Chapter 601 Kingdom Of Hope
Sunny experiences a vivid dream, a surreal panorama of the Chained Isles, a fragmented world connected by colossal chains above a star-dusted abyss. A massive tear in space dominates the center, with a lone island bearing a white pagoda floating above it. Time itself unravels and rewinds in his dream, shifting the landscape from desolate ruins to a thriving aerial city, the Ivory Tower descending to its heart. The dream ends with a glimpse of a fortress and an arena, before Sunny finds himself plunged into a river, on an island with a strange statue.
Thrust into the river, Sunny struggles against an overwhelming current, but his body inexplicably refuses to obey his will. His limbs move erratically, and his senses are disoriented, leaving him sinking and panicking. He realizes this is no ordinary possession, unlike previous encounters, and fears Master Jet’s warnings about the Spell’s chosen vessels. As his lungs burn and vision darkens, Sunny ceases his futile struggle and instead focuses his shadow sense, teleporting to the riverbank near the statue.
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Coughing violently, Sunny finds even breathing a challenge, his lungs refusing to function properly. Sprawled on the ground, he forces himself to clear his mind, trusting that the instincts of this new body, and his own nascent ones, will guide him. As if a switch is flipped, his body begins to breathe, filling his lungs with air and restoring his vigor. He lingers, catching his breath, and begins to consider the nature of the vessel the Spell has bestowed upon him.
Chapter 602 Swarm Of Shadows
Struggling against an unseen force, Sunny finds his borrowed body unresponsive, his every instinct screaming danger. As he sinks, he realizes this is no mere possession, but a profound alteration by the Spell, a chilling echo of Master Jet’s warnings. Focusing his shadow sense, he teleports to the riverbank, gasping for air, his new lungs struggling to function. Slowly, a primal awareness awakens, guiding him to breathe and regain control, prompting a contemplation of the vessel’s true nature.
Before he can fully process his situation, Sunny is confronted by a vision of Solvane, a radiant woman promising a glorious death. The realization dawns that he has been thrust into an illusory past, and this beautiful figure is the very same ghastly creature he previously encountered. Overwhelmed by pity for the tormented soul she will become, Sunny is also gripped by fear. Her glowing soul core reveals her as a Saint, a terrifying prospect for one so vulnerable.
“Run!” is Sunny’s sole thought as he attempts to escape into the shadows. However, Solvane’s swift and inescapable grip halts him, her hold like iron. With no other recourse, he summons a ghostly stiletto, inflicting a minor scratch on her perfect skin. Solvane’s reaction is one of morbid fascination, her luminous eyes glistening as she utters, “Is this fate, then? A sacrifice of blood was made, on the altar of War. Little shadowspawn, how special you are!” Her enigmatic smile is the last thing Sunny sees before a blinding explosion of pain engulfs him, plunging him back into the familiar solace of shadows.
Chapter 603 Menagerie Of Monsters
Sunny awakens in a new form, his senses overwhelmed by a world rendered in shades of grey. The cage’s bars, however, prove an unexpected obstacle, nullifying his shadow sense and preventing any attempt to Shadow Step. Despite his multiple hands and enhanced strength, the iron bars resist his physical efforts. Desperate, he attempts to summon his Memories, the Cruel Sight and the Midnight Shard, but to his horror, they fail to manifest. The runes that usually display his abilities are also gone, leaving him with the chilling realization that he is completely severed from the Spell, as if all his power has been stolen.
“What… what is going on…” Sunny mutters, panic rising as he repeatedly tries and fails to summon any of his Memories. His steel collar feels colder than ever, a stark reminder of his powerlessness. The thought of being cut off from the Spell is a horrifying nightmare, leaving him stunned and unable to comprehend how such a thing could even be possible.
Trapped and stripped of his abilities, Sunny is left to ponder the implications of this unprecedented predicament. The previous encounter with the radiant, yet terrifying, Solvane now seems like a distant dream compared to the stark reality of his current confinement. With his powers gone, Sunny is forced to confront a new level of vulnerability, questioning the very nature of his existence and the Nightmare he has fallen into.
