Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

Sunny dismissed Nightmare back into his Soul Sea to recuperate, allowing the terrible steed to rest in the dark embrace of his Shadow Core. Although he wasn’t gravely injured, it seemed that he had a hard time conquering Fu Xuan’s nightmares.

Well, that wasn’t too important at the moment. Up until now, Sunny had been restraining himself. He wanted to look, but he simply couldn’t bring himself to. He had priorities, and although his memory was supposedly perfect, the inconsistencies he was starting to find in it was really beginning to bother him, so he focused on getting things done before he took a look at those sweet, sweet words.

Now, after dealing with all the chaos between the aftermath of the Gates in Belobog and going back to Earth to retrieve his parents’ grave, he could finally get to what he had been looking forward to all along...

Memories!

Sunny rubbed his hands gluttonously within the darkness of his room, spread by the Shadow Lantern. Back in Belobog, he received plenty of Dormant and Awakened Memories from the Nightmare Creatures crawling out of the Nightmare Gate. However, he already fed most of them to Tingyun. In fact, she was already getting close to Awakening:

Shadow Fragments: [86/100].

Sunny wasn’t sure if there was a way to increase her Class, like Saint and Serpent, as she was a human. The former was able to go from a Monster to a Demon by consuming the True Darkness of the Forsaken Knight on the Forgotten Shore — though he didn’t recall witnessing it — and the latter shared the same Class as Sunny himself due to its nature as a Legacy Relic. He didn’t know how to increase Nightmare’s Class to that of a Titan, but it was likely possible.

So, Tingyun, as his only human — uh... Foxian? Heliofox? — Shadow, was something of an anomaly. More importantly, however... was what was happening to Saint at the current moment. Right below the runes showing her Shadow Fragments was new set of glimmering characters:

[...Your Shadow is evolving.]

He hadn’t noticed until later, but it seemed that when he sent Saint to battle those harrowing abominations, she absorbed the True Darkness spilling out of them, therefore triggering her evolution once more.

So... was she becoming a Devil? That seemed to be the case based on what he read in the—

Sunny paused. What was he talking about?

’Oh, right...’

By absorbing the True Darkness, Saint should be evolving into an Ascended Devil. This left Sunny particularly excited, as upon becoming a Devil, Nightmare Creatures gained access to strange and fearsome Abilities. An example of this was Nightmare — the horse — who had the [Mantle of Fear], which allowed him to easily increase his strength by meeting the conditions of [Dreadlord]. There was also Serpent, who had the [Formless] Ability, allowing it to take the forms of any shadow within Sunny’s Soul Sea whose Rank and Class was equal to or lower than Serpent’s own.

Naturally, he ended up wondering what Saint would be able to do. Perhaps she would be able to manipulate stone? Maybe she would gain something related to Destiny, considering her creator was the arrogant Prince of the Underworld who embodied it? He was very curious, and endlessly excited at the boundless possibilities.

Despite the fact that she had the lowest Class among his three combatant Shadows, Saint was still the deadliest among them — though, Nightmare was pretty relative overall, even though his main strengths lay in the fact that he could turn fear and nightmares into strength. He could only wonder how she compared after her evolution was complete.

However, now was not the time to dwell on hypotheticals. Because he had some great treasures to look at!

Memories: [Weaver’s Mask], [Silver Bell], [Puppeteer’s Shroud], [Midnight Shard], [Moonlight Shard], [Dusk Shard], [Mantle of the Underworld], [Extraordinary Rock], [Shadow Chair], [Endless Spring], [Finality’s Farewell], [Ghastly Hunger], [Covetous Coffer], [Morgan’s Warbow], [Shadow Lantern], [Dying Wish], [Hail Sorrow], [Silent Mist], [Tingyun’s Hanfu], [Tingyun’s Fans], [Tingyun’s Hairpins], [Heat Absorbing Thingy], [Second Strike of Thunder], [Saint’s Useful Charm That Would Totally Eviscerate All Her Enemies]...

There, at the end of his long list of Memories, were two new entries.

...[Cradle of Madness], [Dark Scale].

***

Sunny rolled on his bed, kicking his legs around as he giggled in glee.

Not only did he gain a Transcendent Memory, but even his first Supreme Memory!

...Now that he thought about it, he managed to obtain two Divine Memories before he could even get a Supreme one. Scratching the back of his head, he looked at the two names of his new Memories. Based on them, it was pretty clear which one came from who.

First, he checked the Cradle of Madness. It was what he gained for killing Cocolia.

Memory: [Cradle of Madness].

Memory Rank: Transcendent.

