The space anchor expelled Sunny back into the Astral Express with all the grace of a bureaucratic teleportation error being forcibly corrected, his body condensing from a cascade of pale, geotric light into solid flesh at the exact center of the parlor car, boots striking polished flooring with a muted crack as displaced air rushed inward to occupy the space he now filled.
For a brief instant he remained perfectly still, coat settling around his fra in a slow ripple, shadows pooling beneath him in a dark corona that stretched outward like ink seeking the edges of parchnt, while his senses adjusted from the abstract dislocation of transit to the comforting, chanical continuity of the train’s interior. Only then did the throbbing heat across his left cheek assert itself with undeniable clarity, a pulsing ache that spread beneath his skin in a shape unmistakably resembling a hand, each phantom fingertip radiating outward like a brand pressed into porcelain.
He raised his own hand to it gingerly, fingertips brushing the tender flesh as if confirming that the sensation had not been a residual hallucination from transit, and winced as the contact reignited the sting with renewed enthusiasm. Despite the discomfort, however, a stubborn thread of satisfaction lingered beneath the pain, an almost smug sense of narrative closure that refused to be ignored.
Tingyun had maintained with admirable composure that she did not particularly mind whether or not he perceived her body. However, Sunny possessed a deeply ingrained conviction that any encounter bordering on the indecent required a punchline to prevent it from collapsing into unbearable awkwardness. Since shadows were invisible to him and thus aningless as concealnt, the only viable resolution had been a retaliatory strike delivered with enough force to symbolically restore balance to the universe, which in turn had required him to funnel four of his shadows into her form until she possessed sufficient strength to produce a satisfying impact.
The result had been spectacular in execution. He could still recall the exact trajectory of her arm, the crisp sound of palm eting cheek, and the faint shift in her expression afterward, not angry or embarrassed but quietly disapproving, as though she had just discovered a disappointing flaw in an otherwise admirable artifact. Even now he suspected that her opinion of him had dropped several tiers, a suspicion reinforced by the dignified restraint with which she had delivered the blow, fulfilling his request with impeccable courtesy while simultaneously conveying that she considered the entire exercise deeply questionable.
The mark now blooming across his face would be impossible to conceal, his pale complexion providing the perfect canvas for the vivid imprint, and he could only hope that nobody would inquire about it because his tendency toward reckless honesty might compel him to admit that he had insisted upon being struck by an attractive woman for what may have been a fetish.
His attention shifted outward, and the levity drained from him instantly.
The parlor car was wrong.
Not empty, not damaged, not overtly disturbed, but wrong in a manner so subtle it triggered every predatory instinct he possessed. The lighting remained steady, casting warm reflections across polished wood and tal surfaces; decorative elents stood exactly where they should; teacups, plates, and personal effects remained scattered across the central table in evidence of recent occupation. Yet the absence of motion transford the space into sothing resembling a preserved tableau, a snapshot of life abruptly halted.
March lay sprawled across a couch with graceless abandon, pink hair fanned around her like a discarded banner. Dan Heng slumped forward at the table, arms folded beneath his head in the posture of soone who had intended to rest briefly but had instead succumbed to sothing deeper.
Hiko, who he hadn’t seen since before the Second Nightmare, as the Stellaron Hunters had concealed her presence with a Supre mory, reclined elegantly in her seat near the window, teacup poised beside her as if she had been interrupted mid-sip, posture composed even in unconsciousness. Welt remained upright with his cane angled against his shoulder, glasses slightly askew, expression peaceful in a way that suggested he had not been given the opportunity to resist.
Sunny did not hesitate. Hail Sorrow manifested in his hand in a bloom of dim radiance, the blade coalescing from motes of silvery light into flawless steel that seed to drink illumination rather than reflect it, while his shadows surged outward in a low tide, spreading across the floor and up the walls, slipping beneath furniture and through narrow gaps as they tasted the environnt for anomalies. His senses extended through them in all directions, mapping the space with tactile precision, searching for the presence that instinct insisted must be responsible.
"Passenger!"
The cry shattered the oppressive silence, drawing his gaze toward the far end of the car where Pom-Pom ca sprinting toward him, conductor’s uniform flapping around their compact fra as they skidded to a halt just short of collision. Their long ears trembled visibly, eyes wide with alarm, tiny paws clenched in agitation.
Sunny asked imdiately, lowering the tip of his blade without dismissing it:
"What happened?"
"We don’t know! Everyone was fine, we were all having a jolly old ti, and then they just... fell asleep all at once! Pom-Pom tried everything to wake them, but nothing worked!"