Chapter 604 Shadow Gladiator
Stripped of his powers and thrust into a desolate grey world, Sunny finds himself a captive, his physical strength useless against the iron bars of his confinement. The chilling realization that his connection to the Spell is severed, leaving his Memories and abilities inaccessible, plunges him into a state of terror. The memory of Solvane, once a formidable foe, now feels like a distant concern compared to his current, absolute powerlessness, leaving him to question his very existence within this Nightmare.
His predicament worsens as Sunny discovers he is in a colosseum, an arena of death where slaves, predominantly monstrous beasts, fight for a bizarrely joyous and proud crowd chanting “Glory!” Three fearsome beasts, eerily similar to Dread Wolves, are unleashed upon him. To his astonishment, Sunny perceives their soul cores not as luminous spheres but as swirling masses of darkness, a horrifying revelation confirming they are Nightmare Creatures. This unsettling sight reminds him of the rot he witnessed in the Ebony Tower.
Despite his alien body and nudity, Sunny’s shadow manipulation, a fragment of his Aspect, miraculously remains functional. He commands the shadows to engulf him, his might and speed quadrupling, allowing him to strike one of the charging wolves. However, his struggle to control this unfamiliar form makes his movements clumsy, yet he manages to sink his claws into the beast’s flesh as the crowd roars.
Chapter 605 Hideous Demon
Despite the suffocating silence of the Spell, Sunny finds himself able to absorb shadow fragments, a testament to his Aspect’s resilience even with his Soul Sea inaccessible. He realizes his connection to the Spell is severed by the collar, yet his core abilities remain, including shadow augmentation and a limited Shadow Step. This revelation sparks a flicker of hope, and he summons the Soul Serpent, manifesting as an intricate tattoo on his obsidian skin. “So you are here as well, buddy…” he murmurs, finding solace in the presence of Saint, his resurrected companion. Together, they possess a fearsome potential, and Sunny steps into the next enclosure with renewed confidence.
The new arena is already a scene of carnage. Two humans, a younger Awakened and an older, mundane warrior, desperately battle a swarm of swift, lizard-like creatures. The ground is littered with the mangled bodies of their companions, a gruesome testament to the Nightmare Creatures’ ferocity. Sunny observes the swirling darkness within the gremlins’ soul cores, confirming they are Awakened, much like the wolves he faced. As the older warrior succumbs, his last words urging the younger to take his sword, the crowd erupts in their familiar chant: “Glory! Glory! Glory!”
The remaining gremlins turn their attention to the sole survivor, a youth whose light blue eyes burn with a mixture of pain, sorrow, and hatred. He is overwhelmed, yet before he can fully grasp his loss, the abominations surge forward. Sunny watches, his nascent power thrumming, aware that his own survival, and perhaps the fate of these desperate humans, now hangs precariously in the balance of this brutal, blood-soaked colosseum.
Chapter 606 Fate Of A Slave
Sunny, now a hulking shadow creature, approaches the terrified young Awakened warrior. The youth, having just witnessed his mentor’s demise, calls Sunny a demon and a “barbarous beast” as Sunny crudely adorns himself with a tattered tunic, awkwardly accommodating his new form. Sunny’s pain flares as he senses his mental Flaw resurface, only for it to dissipate when he consciously suppresses it. He discovers he can understand the youth’s language, a vestige of the lost Spell, allowing a rudimentary interaction.
When the youth questions his nature, identifying him as possibly “Shadow’s kin,” Sunny dismisses the notion with a shake of his head and points to Saint, the Soul Serpent coiled on his skin. This gesture only deepens the youth’s confusion, as he muses about gods and enemies, still mistaking Sunny’s allegiance. The young Awakened, still holding his sword in a defensive stance, warns Sunny to stay away.
The interaction between the hulking, monstrous Sunny and the desperate, surviving youth highlights the brutal uncertainty of their situation within the colosseum. Sunny’s growing awareness of his own cursed existence, coupled with the youth’s fear and confusion, sets the stage for a dangerous, potentially tragic alliance against the encroaching horde.
