Here we go again in hell(A shadow slave Fan-fic)

In a secluded corner of the dark and moist sewer, there was a campfire and a tent with someone sitting near the campfire. That person was the heir of death, Sunny. 'Mmm, those beans we found really do taste like coffee.' Sunny had found a plant that produced coffee so he could now make the coffee, though it was very bitter so no wonder creatures didn't eat it.

Suddenly a rustling noise can be heard from inside the tent, their tent was made out of an array of animal hides and seaweed turned into string to tie it all up nicely with a zipper. Said zipper was brought down as someone came out of the tent, Nephis. She came out of it rubbing her eyes to shake away the drowsiness before looking at Sunny with an...affectionate stare.

"Good morning Sunny."

"Good morning...honey," Sunny said with a dreamy smile directed towards her and only for her.

Indeed they were now dating, though how it happened was quite embarrassing, for Sunny of course.

***

A week before all this Sunny and Nephis were looking for a place to camp for the night, presumably at night as there's no way to tell. Sunny was scouting ahead for danger with his new Shadow which seemed...creepy. He spotted a secluded corner after a bit of searching and they decided to set up camp for the night. Neph started a fire while Sunny built their tent from the materials they packed before this but Sunny still struggled as he had never made one before.

"Let me help you, Sunny."

Nephis walked over towards him and then spent the next ten minutes constructing the tent step by step as Nephis taught him the ropes. Eventually, they finished the tent and it looked splendid. Sunny then did the honors of cooking dinner, which was monster meat as always with salt and water before they got inside the tent to sleep. They huddled up in sleeping bags, separately and away from each other, and silence enveloped them.

"This is way better than the outskirts, a warm place, food, and weirdly enough safety."

Nephis shot him a nervous glance, which was almost perfectly hidden, before asking.

"Sunny... how was your life in the outskirts?"

"My life on the outskirts was...rough to say the least. As you know things only got worse after I gave away Rain, which I don't regret one bit. I had to fend for myself and some days I didn't eat and only drank dirty water from the sewers or rain water that I got from leaving containers. But rain water was still very polluted and the sewer water isn't exactly clean so I got sick a lot to the point of almost dying at times. I...I even joined a gang though I left it soon after because of the stuff I did with them.

I had to scavenge for food in trash cans or buy synthetic paste if I wanted to eat. I've...done some things I'm not proud of and even killed a dozen or so people before my first nightmare. Honestly, I know you hate the spell but it also saved my life, I wouldn't be here if I weren't infected."

"I see...Sunny, do you...regret staying behind for me? You know you didn't have to and you don't owe me anything, you could've gone back, have a good life, and find your sister."

Sunny turned to look at her, her silver pupils burned in her eyes showering in determination. Sunny...sunny didn't know how to answer her and his flaw wasn't making him answer yet as he didn't know the answer. Sunny was conflicted because on one hand he didn't regret his choice, wanted to stay behind for Nephis because he wanted to and Rain would do fine without him. But on the other hand, these couple of weeks have been fun but also dangerous and tiring, not to mention a bit lonely without the presence of other humans, though he wasn't complaining about his alone time with Neph.

"I... don't regret my choice Neph, and I never will. I wanted to stay behind not because I owe you and not because of shadow bond but because I wanted to. Plus Rain will be fine without me, after all, she was fine without me before I met her again so it's fine. And also although these have been rough times that doesn't mean I didn't have fun spending time with you."

Nephis stared at him and Sunny could swear he saw her eyes water a little before disappearing.

"I'm glad you're here with me Sunny."

She turned her head back, and soon both of them fell asleep with the crackling fire in the background. In the morning they got ready and went exploring together in the sewer. The walls were gray and made out of stone though it looked like it was made primitively. There was a small stream of dirty water in the middle but they walked on the raised walkways. Sunny pulled out a piece of parchment and started writing out a map of the place to use later. The air was damp and often Sunny was bombarded by droplets of water from the roof so he used his cloak to cover the paper.

They found out that the tunnels led somewhere at times so he documented every chamber. Some were just a large square room with a huge hole in the middle which Sunny guessed was to dispose of the dirty water. Another room they found was a control room that contained wooden switches, valves, pressure gauges, and weirdly a lever that had weaves in it. 'Why does that lever have a weave on it? It doesn't seem like a memory.' Watching Nephis examine the room and make sure there was no danger nearby, he pulled the lever...and nothing happened.

