Chapter 8

Rake was reveling in the pleasure of having finally killed something that dropped something. 

'Let's see. What spoils have I gotten?'

Rake thought to himself as he stared at the runes that described him. 

[Echo: Ocean locust.]

It was a simple echo of the many piranhas that he killed just then

"Hmm, 5 echoes. That's not bad. I like it."

But Rake didn't want to stop. He kept on abusing that one move over and over again. 

'More, more more!!!!! Die die die!!'

These were the only thoughts in his mind as he ignored the pain from his body slowly getting destroyed by the shockwaves. 

Yet, he eventually reached a situation where he shouldn't. He was in deep water. 

Among the many small fishes, some were larger. 

And more vicious.

The water around Rake started to move in a weird pattern, and the fish kept swarming him. 

Slowly, the claps started to weaken. Eventually, Rake's hands stopped. 

And he stopped moving. 

Not because he didn't want to, but because he was caught in an extremely fast whirlpool. A vortex with such sheer speed that moving turned out to be extremely hard. To create those shockwaves, he had to clap. In that vortex, he couldn't even move his legs.

And that was when he realized that he might've messed up somewhere. 

But it was too late. Two large Piranhas the size of Great Whites came at him from two sides within the vortex. 

One bit off a hand from the shoulders and the other took a chunk out of his torso. His heart was exposed to the water. 

'Shit! Gotta cancel the armor.'

And so he did. Before it got destroyed. Thankfully. 

In the last few seconds before he was torn into small bite-sized chunks, Rake felt the peculiarities in the water. The way it moved and the way it was controlled using essence.

A small hint of a smile could be seen on his lips as he was torn into small pieces by the ravenous pack of piranhas. 

Until that was torn off too eventually.

**

In the waking world, in the Awakened Academy, one person can be seen giving a tour to a very important person.

It was Sunny along with Cassie giving a tour to a representative of the great clan Valor. 

Sunny was a young man with dashing looks. Not due to his natural disposition, but as a side effect of ascending. Every master is inherently beautiful.

And so was the young woman he was giving a tour to. 

Morgan of Valor. 

Seeing her gave Sunny shivers as he was reminded of his encounter with her brother and the similarity that they have.

They have a small conversation. 

{AN: This is from chapter 762 btw}

The crux of the matter was that Sunny had accidentally released a scary criminal of the Valor clan. Morgan's brother. 

Someone who is extremely unkillable. So unkillable that the the great clan Valor, one of the strongest forces in the waking world and nightmare realm can only try to trap the person. Even then that backfired. 

Anyway, Sunny was in a very bad predicament. There wasn't that much to be done. The valor clan had to be compensated somehow for this terrible mistake. 

Thus this was the moment for negotiation. 

The Valor clan had 'captured' the awakened members that supported Cassie and Sunny. The Fire Keepers. 

The fire keepers are extremely talented awakened who are Naphis' followers. 

The goal was to appease The Valor clan and get the freedom of the fire keepers.

But as the negotiations progressed something interesting started to happen.

The entire facility quaked.

**

Deep underground, in a heavily protected room, a sleeping pod was glowing softly in the darkness.

Inside, a young woman with silver hair slept, her face pale and still.

Then, however, her eyes suddenly began to move beneath the eyelids, as if she was experiencing a terrible nightmare. A strange heat suffused the air.

A split second later, something flashed.

The room was instantly engulfed in furious flames.

The armored door flew off its hinges and melted in the air, turning into a spray of liquid metal. The reinforced alloy walls cracked. The sleeping pod was violently torn to pieces.

The force of the explosion was so dreadful that a destructive shockwave rolled through the whole level, causing incredible damage. Loud alarms screamed, and as the lights went off, emergency lamps ignited, drowning the burning corridors in a dim red glare.

That light was almost instantly outshined by the angry glow of the spreading fire, however.

…In just a couple of seconds, the most protected level of the hospital complex was utterly devastated.

**

{AN: Readers of SS chapter 763: Deja Vu?}

**

A radiant and seemingly inhuman figure emerges from the white flames, unaffected by the onslaught of bullets and attacks from security measures and experienced warriors.

Nothing was able to harm the apparition. And nothing was able to affect it as well. The awakened in charge of protecting the area felt helpless.

...Until suddenly a swift shadow suddenly appeared in their midst. 

** 

Sunny came out of the shadows and felt incredible heat assault him. He quickly summoned his armor, Undying Chain. 

As his various memories manifested themselves, he tried to make sense of the situation and figure out what was happening.

But no matter what he did, a creeping feeling of anxiety started to build up in him. After all, this was the place where an extremely important person was sleeping. 

'Gods...'