Chapter 607 Shifting Sand
Caged in the suffocating darkness of the dungeon, Sunny grapples with his monstrous new form and the chilling implications of the Spell’s pronouncements. He speculates on the identity of the fifth challenger, his thoughts immediately turning to Mordret, the Prince of Nothing. Sunny deduces Mordret must have found a way to enter the Nightmare, perhaps by hiding within a reflection, and wonders if his presence in a Terror’s body could be an unexpected advantage, especially if Mordret still possessed the ivory knife.
However, the possibility of Mordret turning into an enemy within this hellish environment fills Sunny with dread. He recalls Master Jet’s warnings about clashing ideals among those who attempt the Spell’s trials, and Mordret’s unpredictable nature, characterized by an unsettling emptiness in his eyes, makes him a terrifying wildcard. The recent events have also sparked a profound question in Sunny: if his Aspect remained unaffected by his transformation and disconnection from the Spell, does it exist independently of it?
These existential ponderings are punctuated by the raw agony of his own injuries, reminders of his recent brutal fight in the arena. The horde of Nightmare Creatures waiting their turn to be slaughtered outside his cell underscores the grim reality of their shared fate, where both abominations and humans are mere fodder in the face of inevitable demise.
Chapter 608 Reincarnated As A Demonic Gladiator In A Magical World
Sunny faces a brutal second day in the coliseum, his demonic form proving a difficult but increasingly familiar prison. He battles a stone gargoyle, his new monstrous strength evident as he tears through its flesh and impales it on arena spikes, the visceral combat a testament to his ongoing adaptation. This day’s trials are far deadlier, as surviving the previous day has elevated him and the Awakened youth to face opponents who have also won seven consecutive fights, the true elite of the enslaved combatants.
The sheer ferocity of the matches tests Sunny’s limits, but his practiced adaptability, honed by Nephis’s teachings and the Shadow Dance, allows him to better control his terrifying new physicality. He senses the young Awakened struggling nearby, the youth’s rudimentary sword proving useless against their formidable stone foe. Sunny intervenes, snatching the gargoyle from behind and, with immense effort, smashes it against the arena wall, a display of raw power that earns him the crowd’s brutal adoration.
Exhausted and injured, Sunny witnesses the Awakened youth approach, his companion noting Sunny’s evident distress. “Demon, you… you don’t look too well,” the youth observes, his own struggles highlighting the dire situation. The stark reality of their elevated status in the arena, facing only the strongest of foes, weighs heavily, pushing Sunny towards a desperate gamble for survival.
Chapter 609 Glory
Sunny tears apart a Chain Worm, a creature resistant to metal but vulnerable to his demonic claws and shadow abilities. Augmented by three shadows, he dismantles the Rank 2 abomination with relative ease, a feat far simpler than his previous encounter with Master Pierce. The crowd erupts in brutal adoration at his ruthless efficiency. He then turns to the young Awakened, pushing the three hard-won soul shards into his hands. “Don’t you want to consume them yourself?” the youth hesitantly asks. Sunny simply nods, ensuring his partner grows stronger, knowing he’ll desperately need healing.
The duo advances through the coliseum, facing increasingly punishing trials. By the time they reach the sixth cage, Sunny teeters on the brink of exhaustion. The merciless sun beats down, his body battered and his essence depleted. He observes that the island hosting the coliseum remains unnaturally stable, unaffected by the external Crushing, hinting at a fixed, protected location akin to the Sanctuary of Noctis.
The seventh and final battle of the day unleashes a different horror. The circular stage reveals two warriors, cloaked in archaic red armor and plumed helmets, their faces concealed. One wields a spear and shield, the other an axe and sword. These are the devoted worshippers of the War God, their presence igniting a fresh wave of terror in the young Awakened, who visibly shivers at the sight of these formidable fighters.