'I wonder...' Teacher Julius had once taught him about how the forgotten technology left by ancient times worked. Apparently, they used their aspects and essence to use technology, unlike humans who had used different methods to achieve the same result. Circulating essence inside him-with help from serpent-he built up a lake of essence before pouring it into the lever which seemed to absorb it. Pulling the lever down he heard a roaring sound behind him as he and Neph turned back and saw the once minuscule stream of water disappear. He then pulled it up and another roar followed as a large stream that was about 8 feet deep came and flowed through the sewer.

"What did you do Sunny?"

Nephis asked as Sunny pulled back the lever to its original position and stopped sending it essence which caused the water to return to normal levels.

"Well, all I did was figure out how this system works by using essence. I just poured some in while moving the lever to control the depth of the water so that might come in handy."

"Maybe, let's get going I want to keep searching for a place to set up a permanent base."

Sunny nodded as he left with Nephis as they continued on their exploration. 'I wonder how huge this place is, maybe even as big as the coral labyrinth.'

As both of them walked together they encountered many different creatures ranging from rats -ew- to water monsters with tentacles and from Dormant to Fallen. As they made their way Sunny had to use more and more paper to map it all out until he even ran out of paper. Sighing he put away the paper and kept mental notes of the way back just in case. Eventually, though they exited a tunnel to enter a huge chamber, and in the middle was a gigantic castle that felt imposing as if saying 'Look at these puny humans, they don't deserve my attention.'

"Woah," both Sunny and Neph said in unison.

Sunny was excited as he was nervous that something would go wrong because of [Fated]. The castle was as big, if not bigger, than the bright castle and was made out of pure white marble. Four towers were at its corners with a large wooden gate that was four Sunny's tall and with the help of shadow sense, Sunny counted at least 100 hallways inside the castle stretching on for dozens of meters(yards). Sunny also sensed lots of moving shadows in the castle walls and inside the castle, and an especially huge deep castle in what was maybe a throne room.

"This castle is infested with creatures and what I presume is at least a corrupted demon in the center of it, we shouldn't mess with it for now Neph."

"Agreed but we should at least take a look later I think it's worth at least checking out."

They took another tunnel and kept exploring but making sure they were going West. As they kept going more and more creatures kept appearing and they had even fought a fallen creature that resembled an octopus. Eventually, though fewer tunnels appeared until it all merged into one tunnel, and at the end of it was an iron gate blocking their way. Sunny slashed [Midnight Shard] to break the gate...but instead it recoiled back and almost hit Sunny if he didn't let go and move to the side.

"Gah the fuck, how strong is that gate."

Sunny has a premonition that if he hadn't used [Midnight Shard] then any other sword would've shattered instantly. Sunny looked back at where he had slashed at, its surface was ungrazed and even the rust that formed on the metal wasn't affected.

"Let me try."

Nephis struck at the metal gate with all her flame and the [Nameless Sun] augmenting her silver sword...which also recoiled. Nephis immediately dodged as if expecting it and looking at her sword which had cracks on it, she dismissed it and turned to Sunny.

"Well...looks like we aren't leaving anytime soon, let's head ba-"

Before Nephis could finish her sentence Sunny had put his palm on the small keyhole before shuddering. Before this Sunny's intuition sparked and he felt heavily compelled to put his palm on the small keyhole he saw. When he did he shuddered as he felt, no more like knew, that the gate would only open with a key. But the key...Sunny had shuddered because the location of the key was the one place he desperately wanted to avoid, the pristine castle. Sunny had bad experiences with castles, although he only knew one castle before which was The Blight Castle. But this one was different as it was infested with fallen beasts or higher prowling about its halls.

"Sunny are you okay?"

Nephis shuffled towards him and put her hand on his back and was about to heal him if Sunny didn't put his hand on hers. 'I'm fine' Sunny said through their mental connection, Sunny didn't use it often because he would forget often but he did use it. They held this position for a bit in silence, they held each other's stares for minutes before Sunny stood up straight. They both blushed as they looked away from each other before recovering and started walking their way back to base.

"I uh I know where the key is to open the gate but where it is will be our death sentence. It's at the White Castle we saw earlier, it's hard to explain how I know but I know it's there."

Nephis expression didn't change but Sunny could tell she was deep in thought. Although Sunny helped her emote more and even got her to smile from time to time, she still had an emotionless face most of the time unconsciously. It wasn't her fault, of course, she had a childhood and still had scars from people betraying her and being hunted down like prey. Sunny was also deciding whether or not to confess his feelings towards her.

