Review Detail of Street_Rider_5870 in Shadow Slave

Ok, I've only written a couple reviews but I wanted to write one for this. I'm an avid fan of the Dark Souls games, so I love the world here. I love how the world and power level is built by the author. I like it almost as much as Lord of the Mysteries, which is my favorite novel. (I've read so many novels now). Sorry for comparing with LOTM, but IMO that is just how good this novel is. SPOILER: I love the introduction to this novel and the first nightmare to get his aspect and the flaw. Though his flaw only states that 'You cannot lie' and not 'You are always forced to answer with the truth', I think its fine because its stated that the descriptions are not always accurate cuz of the runes stuff. The MC being Sunny, who is a street rat who only aims for survival, not motivated to take risks unless his life is at stake, is also a breath of fresh air among the countless instant OP MC chinese and Harem novels. The MC doesn't know the pleasures of life, because of his street life, and he does not have any higher goals other than to survive and make some money during his nightmare to buy a house after getting a citizenship. Then there is Nephis, the character most of the novels would have as a protagonist. She is cunning, revenge driven, talented, always takes risks to get more powerful, and also has a divine aspect. The Shadow and the Light. I like the character development of them both and how they develop because of the influence of the other. She learns how to deceive people from Sunny and uses this deception for her goals later. But she also realizes that Sunny also has a kind side to him though he deceives people and realizes that using other people as tools would make her similar to those people who she wants to kill. Sunny learns to be a selfish from Nephis. He tries to change his way of doing this, doing stuff not just because it needs to be done or it is necessary, but because he wants to do it. Then there is Cassie. I don't exactly know how I feel about her to be honest. I really feel like this character is introduced for no other reason that to say 'Guess what bud? All your hard work trying to keep your True name from being revealed has gone down the drain, cuz of fate. So fk you', because I don't see a considerable, if not any character development for her from her introduction, atleast as of now at chapter 442. She thinks she is useless at the start because she is blind and she can't fight. She is still the same now, only she now has echoes that can fight in her stead. After arriving at Dark City, she is only mentioned few times. She doesn't talk during meetings, does not converse with Nephis nor with any others. Don't tell me she now knows how to use her fate powers better. Where is it shown? At the beginning it is shown that she doesn't reveal everything that she divines in her dream because knowledge is heavy. Her best performance was at the Ashen barrow where she just says, 'It's 'Five' five times' because too much information would cause major change to the course of events, unlike these keywords which would plant a seed for change. I liked this. But now she just straight up betrays MC by telling Nephis about his True Name because she wants to change the shadow eating the Angel. Bruh, even with all the training MC still loses to Nephis. Yeah, she accepts defeat but that is only because she lets him win. So even without Nephis knowing MC's true name, the end result would still be either Nephis convincing MC to leave or both MC and Nephis stuck in the Dream realm. So all this about her crying that she desperately tried to change fate is bullshit imo. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate the 'Fate' aspect. Like I mentioned before my favorite novel is LOTM and he's of the Seer pathway. I also don't hate that MC is now Nephis's slave. I just hate how he became her slave, at that point, because of a character like Cassie that, like I said, IMO feels like it was added just for that 'fk you' moment. And also, Nephis says that Sunny can be kind or cruel, and for him to be cruel and leave her there she acted as if Sunny had won. I don't buy this either. She says that she has changed and now wants to do things that are not distasteful and suits her desire. Abandoning him there would be vile and wrong, that's why she acted to make Sunny cruel and leave her. I don't buy that. After this change IMO, they should have had a fair fight. If Sunny wins, Nephis gets what she wants and Sunny would leave through the gateway. If Nephis wins, she could tell him that I don't want to abandon him there because that would be vile, and throw him into the gateway. I think this would suit Nephis's character more that the stupid drama that took place in the Spire. Again, don't get me wrong. I don't hate that he is her slave, I thought that would inevitable happen at some point because atleast then MC would have a motivation to become stronger and undo this slave bond, rather than just doing his best to not reveal his real name. Sorry if this is long, but I just wanted to point out why, in my opinion, what happened at the top of the spire was out of character, not needed drama and a bad way of outing his name. Consider this, it is mentioned in his Shadow Bond description that he should tell his master his true name and they should call him using that to complete the bond. We know that Caster was near the tent where MC killed the guard, Harper?. Let's say that Caster heard the MC's true name but he didn't understand the significance of the name. He considers MC as a mongrel trash and only wants to use this matter to blackmail him so he disregards this and only focuses on trying to blackmail MC. But not Cassie who saw this in her vision. She informs Nephis of this weakness of MC. Later in the spire Caster with his speed runs away from MC during his fight and reaches Nephis who is at the top and destroying the evolving Terror. But MC catches up and fights Caster, blocking him from killing Nephis. Seeing that Nephis is almost done destroying the terror, Caster shouts in anger, 'Move away, 'Lost from Light'. MC asks 'How?' while resisting to move, Caster answers I heard you when you killed the guard. But at this time, Nephis kills the terror, uses her light to enhance her body and kills Caster with MC not interfering due to his command. After which she says, 'Lost from Light. That's your true name right?' she asks, to which MC replies 'Yes' cuz