Memory Tier: I.

Memory Type: Weapon.

Sunny grinned. He already had Hail Sorrow as his main weapon when outside of his Mongrel identity, but he was actually looking for another one. Hail Sorrow has seen too much, which meant that a certain Cloud Knight could gleam many truths if he saw it. With the Cradle of Madness, he didn’t have to worry too much about anything being gleamed... though, he would need to restrict his fighting style in order for Yanqing to not connect it to Mongrel.

In any case, he now had a Transcendent backup weapon if anything ever happened to Hail Sorrow, so that was a plus.

Memory Description: [There was once a wayward savior hailing from a distant land, one who refused to incarnate into the Aeon hailing from the future.

So, clinging to their humanity, they stole the memories of anyone and everyone they could find, blinded by the unfounded belief that what makes a human is their history. In the end, the Pure Child went mad under the countless faces they devoured... and thus, the Remembrance was born.

There was once an author who longed to write a beautiful story.

Her Fate was inked in cyclical despair and torment, and yet, she refused to see it all end. Stepping into the past and entering the headless God’s heart, she wished to spread her Blessing to all, unaware that it was naught but a Curse... and thus, the Remembrance was born.

There was once a lost medusa, a shattered fragment of an unborn God left in the shallow pages of history.

This medusa met a young girl, one with a smile so bright and eyes so innocent, with the sole desire to experience all of life’s wonders, that its frozen heart began to melt. The medusa vowed to spend the rest of its days with the girl, but Fate is not so kind. The heavens were torn asunder, and the girl and medusa were caught in the conflict. The girl, far too weak to contend with the wills of greater beings, was devoured, causing the medusa to be consumed by indescribable rage. In its act of defiance, Gods fell. In its grief, the medusa abandoned itself, carrying the girl not in its heart, but as a mask, viewing the world for the sake of the fallen. As the medusa forgot itself, consumed by the mask, the world consumed it in turn... and thus, the Remembrance was born.]

’D—Damn, that’s dark.’

The Remembrance, huh? There seemed to have been something up with it, considering Cocolia became a Lord Ravager meant to Destroy it despite the fact that she had no connection to the Path of memories. The three stories within the description seemed to always end with the Remembrance’s birth.

Which brought Sunny to the conclusion that the three stories weren’t separate stories at all, but three simultaneous events that led to the birth of Fuli, the Aeon of Remembrance. If they weren’t interconnected, it wouldn’t make any sense. How could an Aeon be born three times?

In any case, the three stories were completely different, but they all ended in tragedy. In the first, some genderless individual hailed from a distant land, knowing of their Fate. It was interesting, actually. Perhaps the individual was a diviner of some kind, and was aware that they would eventually ascend to Aeonhood. Perhaps the Aeon they knew they would become was Fuli THEMSELF, and through consuming the memories of others in a worthless attempt to sustain their humanity, they... became a THEY, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

A classic example of failing to fight against Fate. Good thing Sunny wasn’t that guy.

In the second, a woman — no, perhaps it was too bold to assume the description was referring to a human at all. How could a mere human be so benevolent despite experiencing a life of suffering? In any case, the story was quite vague, but Sunny understood one thing. The author wanted to perform a great deed, but it turned out to be a disaster... or, perhaps that kind of scale was too much.

Maybe it was something much smaller, like hurting those close to her by enacting her benevolent plan. A common downside to altruism.

Lastly, there was the story of a medusa. Sunny did not know what a medusa was, but he assumed it wasn’t a human.

This non-human, however, managed to bond with a girl, and eventually became inseparable. Of course, tragedy comes for all, and the girl lost her life. However, the medusa somehow managed to slay those powerful beings, before deluding itself into believing that it was the girl.

And thus, the Remembrance was born.

Sometimes, Sunny wasn’t too sure what descriptions were fabricated and which were real. The contents of Memories ended up being too abstract, but he liked to believe that there was some degree of truth in them.

...Actually, if this was true, then didn’t that mean he had the knowledge of how an Aeon was born? 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

Sunny blinked. He was holding a prized treasure, huh?

Then, he checked the enchantments.

Memory Enchantments: [Garden of Sinners (Remembrance)]

...That was a strange name for an enchantment. Since when did the Nightmare Spell know what parenthesis were?

Enchantment Description: [The wielder of this weapon can create an isolated world that can only contain the wielder and one other living entity. Within this world, the defeated will impart all their memories into the victors head.]

Sunny stared at the enchantment with a horrified look.

Did the Spell really think he was going to use this after reading the Memory’s Description?!