Sunny nodded slowly, shadow sense extending beyond the room into the structure of the train itself, probing corridors, compartnts, and hidden spaces with invasive thoroughness. The conductor’s distress appeared genuine, which ant the phenonon had either bypassed them deliberately or targeted only specific individuals.
"I suppose it is good that you and Hiko are alright."
Without further explanation he summoned Saint and Serpent, the two Shadow Creatures erging from darkness at his flanks with quiet inevitability. He assigned one shadow to each, doubling their capabilities, while drawing the remaining two into himself, power surging through his limbs as his senses sharpened to razor clarity.
"There is soone in my room."
He stepped into his own shadow, and the world folded.
Darkness swallowed him for less than a heartbeat before expelling him onto the top floor, Hail Sorrow already in motion as the blade rose in a smooth arc and settled beneath the intruder’s chin with surgical precision, the edge biting just deep enough to draw blood. A thin red line welled and began its descent along pale skin.
She did not flinch.
She sat in his chair before his computer setup as though she owned the space, one leg crossed over the other with casual disregard, a gaming controller resting loosely in her hands. Short silver hair frad her face in layered strands that faded subtly into cool violet tones, while a pair of angular goggles perched atop her head like decorative antennae. Her outfit, a Transcendent armor, it seed... didn’t seem to protect much: a cropped jacket with a fur-trimd collar hanging open over a fitted black top marked with stylized lettering, shorts secured by belts and straps that supported a holstered device at her thigh, mismatched legwear blending fishnet with armored panels, and fingerless gloves revealing slender hands moving with effortless dexterity.
Silver Wolf, a Stellaron Hunter. One of his forr colleagues who he couldn’t quite rember for very obvious reasons. It seed that even after the whole Luofu fiasco, they werent quite done with him...
Her eyes lifted from the screen to the blade, followed its length upward to Sunny’s face, and one eyebrow arched in mild curiosity rather than alarm. She reached up, dabbed two fingers into the blood at her neck, and examined the sar as though testing paint.
"Chill out, dude. Your new bunch of heroic buddies are fine. Stop being edgy."
She pushed the sword aside with the back of her hand, not forcefully, simply relocating it, and to his own faint surprise Sunny allowed it, instinct informing him that she posed no imdiate threat. Before he could speak, she flicked her wrist and another controller materialized from nothing, spinning through the air before striking his face. He caught it reflexively.
Turning toward the screen, he saw the title.
Awakened... Battle Arena.
"I needed a player two to help whoop this sweat’s ass. And I’m using your chair. Can’t you make one out of shadows or sothing?"
Sunny stared at her, baffled by the absurdity of the situation, yet found himself complying anyway.
"I can, I guess. But I have a better solution."
White sparks flared as a wooden chair materialized beside him, solid and unremarkable yet faintly significant. He sat.
’...Wait, why am I indulging her? She broke into my room!’
Sunny did not get up from his seat. He felt... every weird about this.
She stared at him emotionlessly.
"So you just keep a chair on you at all tis? Does it go well with the rock?"
He crossed his arms arrogantly.
"It is not just a chair. It is the Shadow Chair. My rock is extraordinary. Yes, I keep my chair with at all tis, and yes, the rock-chair combination is legendary. Once, I sat in my chair with the rock in my hands, and massive floating islands fell to my whims."
She blinked.
"Huh. I should add that to your kit."
They advanced to private matches, entered a code, and the lobby populated with four usernas. Sunny read them aloud, confusion mounting.
"TheGroodOne, SilverDawg, Luh_loyd, The_HERTA? Huh. I know a Herta. What does TheGroodOne an, and why is that ?"
She snickered.
"Don’t worry about it."
The character list opened, massive in scope, separating Awakened, Masters, and Saints across history by faction. Sunny frowned at the imbalance.
"What is the point of Awakened characters if Saints are way stronger?"
"Characters are not lore accurate. Balance matters more than their actual power. They even put Herta in here, and she would solo everyone if it were accurate."
Sunny stared at her at the implication, then shook his head. There were more important things to do than concern himself with Herta’s supposed strength... like beating his opponent’s asses!
"Oh. I don’t know how to play."
She shrugged.
"Figure it out, potential man."
He felt personally attacked for so cosmic reason that seed to connect to so other guy who summoned monsters from his shadow, but he scrolled anyway, examining rosters from the Immortal Fla Clan to Clan Valor, the IPC, and the Xianzhou Alliance, noting familiar nas like Jing Yuan and Fu Xuan before spotting Dan Feng.
