These chimeric monstrosities vaguely resemble any creature from this world. That makes it incredibly difficult to hypothesize about their origins. In fact, the Shadow Pain seems to be taken out from the most bizarre nightmares, the ones that wake you up all sweaty in the middle of a winter’s night and prevent you from looking at the dark corner of the room. These horrors can usually be found inside the Darkness’ portals lurking and creeping like mindless aberrations or close to a Shadow Guardian, which leads some scholars to believe that the former are the latter’s spawns. However, there have also been a few reports of Shadow Pains lurking alone in the darkest depths of ancient ruins across all of Daren.

Although some scholars of the Setting Sun Church first classified the Shadow Pains as two different creatures due to the snake-like aberrations always seen around them, there are no reports of both seen separately. Moreover, even though the Shadow Pains are believed to be blind, they are attracted to living creatures, and attack by inciting the snake monstrosities against their targets, which more recently make the scholars question the possibility of symbiosis between the two. Once the nightmarish serpents lunge against their prey, biting with their fangs oozing the Darkness’ miasma, new snakes seem to appear directly from the Shadow Pains’ bodies. In many aspects, the Shadow Pain seems like a nest of indescribable horrors. Not only do they release their snake spawns, though also tentacles from their torsos and necks, strong enough to dismember anyone foolish enough to face them alone. Their name is due not only to their unspeakable aspect, though also to their behavior. When found in the dark, these monsters scream and screech in the corners like tormented souls, until they sense life. If you see or hear one of these horrors before they sense you, quietly turn back and leave or you may find that you haven’t met your worst nightmare yet.