Chapter Text
Needless to say, despite the horrors he had faced in his Nightmare, Sunny was actually in a rather good mood.
He found himself in a space between dream and reality. It was an endless black void illuminated by a myriad of stars. Between those stars, countless strings of silver light were woven into a beautiful and inconceivably complex net, forming various nexuses and constellations. It was truly breathtaking.
Currently, Sunny was being appraised by the Spell and he wondered when was the last time he had ever been this happy. He, a mere dirty outskirts rat had conquered his First Nightmare; what would have been a death sentence to someone like him, had netted him an Awakened Memory of the Fifth tier, received a glorious appraisal by the Spell, and gained a True Name!
A True Name from just his First Nightmare! Sunny was going to be rich!
Although, he could have done without the Spell’s rather unflattering description of him being treacherous… He was troublesome at best.
Shaking his head, a wide smile found itself onto Sunny’s face. He had been through so much, both in his life and in the Nightmare, so much more than anyone his age should have been able to handle. He had all but resigned himself to death before answering the call of the Nightmare and by all rights he should be dead.
But here he stood, triumphant.
All his suffering, all his agony, all his pain, it had all been worth it.
And now, the runes in front of him were waiting for him to confirm the evolution of his useless Aspect, to no doubt something much better. Hopefully a combat oriented ability so that he could survive the Winter Solstice.
[Your Aspect is ready to evolve. Evolve Aspect?]
“Yes.” Sunny spoke out to the starlit void.
[Dormant Aspect Temple Slave is evolving…]
[New Aspect acquired.]
[Aspect Rank: Divine.]
Sunny fell over.
[Aspect Name: Shadow Sla—]
The white runes stuttered.
Sunny had lost control over his limbs and collapsed to the imaginary ground he stood on the moment he read the word “Divine”, his mind short-circuiting at the sheer impossibility in his face. For a moment, his heart swelled with intense jubilation but it all halted at the strange anomaly around his runes.
[Aspect Name: Shadow S———]
[Aspect Name: Shad… S…ve.]
[Aspect Name: S…Sla—]
[Aspect Na—: …ow ..e.]
[A… me—: …a… —.]
[…sp..# N#—: #...v]
[###############################]
“What the fuck…” Sunny whispered, staring at the rapidly glitching runes with wide eyes.
He was normally not one to use such crass language, but he felt that it was appropriate for the strange occurrence in front of him. Sunny can freely admit that his total knowledge on the Spell and its machinations were mostly a mystery to him outside of the basics, and he wasn’t alone in that regard, as even those long experienced with the force of nature still didn’t know of its origins.
But he was quite confident he would have heard about the Spell malfunctioning for an Aspirant in the middle of their appraisal. The eldritch force had never just… broke down like a faulty terminal, it was unheard of!
So was Sunny’s own apparent Divine Aspect… maybe the Spell was struggling to comprehend his sheer awesomeness?
Sunny tried to smile at his little joke, but it fell as the glitching and stuttering of his runes only got worse.
In fact… was it his imagination or were the stars in the void flickering as well?
Apprehension and horror filled Sunny’s heart as he began to frantically turn his head on a swivel around the inner sanctum of the Spell. The starlit void that had been treated more like a natural disaster, an indomitable and absolute law of reality itself…
Was falling apart around him.
“No! No! No! Why is this happening to me!? I won dammit!” Sunny screamed out as the flickering got worse, cracks and fractures appeared all around him at the same time, an eerie pressure began to flood the area, the world melting at the seams like a slowly crumbling canvas.
It was chaos.
Sunny wanted to lash out in frustration and rage, the first time something good happens to him in his godforsaken life and reality itself chooses that moment to end.
But before he could, the strange pressure around him reached its crescendo and exploded with a world shaking boom.
Sunny yelped and fell back onto the ground, covering his ears futilely, doing nothing to help the loud ringing within his ear. Pieces of space above, fell around him as if shattered like thin ice and as he shakely got onto his knees, Sunny made the mistake of looking up at what had caused the collapse, and he saw…
An eye.
Just an eye.
A normal eye. The most normal eye in the world, without a single thing strange about it at all. The sclera was a searing bright purple and the pupil was a flawlessly white circle as if cut out of the very concept of the color white, the lashes of the eye were glossy and shone with the radiance of millions of galaxies.
So just a standard eye without a single special thing about it, the kind of eye you'd see walking down the street, average and completely normal like anyone else's.
It was so normal in fact, that Sunny couldn't help as his gaze was completely captured by its sheer normalcy, as his body started to shake with violent convulsions, as his eyes turned red and weeped with crimson blood down his face, as his mind twisted and melted out of his ears like warm goo and as his vision darkened to a point, utterly consumed by that eye.
It was such a normal eye…
“None of that.”
The normal eye spoke out with a normal voice. The chaos around him freezing and his own unraveling body freezing with it.
The eye bore down on him with its normal gaze that did not contain the weight of billions of shattered worlds and millenia of existence. A gleeful chaotic madness would have built up within it, if not for the fact that that would have been abnormal and this eye was anything but.
“My, what a beautiful world, so much opportunity, so much death, so much potential, so much… chaos.”