"Wait, am I in this?"
"Miscellaneous and Stellaron Hunter roster. You have two."
The miscellaneous version, Starkiller, looked nothing like him, a tall buff man labeled as the only Sleeper in the ga. The movie really did him no good, he thought, as he cursed the Abyss Watchers. The Stellaron Hunter roster featured Mongrel in onyx armor with a three-horned demon mask and an enormous black odachi, which, strangely enough, had glowing runes engraved in it.
Beside him in the roster stood SAM, a towering figure encased in sleek chanized armor of white and gold plating with angular pauldrons, segnted limbs, and a helt shaped like a predatory visor, every surface suggesting overwhelming physical power restrained by technological precision. Sunny felt very mixed feelings...
"Go to the extra roster. I modded in your Ascended versions."
Sunny blinked.
"Is that not cheating?"
Silver Wolf huffed.
"It is called using my talents."
He found a disturbingly accurate Starkiller who represented his present self, wearing Silent Mist and wielding Hail Sorrow, his porcelain features and lean build faithfully reproduced, making him realize he was easily the shortest male character present. Yes, that pissed him off greatly. Beside him stood Mongrel again, nearly identical to the official version but with a more accurate odachi and a special shadowy background displaying a bounty of 7,777,777,777.
How particular.
Then, there was a special voice line.
"Words are aningless. Silence is gold."
Sunny cringed. Did he really have to say that?
Scrolling further out of boredom...
...Sunny fell in love.
He encountered a luminous woman whose beauty did not rely arrest his attention but seized it with a force so absolute that, for a disorienting instant, Sunny felt as though the axis of his perception had tilted irreversibly toward her, every other detail in the world draining of color and significance until only she remained in sharp, almost painful clarity.
Silver hair spilled around her in silken waves that caught the ambient light like spun moonlight, yet toward the ends it deepened into soft green highlights reminiscent of new leaves touched by dawn, a subtle gradient that made her seem less like a person illuminated by light and more like the source of it, as though life itself had chosen her as its favored vessel. Her eyes, anwhile, burned with the saturated hues of a dying sunset — gold at the center, bleeding outward into molten rose and the night sky — holding a fierce, unwavering determination that suggested not naive courage but the hard-won resolve of soone who had stared into annihilation and refused to blink first, a gaze so vivid that Sunny found himself irrationally certain she could cut through falsehood, pretense, and even the armor around his own guarded heart without effort.
In one hand she held an erald sword whose blade shimred with an inner radiance, its edge so clean and perfect that it seed less forged than crystallized from pure intent, while in the other danced a ghastly green fla that did not flicker chaotically like ordinary fire but coiled and unfurled with almost sentient grace, casting shifting light across her form that alternately softened her features into sothing achingly gentle and sharpened them into an icon of terrible, transcendent purpose.
The combined effect was devastating in a way Sunny had not prepared for, because she was not rely beautiful in the conventional sense but possessed that rare, perilous kind of allure that hinted at depth, tragedy, and impossible strength all at once, the sort of presence that made a cynical survivor briefly entertain the reckless, humiliating fantasy of devotion, of standing at her side even if it ant being burned to ash by the very brilliance that drew him in.
For a heartbeat too long he simply stared, caught between awe and a dawning, inconvenient infatuation that felt suspiciously like the opening move in a disaster he would nonetheless walk into willingly, already aware on so level that if such a woman extended a hand, whether to save him or to drag him into ruin, he would probably take it without asking a single sensible question.
Then, her custom voice line played, voice sweet yet powerful as she gazed coldly at the two players.
"Fight to live, live to fight... what difference does it make?"
Sunny froze, transfixed, wondering why such a badass, gorgeous, willful woman only existed through the screen. He turned his eyes to look at her True Na... only for the selection to snap back to Mongrel as Silver Wolf seized control remotely with her Aspect.
"I was admiring that!"
Silver Wolf sent him a strange look, before sighing as she wore an annoyed expression.
"Oh yeah? That is... my girlfriend! She does not like guys, so shove it."
Sunny stared, scandalized. The apple of his eye was stolen the mont he glanced upon her! For a mont, Sunny thought about fighting Silver Wolf to the death for her affection, before realizing that he wouldn’t be very attracted to such a simple barbarian.
...Wait, hadn’t he told Serpent that he was planning to stay single? What a one-eighty...
Sunny pouted.
"Lucky."
Silver Wolf shrugged.
"Just get good."
Both selected the modded versions of themselves, with Sunny choosing Mongrel over Starkiller.
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