Chapter 610 Mind Of A Beast
The clamor of the crowd demanding “Shadow! Shadow! Shadow!” barely registers as Sunny clutches his broken sword, the memory of its acquisition lost in a haze of recent kills. He grapples with a disorienting forgetfulness, the faces of his victims blurring into an indistinguishable throng, a stark contrast to his once sharp focus. Elyas, now significantly stronger with a maturity etched onto his gaunt face, cautiously checks on Sunny, offering his remaining essence to heal the wounds from their latest brutal encounter against the formidable Warmongers, noting Sunny’s recent uncharacteristic behavior.
Sunny’s current state of mind is a battle in itself, a gnawing despair fueled by repeated failures to escape the coliseum and the relentless pain of his Flaw. The immense hope he once held has dwindled, replaced by a grim determination to survive until an escape opportunity arises. This desperate fight for survival has led him to refine his battle style, the Shadow Dance, by extending its principles to incorporate the essence of Nightmare Creatures.
By embracing the monstrous nature of his opponents, Sunny has discovered a path to victory, learning to anticipate their every move and, more importantly, to *become* them in battle. This newfound ability to mimic their savage techniques, coupled with his demonic features, has dramatically improved his performance, transforming him into a more efficient and terrifying fighter.
Chapter 611 Immortal Lords
Elyas, his voice a quiet murmur against the oppressive darkness, questions Sunny about the legend of a wooden sword, a mythical artifact that supposedly grants freedom to the righteous in the Red Colosseum. Sunny, his own humanity eroding with each fight, can only offer a non-committal shrug, dismissing the tale as a naive fairy tale. He observes the Warmongers, their twisted ideology valuing struggle and glory above all else. For them, being killed in the arena, especially by a stronger foe like Sunny, is a privilege and an act of righteousness, not a cruel injustice.
The young Awakened’s faith in such stories stems from the widely known, yet horrifying, reputation of the coliseum’s trials. He reveals that parents use the horrors of the Red Colosseum as a cautionary tale for their children, underscoring the pervasive fear and grim reality of their captivity. Elyas clings to the hope of escape, a desperate yearning for freedom that Sunny, hardened by his experiences, cannot share.
Sunny’s growing understanding of the Warmongers’ warped perspective solidifies his disbelief. He sees their “benevolent gift” of combat as a perverse form of spiritual enlightenment in their eyes, where dying in struggle is the ultimate glory. This warped worldview, he concludes, makes a true escape a sin in their eyes, an offense they would never permit their chosen fighters to commit.
Chapter 612 Red Colosseum
Sunny, wrestling with exhaustion and the lingering echoes of past battles, finds himself fixated on the divergent depictions of the War God. The warrior in armor, bloodied spear, and cracked shield contrast sharply with a primal, beast-hide clad figure holding both spear and a beating heart, hinting at a more complex, perhaps even feminine, aspect of warfare. This mental dissonance, fueled by the stark realization that the War God statue on the Altar of War is as ancient as the Red Colosseum itself, gnaws at him. He grapples with the fragmented memories of the Kingdom of Hope and his burgeoning suspicion that the very stones of the arena, and the amphitheater that predates it, were once a quarry, a source of material for the kingdom’s construction, later repurposed.
His mind circles back to the initial, seemingly childish, notion of a “wooden sword” and the quest for freedom, realizing there might be a deeper truth hidden within Elyas’s words. The Warmongers’ twisted faith sees struggle as righteousness, making escape itself an act of heresy, a sin they would never permit. Sunny’s own growing understanding of their perverted ideology, where death in combat is the ultimate glory and a perverse spiritual enlightenment, makes the very concept of freedom a concept alien to their warped worldview.
This realization triggers a paradoxical question that has plagued Sunny: if the Nightmare Spell, which binds him, did not yet exist in this era, how could Solvane have created a leash capable of severing his connection to it? The answer, he begins to suspect, lies in the ancient origins of the Red Colosseum itself, a place that has been reshaped and defiled, its purpose twisted from a quarry to a theater, and finally to the blood-soaked arena of the Warmongers. The answer, he feels, is close.