The eye spoke out with what Sunny would have imagined as a groan at the last word, if not for the fact a normal eye would never do that.
“Everything at the brink of annihilation all from the awakening of my lesser kin. And you… you, who holds such a strong Fate, like a puppet on a string. Oooh I can only imagine what had been in store for you if things played out normally, but I never liked when stories stuck to a strict script.”
The normal eye laughed normally.
“A little chaos never hurts anyone, and a greedy mind like yourself will do well with a change of pace.”
Sunny could only feebly nod at the eyes flawless and normal logic.
“But I can't break the rules too much, I don't want the game to end too quickly after all, especially since I still have to pay that one you're connected so close with a visit as well… ah, I truly wonder what you two will show me. I can't wait!”
The voice exploded with laughter once more, a laughter so normal and so standard that the feeble command they had imposed on reality was obliterated and everything, including Sunny shattered with it into a pile of chaos and non-existence.
The last thing Sunny saw before he entered the abyss was the eye staring down at him with demented anticipation and a burning purple light burrowing into his very soul.
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
Sunny blinked and looked around at the starlit void within the Nightmare Spell.
Everything looked normal, but Sunny swore that something was amiss…
He scratched his hair, a faint headache blooming in his brain and looked at the runes in front of him.
[Your Aspect is ready to evolve. Evolve Aspect?]
‘Oh, right.’ Sunny hadn't confirmed his evolution! He had just been standing and staring at the Spell’s prompt like an idiot.
Shaking his head away from strange thoughts and hoping that keeping the Spell waiting wouldn't affect his evolution, Sunny crossed his fingers and said “yes.”
[Dormant Aspect Temple Slave is evolving…]
[New Aspect acquired.]
[Aspect Rank: Divine.]
Sunny fell over.
[Aspect Name: Chaos Gacha]
“D-divine, Divine, it said Divine!” Sunny exclaimed.
Sunny couldn't help but rub his eyes trying to make sure he was awake, not even being able to recognise the futility in that as he was technically still asleep. Although, internally Sunny was a bit confused. With how his original Nightmare went, his first Aspect and the blessing he gained from Shadow God, he thought he would have gotten a shadow based Aspect…
‘It doesn’t matter, a Divine Aspect is incredible regardless of what it is!’
Confusion and pure jubilation mixed in Sunny’s heart as he summoned his runes and read the lines describing his Aspect.
Aspect: [Chaos Gacha].
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Description: [You are the owner of the mythical Chaos Gacha! A powerful multiversal mechanism created by a beautiful, dashing, charismatic and omnipotent god containing all sorts of incredible Abilities, Memories, Attributes, Skills and Echoes of varying strength, all at your fingertips if you prove yourself worthy enough to earn them.]
Innate Ability: [Runes of Chaos].
Ability Description: [An expansion of your runes, through this, learn of the quests one must perform to earn tokens of varying rarities, allowing you to gain all the mighty boons contained within the Gacha’s stores as well as all other features given to you by the glorious Gacha. If one is truly ambitious, they can discover even more of what it has to offer.]
That was… a lot to digest.
Sunny felt his heart beating faster. He heard it right! All the suffering and horror he had experienced in the First Nightmare paid off in the end. A divine Aspect, he had received a divine Aspect! Anything above Awakened was rare and immensely valuable!
People with Ascended Aspects were rare enough to be fought over by various factions. The factions themselves were built around singular powerhouses with Transcendent or Supreme Aspects. And he had never, ever heard of anyone acquiring a Divine one. Never!
Anything with the divine prefix existed in the annals of myths and legends, even Saints and Masters, would be forced to run away at the might of any creature within that Rank of power. And here was Sunny within such an Aspect and a very powerful one at that.
It was very likely that Sunny had just made history!
A well of joy and arrogance began growing in Sunny's heart as he started to understand the full might of his Aspect.
Sunny would have to research what a ‘Gacha’ was, but if he understood the general gist of it… he likely had the potential to be the strongest and most influential Awakened to exist.
To ever exist.
All he had to do was accomplish ‘quests’ and in return he would seemingly get Memories, Echoes, Attributes, Skills and even more Aspect abilities, that was unheard of!
Sunny's mind began to spin at the myriad of wondrous things he had seen while reading webnovels in the library, creating fire in one's hands, summoning powerful abominations, crushing mountains in a single blow, sword skills so refined they could cut an apple within the frame of an atom…
Obviously there were limits, but would his future gains be limited by Rank or Tiers? Could he wield the skills of an Ascended? Transcendent? Supreme? Sacred being?
A Divine being, all as a mere Sleeper?
He failed to see why that wouldn't be the case, he had a Divine Aspect after all!
Sunny clutched his stomach as a mad laughter bubbled up within him escaped his mouth, he laughed in shaking fits, at the same time as tears of unadulterated glee poured down his face.
“Forget about being rich! That's thinking too small for something like this! I'm going all the way to the top!” Sunny shouted out into the void, his voice thick with future triumph.
The world had constantly kicked him down, it was only fair for it to pay back Sunny what he was owed.
However, before Sunny could continue in his egomaniacal proclamations, the Spell spoke into his ear once more, making him pause. For some reason it's voice sounded… terrified.
[The First Seal is broken.]
[Awakening dormant powers…]