He saw through his shadows how the entire hallway was racked and destroyed. he also saw the horrible state of the awakened guards in the area. 

"Back! Retreat! I'll handle it!!"

He enhanced his voice into a booming shout using a memory. The guards didn't have to be told twice. They quickly ran out of the way. 

Sunny approached the flaming apparition quickly and covered it in a cage using his shadow manipulation. 

A cage that was ascended level. 

But, white glowing cracks appeared on the cage until it burst open and the radiant being came out. 

Two harrowing white eyes filled with bloodlust looked back at Sunny. 

Sunny used his Shadow Lantern, but the figure remained visible and came towards Sunny. 

Sunny was already near the figure, he could attack it freely.

But he didn't. 

A hand shot forward to sever his neck but Sunny stopped it and let it grasp his forearm instead. His arm began to sear and burn. 

Sunny didn't attack and instead dismissed his helmet and looked directly at the burning figure. 

"Stop! It's me."

The figure didn't let up straight away but slowly, a vague sense of recognition appeared in the blinding white eyes of the apparition. 

Sunny's hand was still burning and was in pain. 

"Changing Star! It's me!"

Her hand shook for a bit, but then her lips opened. 

The voice was awkward as if it had not spoken in a long time. 

"...S—Sunny?"

He forced out a pale smile.

"It's me! Snap out of it, damn it!"

She froze and slowly the fire dimmed and extinguished itself. 

She had no clothes on. She stared at Sunny for a second.

Then she swayed and fell to the floor. 

Sunny rushed to catch her and was barely able to. 

He picked her up and looked at the Awakened guards that were staring at him. 

"...What are you doing, fools?! Bring me something to cover her up! Don't you know who this is?!"

He didn't show how stunned he was as well. 

The awakened snapped out of their shock and someone said with a shaky voice,

"This... this is Lady Changing Star, the last daughter of the Immortal Flame clan. She's back..."

**

The 'greatest' awakened of her generation, Changing Star Nephis has returned. 

This was an unprecedented situation as she was the only one in history to directly go from a sleeper to a Master.

Yet, that wasn't the only noteworthy event that happened that day.

Right after Nephis was escorted by Sunny someone else also opened his eyes. 

Not too far away from where Nephis used to be. 

The being got up from the pod as if there was nothing there. 

The metal bent around the being as if it were clay. And the being also didn't notice that he had broken something. 

"...Ugh. Where am I?"

And then the second alarm of the day started ringing. 

Celebrating someone who had gone from a civilian to a master in one nightmare.

**

A/N:

No need to read this if there are like 50 chapters in the ff. lol. By then a lot of stuff should happen. 

So, you guys should realize that I'm sending him directly to the Antarctica arc. This is the reason this chapter took so long to make. It's been sooo long since I last read that arc.

I'm definitely gonna have to reread it. Great.

Also, so many things were(and still are) happening to me in real life that I couldn't get to writing even though I had plenty of time. 

I'll try to write the next chapter right away. But I've been facing so many problems writing. The plans are not going that well. His powers are messy. I just can't decide on it. 

I had his flaw fixed. Still do, but then I realized how troublesome it's gonna get later on to balance. 

(You'll understand when I reveal it.)

Also, I'm not sure what to do about his relationship with the rest of the forces in the novel. Make him be transparent with the authorities ?

Make him be cryptic and go his own way? Not interact with the authorities.

What should he do? What do you guys think? 

This feels like uncharted territory. 

The other SS fanfics that I am reading are just directly sending the mc to the forgotten shore.

Which is great. But for me, not so much. Can't take much reference. 

Sigh.... I also have an assignment to write in the next 1 hour. 

Anyway, the course has been set. I just have to write the next parts. There is an interesting phenomenon I have been experiencing.

It's much easier to write the middle of an arc rather than the beginning. And this chapter can be said to be the start of 'an' arc. 

lastly, I decided to go on and send him to the real world right away because if I want to finish the entire first nightmare, It's just going to be him killing monsters and being killed. 

Which is great for 5-10 chapters, but not 20-30 chapters. 

I'll be doing flashbacks. 

You might want to know how he gets his memories. And also how he learned to do the things that he can do. 

There'll be flashbacks quite often every time I introduce something new that Rake can do.

**

I almost had a heart attack just now. The page just reloaded and my login timed out. Thankfully nothing was lost. 

Anyway, that was a long rant. Hope you weren't too bored. 

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'll definitely answer them unless it has any spoiler. 

Peace and goodbye. Have a great day.

PS: I felt sorely tempted to name the chapter 'Destroying everything'. So that you'll be misled.

But I decided not to at the last second. Gotta keep this trick for more shocking chapters. Can't get you used to being surprised right away.

Hu hu hu.