Sunny wanted to use the Grace of Shadows Ability of Soul Serpent to bestow it upon Revel.

There were two reasons why he had chosen to make that decision, each of equal importance.

The first one was pretty obvious, and had already been touched upon by Revel. He had to make arrangements for the Shadow Clan before leaving, the main of which was the fate of the Forgotten Shore.

Sunny and his forces were entrenched there, holding their own against the Barrow Wraiths. With Saint becoming Supreme, he was able to push the abominations back to the border of the Burning Forest — but if Sunny went away, the line of defense would collapse. In fact, if he did not take some kind of measures, the line of defense would simply cease to exist.

The members of the Shadow Clan would find it difficult to travel between the Forgotten Shore and other lands of the Dream Realm, as well, not to mention between the Dream Realm and Earth. Since establishing a safe route through the Underworld seemed impossible at the moment, all they would be able to rely on were Revel and the Nameless Temple.

In any case, the simplest decision seemed to be to give up on the Forgotten Shore and relocate his forces somewhere else. Sunny was tempted to do just that, as well... but ultimately, he felt compelled to fight for his lightless demesne. He had invested too much effort into making it his stronghold, as well as a secret sanctuary for humanity. More than that, giving it up felt like the first domino in a vicious chain of defeat.

The Forgotten Shore was not just any region of the Dream Realm, after all — it was the entire northern frontline of humanity's fight against the encroaching Nightmare. If it fell, all other human lands would feel the pressure eventually, if not soon enough.

Both on a strategic and personal level, the Forgotten Shore was important to Sunny. So, he had chosen to make sure that it remained in human hands... which meant that he had to come up with a way for humans to defend it even in his absence. The question of how to go about that, however, was innately connected to the second reason he was leaving Serpent in Revel's hands.

It was the Fifth Nightmare itself.

No person of the waking world had ever conquered it, and even in history, there were few examples. Sunny only knew of one — of Ketzelkan and other rulers of Mictlan, who had managed to become deities, but seemed to have lost themselves in the process of Apotheosis and ended up destroying their own people.

He knew that people of the Storm Realm, the Twilight Sea, had never produced a Spirit. It was unknown how the scions of the Beast Realm and Heart Realm had fared, but none of them managed to survive the spreading Nightmare, so it was safe to say that their achievements had been ultimately proven insufficient.

In short, there was scarcely any information about what the Fifth Nightmare entailed. The only pieces of knowledge they did possess came from Eurys and, to a larger degree, from the Dreamspawn — and gods knew where he had unearthed that information.

According to the Dreamspawn, Sunny's very own Domain — as well as all his powers and tools — would be turned against him in the Fifth Nightmare. They would, or at least could, become an obstacle instead of helping him pass the trial.

So, even if it felt counterintuitive, Sunny's intuition was telling him that unburdening himself from as much power as possible would aid him in achieving Apotheosis, as well as maintaining a measure of control over who he would become as a result of it.

Apart from that, doing so felt oddly fitting. The Fifth Nightmare would most likely become the most dire trial of his entire perilous life. Stripping all superfluous advantages and facing it as close to his pure self as possible felt like the kind of resolve he needed in order to survive it.

That meant that Sunny had to leave some, if not all, of his Shadows behind. If it was possible, he also had to reduce the number of shades populating his soul.

As much as he hated the idea of parting with his loyal followers, that also lay in line with his overall goals. Sunny's true goal was not to conquer the Fifth Nightmare or become a deity, after all — those were merely measures he had to take in order to achieve it. What he really wanted was to make sure that humanity survived the apocalypse.

There was no point in becoming a god if all of mankind was gone by the time he did, and leaving his Shadows to guard the strongholds of humanity would diminish the possibility of all humans perishing. Those Supremes who were staying behind could certainly use all the help they could get — and Sunny’s powerful Shadows could be of immense help.

The question, however, was... would Sunny even be able to leave them in the real world? When his body, spirit, and soul entered the Seed of Nightmare, would the Spell graciously allow the inhabitants of his soul to stay?

Sunny did not know, but he suspected that it would. Others were able to leave their Memories behind, after all — so why couldn't he do the same with Shadows? The problem was that his Shadows could not exist without him. They drew their power from him, returned to the nurturing embrace of his soul to recover and heal from the wounds they received, and in some cases relied on him for sustenance.

So even if Sunny did leave them behind, their usefulness to the effort of preserving humanity would be limited, and there was a real possibility that they would be destroyed.

Because his Shadows were not independent beings. As Eurys had said once, they were not yet complete.

Sunny had not known how to make them complete before, but after venturing into the Underworld and recovering Shadow Weave, he had come up with a theory.

That theory had been developed further and tested in the month following that dreadful expedition, and now, finally, Sunny was ready to put it into practice.

On the eve of departing for a dreadful Nightmare...

He was preparing to grant his Shadows freedom.

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