"Um... Hello, Mr. Sunny."
Sunny’s eye twitched at the unusual sight before him. A child who happened to be a Transcendent was crawling around in the corpse of an Ascended Fragntum monster. He found it ridiculous.
Transcendents — also known as Saints — were the pinnacle of power in the modern day. Unlike Awakened — who’s souls gained the capacity to control Soul Essence — and Ascended — who’s bodies have rged with their souls — the soul of a Transcendent had a mass that couldn’t be contained by their bodies. As such, their souls had a connection to the very world itself, granting them an Aspect Ability that allowed them to transform into sothing that better accommodated their newfound strength.
As beings who transcended the limits of humanity, they were often compared to demigods. So were able to slice a mountain in two by complete accident, while others could unleash devestating attacks that could destroy planets.
Not that it was easy for them to do so. Not only would their Aspect need to be oriented for mass destruction, but they would need to expend practically all their Essence to accomplish such a feat. Either way, they were realms above Sunny’s level of strength.
Clara just happened to have that strength.
He wondered what her Transformation Ability would be? Assuming that she was the one who had given the automatons their strength, then maybe it had to do with robots. So Transformation Abilities weren’t a simple change in physical form, and were more complex in nature. The possibilities were practically endless, so it would be difficult to figure out what Clara’s was.
Sunny looked down at his slightly burnt hands before smiling at Clara.
"Hey. Could you get out of there? I think there’s quite a bit to talk about."
She ekly nodded, crouching down as she picked up the Ascended Soul Shards. She crawled out of the carcass, unperturbed by the heat of the previously burning specter.
Before he could say anything, Clara blurted out:
"Mr. Svarog told to keep my powers a secret from normal people. But... you’re not normal, right?"
He paused for a mont, before shaking his head.
"You’re right, I’m not normal. I’m not sure if Svarog told you, but if you do anything superhuman in front of normal people, you’ll get a heart attack. That’s because the Supre Guardian enforced that rule on the Underworld."
The girl nodded, clearly in the know when it ca to the mystical law Cocolia enforced.
Sunny stayed silent, trying to find the most pressing question he could ask her.
"...When did you challenge the First Nightmare? What about the Second, and the Third?"
She couldn’t be older than thirteen, and was most likely around the age of ten. He wondered when she could have possibly challenged such treacherous trials before.
She blinked in confusion for a mont, before shaking her head with a frown.
"That’s one of the questions Mr. Svarog asked when he first found ."
Clara paused.
"I never had any of those Nightmares."
Sunny bit the inside of his mouth. Was she feigning ignorance? There wouldn’t be any reason in doing so, as she had already confird that she wasn’t a mundane human. Was she alluding to sothing, or should he take her words at face value?
She suddenly straightened up, seeming as if she realized that her words weren’t very explanatory.
"Uh... What I an is that I don’t have the Nightmare Spell thing. That’s what you, Miss Seele, and the others have, right?"
***
Sunny sat cross-legged in the snow, his head resting on his palm. anwhile, Clara shuffled around awkwardly due to the silence.
’No Nightmare Spell. A Transcendent child who doesn’t have the Nightmare Spell.’
He didn’t take her for the kind of person who would lie about this. There was simply no reason for her to do so. He was already aware of her nature, so stating that she didn’t have the Nightmare Spell didn’t serve her any purpose.
The Spell was the entire reason Awakened existed. People would get infected, be thrown into the First Nightmare, beco Sleepers, enter the Dream Realm, escape the Dream Realm, before finally becoming an Awakened. If what Clara was telling the truth, then she didn’t undergo that process whatsoever.
One of the reasons that he hadn’t completely dismissed her words was because Awakened who didn’t have the Nightmare Spell have existed before — specifically in the history of the Dream Realm. This was obvious as the recreated versions of Awakened in the Nightmares never summoned mories or Echoes, and had no idea what the Spell was.
