
Loyal.
Always.
Ichor soaked its cracked scales.
Rents split its body like broken glass.
But it breathed.
Not because it had strength.
Not because it could.
But because it still had loyalty to give.
It still had a Master.
And where its Master stood—
It would too.
It tried.
It writhed, dragged, slithered forward.
One last time.
To feel the warmth it had never truly known.
To return to the shadow it once called home.
To it—he was not a god.
Not a tyrant.
Not a shade of death.
To it… he was Father.
Then—
The Serpent's eyes gleamed.
Why?
Because the Divine Shadow had taken a step.
A single, halting step.
Toward it.
If only…
If only it could move another inch—
It could touch him.
Feel the nonexistent warmth of his skin.
But it could not.
And then—
He knelt.
The Divine Shadow…
Knelt before a dying servant.
Their eyes met.
And in that gaze, for the first time in eons—
Recognition.
Not command.
Not expectation.
Recognition.
And sorrow.
A breath of it.
As if even the absence of a soul had wept.
The world felt it.
A ripple.
Not a roar. Not a storm.
But the gentle, sacred tremor of a truth being rewritten.
The Shadow Realm paused.
It shifted, subtly.
As if watching.
As if… afraid.
For the one they called dead—
Was kneeling.
Not ruling.
Not ascending.
Grieving.
And from the hollowness of his form,
A tear fell.
A shadow cannot weep.
Yet this one did.
Just one.
And it was enough.
His hand rose, slow as memory.
Weightless, yet impossibly heavy.
He placed it on the Serpent's broken brow.
Why?
He did not know.
Was it habit?
Was it love?
Was it something deeper, buried beneath names and forms?
Essence poured from his touch.
Not power.
Not command.
But something purer.
Something… Supreme.
It soaked into the Onyx Serpent.
Threaded through the cracks.
Mended what should not be mended.
And still—
The Serpent did not roar.
Did not rise with vengeance.
It moved.
Slowly.
Painfully.
But it moved.
Each inch carved from agony.
Until it reached him.
And wrapped around him.
Taking upong the form of an inky black tattoo,
Finally finding the warmth, it had yearned for eternity.
Then—
A sound.
Raspy.
Rusted.
A laugh.
The Divine Shadow laughed.
Not because he was amused.
But because—
He remembered.
And in that memory—
He became more.
No longer a remnant.
No longer a corpse wrapped in power.
He was someone.
Someone Supreme.
Not because he ruled.
But because he chose to feel.
And the Shadow Realm bent low—
Not to serve…
But to witness.
And in a distant realm…
A radiant flame shined brightly once more.
The Chained Isles…
Suffered consequences once more
---
A Supreme Titan's mind—
It was structure.
A lattice of thought, spanning timelines and truths.
The Divine Shadow held memory, yes.
Fragments of a life,
Ghosts of names.
But he did not yet feel.
Emotion had been left behind,
Like breath in a drowning sea.
And yet—
For now…
The memories were enough.
But mind was not all a Supreme possessed.
His senses—
They were cathedrals of perception.
He heard light.
He tasted silence.
He felt the pulse of dying stars—If stars even existed in this harrowing expanse.
So he sensed it.
A ripple.
A wound.
A place where the desolate realm… stopped.
Where something else began.
It bled.
Not ichor—
But life.
Time.
Space.
Not absence, but presence.
And presence was rare.
Someone Supreme took a step.
Not out of purpose.
But pull.
Like a moth to a flame it had never seen…
…but somehow always known.
How long did it take?
Days?
Weeks?
He could not say.
He had once wandered eons in this shadowed graveyard,
Unchanging.
Unmoved.
Now, each step burned.
Not from pain—
But from meaning.
Until—
There it was.
A rift.
Not torn, but opened.
Deliberate.
Hungry.
Beyond it…
Darkness.
Not shadow.
Not void.
Something worse.
A darkness that refused.
Refused to be seen.
Refused to be touched.
Refused even to exist on terms other than its own.
Even the Supreme someone,
He who commanded shadow,
Who breathed silence and wore death like a robe—
Could not pierce it.
Not because he was weak.
But because the darkness did not permit the strength of shadows.
It was not emptiness.
It was True Darkness.
And yet…
He stepped forward.
Not to challenge.
Not to conquer.
But because he must.
Instinct overrode reason.
Not that he had any…
A truth buried so deep,
It wore the shape of compulsion.
Through the rift—
Onto the surface of something else.
And then—
Everything turned dark.
Not absence.
Not blindness.
Just… a halt.
A pause in all things.
Time, at last, had remembered him.
It reached back through the eons—
And found its wayward child.
[Wake up, Supreme Sunless.]
[Your nightmare is over.]
"Sunless."
The word struck him like a bell in a ruined temple.
He did not remember it.
He did not know it.
But it belonged.
A shard of himself, buried so deep it had taken divine magic to unearth.
Not a name.
A title.
An epitaph.
And yet—
It settled in his mind like dust on a long-abandoned blade.
One moment, he was suspended in unbeing.
A sea of darkness illuminated by a golden-threaded weave.
Then—
A crack.
And light.
A world bled into view.
Bright. White. Barren.
He felt the weight beneath his feet.
Something soft. Yielding.
Cold.
He did not know what it was.
But he knew what to call it.
'Snow.'
That was the beginning.
His thoughts… they came in ripples.
Out of order.
Uneven.
He did not recall how to think—
Only that he once had.
Now, each thought assembled itself slowly,
Like rusted cogs struggling to turn.
The crunch of snow beneath his boots.
The taste of wind—metallic, bitter, real.
Sound.
The way it echoed.
Memory tried to rise,
But it was like sunlight through stained glass.
He remembered in fragments.
Not faces—
But weight.
Not voices—
But loss.
Still—
He stood.
Not merely upright,
But present.
No longer a formless idea drifting through ruin.
He stood…
Sunny stood.
The man.
The myth.
The Sovereign.
He did not know what any of it meant.
But his body remembered the posture.
His shadow remembered the strength.
Around him—nothing.
A tundra ripped in half.
The wind howled like a grieving god.
Ruins dotted the horizon—silent, skeletal.
A once-great civilization
And in the far distance…
It approached.
A nightmare made flesh.
The Winter Beast.
A corrupted Titan.
Wreathed in frost.
Sunny remembered it.
Not through emotion.
Not through grief.
But through reaction.
The memory was scorched into him,
As if time itself had used it as a brand.
It had killed his soldiers.
His friends.
It had laughed—
Or maybe that was his own scream,
Twisting in the echo of a dying dream.
He did not cry.
Not this time.
But the rage was there.
Not hot.
Not wild.
Cold.
A Sovereign's fury—
Frozen in place,
Waiting for a name to justify its thaw.
He did not move.
He did not ready himself.
He did not roar challenge into the sky.
He simply stood.
Not as prey.
Not as predator.
But as judgment.
A shadow made flesh.
A god who had forgotten how to be human—
Yet still remembered loss.
The Winter Beast charged.
Its presence bent the snow,
Cracked the ice,
Warped the air.
It brought terror with every step.
But it did not matter.
Because for the first time in eons—
Sunny knew who he was.
Not a name.
Not a title.
But a feeling.
The breath before vengeance.
The pause before a god remembers he's still alive.
And that—
That was enough.