he can't lie. (This is because in the definition of Shadow Bond, it says the MC has to let his master know his true name. Caster knows his name cus he said it. Like this, MC lets Nephis know his true name.) Then Nephis says, 'I already knew about this. But I didn't want to use this because that would be vile and not fair to you. Now let's fight.' So they fight, Nephis wins and orders him to leave the nightmare. That would be so much more worth it. But this is your story, I'm just a reader. You have all the future ideas and you are weaving it how you see fit. Maybe the sovereigns could use some fate stuff in the future and come to know his real name, which you want to avoid, that's why you didn't want this to happen. I love the novel, but I'm just saying why these don't make sense in my opinion. I hope this reaches you Author and I wish you all the best and hope the story you weave is the future has less of these. I'll mention some of my doubts and some things I didn't like, nothing major but some small things that irk me, below. Imagine if Cassie did not reveal the revelation of their fight 'Shadow eats the angel under the sun' to them at the start. I'd imagine that Nephis and Sunny would have a relationship that is not so broken, and Nephis would've informed him about her plan of using Caster as a Soul conduit and they could've gone home without the drama. Like some other comments have mentioned, Cassie only knows that his True name is his weakness or it is connected to his flaw and he desperately wants to avoid it being known to people. She doesn't know how it actually affects him because she cannot see the aspects of other people. Let's say that MC would explode if his True name is mentioned by others. So Nephis would have effectively killed him. So, this doesn't add up. Also about the Shadow Bond description, it states that he has to let the master know about his true name. So technically only Cassie has heard it in her dream divination and not Nephis. Don't know why he still obeys Nephis as his master. It irks me a little that he is so cunning and brave in front of the tyrant that he sees for the first time (Even knowing that it is so much more powerful that he is, he keeps a cool mind and faces the tyrant bigfoot), but when he is in the group with Nephis and Cassie and they climb up a cliff to escape a storm, and there are 8 carapace beast bodies with a centurion on top, he asks 'Are you insane? Why would we fight that?'. I get that during the aspect nightmare, he needs to fight the beast for his survival and here, since he just wants to survive, he doesn't want to risk his life and only wants to safely get to the gateway. But c'mon. They are stranded on a cliff during a storm with the centurion. They have to either fight it and take the initiative or wait for it to ambush them. With MC's cunning, can't he deduce this?? The other times that he asks if Nephis is insane is fine, because they don't need to fight the strong master to get on their way to find the gateway. It fits the characters but this instance doesn't. It is also annoying that he keeps mentioning his pervy thoughts as 'Only in a way of admiration' or something like that, and keeps getting flustered due to Effie's pervy stabs. I kinda get that it is a way to reduce the tension in their dire circumstances, but the dude's been in this hellish Forgotten Shore for half a year now. For half a year, he's kept killing horrendous nightmares and other hellish monstrosities. He's more mentally strong that others, though he's somewhat broken, to keep behaving like this. It's fine in the beginning but I seriously hope he stops this. He's been travelling with the two girls for two months, seeing and feeling lots of stuff. I think by now, after a year in the Forgotten shore, he's indifferent to this. Okay, now I'm gonna write about things I love. The characters, like I said before, are amazingly written. I love Effie, Kai, Gunlaug, Harus, his Survival Teacher, I even like the how Caster was portrayed. They are all likeable characters and I would have loved to see some stuff from their perspective, like what they think about staying in this hellhole or Gunlaug's thought on leading the city, Harus's loyalty to his master, Kai about his thoughts on honest Sunny and Effie about her life in this place. I love the power system, like I mentioned before. The Spell seems that it is fair, but you can sense from its notifications that it is also biased. I love the way how memories, echoes, cores, abilities and attributes work and also the descriptions given that gives more lore, like in the Souls series. I especially love MC's development on his passion of exploring and him moving for treasure. It explores the lore, gives more personality to Sunny instead of just going along the flow, and also it is so well written, like in LOTM, to invoke our curiosity. Many novels try stuff like this, and not a lot of them are good to this extent. I love where the story is at right now. Cassie and Sunny's relationship is broken, (but tbh was there one for the last 200 chapters?) Nephis is stuck in that realm, which I think is great. I love Nephis's character but I think its great for the story that we have now stopped our thoughts on the actions of Nephis. It's time for MC to catch up with her, and I think its great that we can now focus on his improvement, how his relationship with his sister Rain is gonna develop, gathering others like Master Jet to form a group, maybe? whatever, It's time we start focusing on MC now that he has a goal to keep up with Nephis and to somehow remove this slave bond. (I just hope that he doesn't become like Harus, 'You don't understand about loyalty to master, even after death we should be loyal'. That would be incredibly hypocritical and out of character.) I hope Sunny would, after Nephis wakes up, talks to her about this. Would they go their separate way because of this slave bond after she wakes up because he can't stand her? or Would he tell her that if she is going to order him, he might as well kill herself? or Would he still become like Harus and simp for Nephis? Will MC have a goal after catching up with Nephis in strength or Will he follow after her as a slave to help her take revenge? I don't know and I am excited for the future. I just hope he stays in character. I love the work you have done, the story is going good now, I wish you all the best and I hope it keeps getting better and better. Again, sorry if it is too long.