On one hand, she had the right to know after he forced himself to stay against her right, and also because it would be awkward for him every time they got close. But on the other Sunny didn't know the first thing about dating and much less about proposing to someone. Plus she might not even like him back, after all, why would she love him, an outskirt rat? She's a princess of a clan, even if it was in ruins she had many options for bf's as her beauty was unmatched and she looked like an angel in his opinion. Shadow Bond would be a problem if Sunny hadn't gotten rid of his fears of Neph using his power over him so he wasn't worried. 'They make it look so simple in those webnovels.'

They eventually reached back to camp and lit up a fire, ate, and then slept. This continued for 5 days and they had discovered and fought a lot during those days. Sunny has racked up loads of shadow fragments during this time and Neph consumed loads of soul shards and was well on her way to almost becoming a devil. On this night though a series of events happened that Sunny had dubbed "the great successful fail".Which all started when they had come back from their adventure in the sewers.

Sunny had found a vine growing beans which he crushed into powder which tasted like coffee and wasn't poisonous. 'It's great to be able to have coffee again, though some sugar will be nice.' Sunny handed the coffee beans to Neph as they walked towards the fire and started boiling water for the coffee while Sunny practiced Shadow Dance. Mid-swing he heard something that made him trip and shut down his brain.

"Sunny do you love me?"

In actuality though Neph had asked,

"Sunny do you love coffee?"

But Sunny wasn't paying attention and had misheard it because of shadow dance. As he lay on the floor his face was beet-red like a tomato, sadly his flaw didn't help as it only made him answer the question he heard, not the actual one. 'WHA- why w-would she ask me that so brutally!' Feeling the pain of his flaw build up by him not answering he tried to hold it back but failed and responded yelling the answer the flaw gave him.

"I-i do love you Neph!"

Neph turned her head towards him sharply, her eyes widening as her jaw dropped a little.

"Wha-what!"

Sunny jumped when she yelled "what," and instead of Sunny seeing her confused expression he thought she was shocked. 'Fuck this is embarrassing I gotta go-'

"Sunny I-"

Before she finished Sunny wrapped his three Shadows around him and sprinted down the hall not daring to look back. He ran and ran but he heard running behind him and taking a look behind him he saw Neph running after him trying to tell him something but Sunny was too embarrassed to even see her. Eventually, Sunny lost her and panting he looked for somewhere to hide until he found a small corner. Sitting down, he summoned his water bottle and drank greedily to his heart's content before unsummoning it and starting to think.

'The fuck do I do now, I can't go back to her after that!' Sunny face-palmed himself as he thought back to the embarrassing scene. After a while he felt a hand on his shoulder and looked up to see...none other than Neph. Before Sunny could try and run Neph collapsed and sat on his stomach which caused him to wheeze.

"Why are you here?"

"I haven't given you my answer to your sudden proposal."

"Yeah after you asked me if I loved you."

Neph raised her eyebrow slightly before answering,

"I never asked you if you loved me, I asked if you love coffee."

"You have to be kidding me."

Sunny's eyes widen as he realized how much of a dumbass he was for miss hearing her question and embarrassing himself in front of her.

"W-wait so what's your answer?"

"This is..."

Neph leaned down before pressing her lips on his as he felt her warm sweet lips on his. He kissed her back as they embraced each other until they ran out of breath, and panting Sunny smiled as he realized one very important thing. 'I finally have a gf now....wow'

***

Back in the present, Nephis walked over towards him before sitting next to him and holding his hand. They held each other for a while until Neph broke it by saying they should go now which Sunny agreed to, sadly. Of course, they had a long day ahead of them so Sunny was glad they spent a few minutes together in the fire as there was no telling what would happen next. Gearing up they both set out and started walking with purpose and made sure to avoid creatures to conserve strength. Eventually, they reached a place Sunny hoped to never see again...the white, pristine castle Sunny dubbed "the false castle" because of it being infested with creatures.

Of course, they weren't here to launch an assault on the front gate and be brutally killed by the first few guards they saw. No, they came here not to fight but to scout out the place and try to find a way in to get the key, and also learn about the creatures inside the castle. As Sunny and Nephis stood in front of the castle Sunny turned and looked at Neph and vowed that he'll make sure they'll make it out alive.

"Are you ready?"

Summoning her sword, she looked back at him and with a small smile said,

"I'm ready now."

As they stood there in front of the castle a blond-haired girl stood in front of a house with a big window in front. She was accompanied by a dark-haired woman who was none other than Master Jet.

"So this is the place," the blind seer said in a quiet whisper, She had found out where Rain finally lives.