Chapter 613 Schools Of Sorcery
With hours to spare before his next ordeal, Sunny finds himself again staring into the seemingly mundane dungeon walls, seeking answers. He attempts to clear his mind of the oppressive surroundings and his own physical pain, focusing on the nature of sorcery itself. He dismisses the common understanding of sorcery as mere Aspect abilities, instead fixating on the foundational means of creating such power, especially those outside the familiar framework of Aspects. Three distinct forms of sorcery come to his mind: the spellweave of Weaver, evident in the Spell, Memories, and Echoes; a more primitive, alien weave found within the Echo of Saint and the Ebony Tower, belonging to Weaver’s younger sibling; and the miraculous, weave-less sorcery of the Sun God, embodied by the radiant obsidian knife. This exploration leads Sunny to question if the sorcery of the Kingdom of Hope, and by extension Solvane’s method of severing his connection to the Nightmare Spell, might also be a unique, unobserved form.
Chapter 614 Hope’s Canvas
The dawn brings not respite, but renewed torment as Sunny and Elyas are once again thrust into the arena. Their guide, a towering Ascended warlord whose face remains hidden behind a cowl, exemplifies the pervasive sense of regression Sunny perceives in this era. The warlord’s ancient blade, etched with potent runes, sparks Sunny’s contemplation on the limited and seemingly primitive forms of sorcery available in the Kingdom of Hope, a stark contrast to the sophisticated spellweave he knows. He notes the warlord’s worn armor and battle scars, a silent testament to the Ascended’s own participation in these brutal contests, fueling Sunny’s grim realization that he too may eventually face this formidable figure.
The gate opens to a roar of the crowd, and Sunny and Elyas are unleashed into their first trial against Burrowers, creatures whose effectiveness is blunted on the stone arena floor. Elyas warns, “Just don’t let them swallow you…”, a grim instruction Sunny heeds as he engages the abominations. The fight demands a precarious balance: Sunny must employ Shadow Dance to discern the weaknesses of the Nightmare Creatures, risking his already fragile mental state, while simultaneously attempting to glean insights into the elusive sorcery of Hope. This dual focus echoes his early training with Saint, but with far higher stakes; failure now means death.
The brutal cycle of combat continues through multiple encounters. Sunny dispatches Burrowers, a hulking skeleton of granite-like bone, a carpet of monstrous ants, and an oozing sludge creature armed with steel sickles. Each victory is paid for in blood and agony, his body a canvas of fresh wounds that Elyas, conserving their precious soul essence, cannot fully mend. Overwhelmed by pain and a desperate will to survive, the world outside the immediate conflict—the arena, the nature of sorcery, his own past—recedes, leaving only the primal cycle of battle, blood, and the gnawing presence of fear.
Chapter 615 Ancient Runes
Sunny’s focus shifts from merely surviving the brutal arena trials to deciphering the ancient, colossal runes that dominate the battlegrounds. He realizes these massive etchings are the key to Hope’s powerful enchantments, but their true design is only visible from the amphitheater’s heights, a vantage point forbidden to fighters. Despite the limitations, Sunny begins meticulously piecing together fragmented memories of the arena floors, his unnaturally keen memory proving vital in this overwhelming puzzle. His efforts are hampered as the Nightmare Creatures grow stronger, directly impacting his performance and increasing his injuries, pushing him to the brink of despair.
The Red Colosseum’s cruelty intensifies, threatening to break Sunny’s spirit. He endures a relentless cycle of combat, death, and the meager sustenance of raw monster flesh, a torment that even Elyas notices is taking a severe toll on his companion. “What could he say to soothe the soul-crushing despair of their situation?” The grim reality of their enslavement, coupled with the pervasive atmosphere of bloodshed and madness, leaves them trapped in a seemingly inescapable loop, even their captors appearing bound by the same vicious cycle.
Yet, even amidst this hellish existence, Sunny finds a flicker of purpose in his obsession with the Demon of Desire and the secrets hidden within the ancient stones. He continues to fight, kill, and suffer, driven by an almost compulsive need to understand the deeper workings of this brutal world. His struggle is a testament to his resilience, a desperate act of defiance against the overwhelming darkness that threatens to consume him entirely, leaving the reader to wonder if his relentless pursuit of knowledge will be his salvation or his ultimate undoing.