The ans they used to Ascend the Ranks was unknown, as those who challenged the Nightmares were more concerned about surviving. If their was anyone who learned about the thod, then they either died within the Nightmare, or were silenced in the real world. Sunny wasn’t a politician, but if society learned about a way to beco an Awakened without the Nightmares, then the universe would delve into chaos.
The world had enough problems with the amount of Awakened it already had, with superpowered lunatics and galomaniacs appearing — so of them being broken by the Dream Realm and the Nightmares, while so of them having been brought to insanity even before becoming infected, simply gaining the ans to enact their maniacal desires.
If even more people gained access to strange abilities, things could only get worse. One hero did not outweigh one murderer.
’...Should I monopolize this?’
Sunny’s eyes narrowed as they looked at Clara, who squird at his analytical gaze.
"I—Is sothing wrong?"
After a mont, he leaned back.
"No, not necessarily. How did you beco an Awa—I an, how did you get your powers?"
Clara averted her eyes.
"...I don’t know."
’...Damnation!’
The one mont he was about to make a revolutionary developnt, it turned out that it was never in his vision in the first place! Clara stocks were plumting!
Sunny sighed in utter disappointnt.
"So... one day, you just woke up with powers?"
She shook her head in response.
"I’ve always been like this."
’Huh? What do you an always? Were you just... born built different? Don’t tell you’re the chosen one or sothing?’
Sunny pinched the ridge of his nose.
"Wait, wait... when you say ’always’, do you an since birth?"
If so, then that ant that Clara must have been birthed by... sothing. Although the Aspect of a child might be influenced by the parents — assuming they are Awakened — no matter how high one’s Rank was, their children would be born mundane.
...At least, this conjecture was used with Saints as the upper ceiling. Although no Supre human has ever been heard of, who was to say that they weren’t lurking in the shadows? Maybe the rule he had previously stated didn’t apply for Supres, Sacreds, or Divines.
Of course, Sunny would be very alard if a human more powerful than Transcendents was lying around, manipulating the system of society behind closed curtains.
Clara blinked.
"Oh... I was talking about when Mr. Svarog found . I don’t rember anything from before..."
Sunny sighed in relief.
’...Wait, what is there to be relieved about?!’
Sure, there was a possibility that Clara’s parents didn’t have the ability to birth a Transcendent. However, nothing completely discredited the theory.
Not only that, but the bunny-like girl seed to have a mysterious past — one that she wasn’t aware of herself. It sounded quite similar to Sunny’s own situation, but much more ridiculous. After all, she must been a Transcendent from the mont she was able to comprehend the world. At least the difference between when he was a mundane and now wasn’t as extre.
...He had been hoping to learn the thod to beco an Ascended and Transcendent without the Spell through Clara. Considering that she didn’t know anything about the Ascension process, he could only drop that topic. Instead, he moved on to the problem with her mories.
And how he could take advantage of it.
Sunny inwardly snickered as he attempted to make the most out of the situation. If he wasn’t going to get a chance to safely speedrun to Divinity, then he would make good use of the Transcendent before him. Clara was a kind girl... kind enough to allow him to take advantage of her overwhelming strength!
He proceeded to ask her if she wanted to learn about her past. This way, he could offer her his assistance in such matters as he made use of her Transcendent might.
Clara smiled, before... shaking her head?
"You don’t need to worry about . As long as I have Mr. Svarog, I don’t need to learn about who my family was."
Sunny froze in disbelief.
He had calculated his question to the preference of a child. After all, what kid wouldn’t want to know about their past? At the very least, they would want to know about their family.
...Now that he thought about it, wasn’t Clara a little mature for a child? Compared to all the other children in the Underworld, she seed much closer to an adult than anything else.
Even if she lived a relatively difficult life, she should have still been relatively childish. Her ek disposition was sothing that one could mistake as a trait a child would have, but it was actually sothing even an adult might have. A shy child would hide when faced with discomfort, but Clara did not.
’What a weird kid...’
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