Shadow Slave

Sunny was off to face against a Nightmare Creature. And not any creature, at that, but one of the fifth category — a dreaded, fearsome tyrant. The odds of survival were so low that anyone would have laughed in his face if he were to ever suggest attempting to fight it. If they weren't an Awakened two or three ranks above the creature, of course.

Which Sunny certainly wasn't.

And yet, he had to deal with this Mountain King somehow to avoid an even more miserable death. The ridiculous degree to which the odds were stacked against him from the very beginning of this delayed execution had gotten old a long time ago, so he didn't have any more energy to think about it. What was there to fear, after all? He was already as good as dead. It's not like he could get any deader.

So why worry?

On the other side of the bonfire, things were turning from bad to worse. Most of the slaves were already dead. A few soldiers were still desperately trying to fight the monster, but it was clear that they weren't going to last long. Right in front of Sunny's eyes, the tyrant picked up a dead slave, dragging the chain up with him, and opened its terrifying maw wide. With one crushing bite, the slave's body was torn in half, leaving only bloodied stumps inside the shackles.

Mountain King's five indifferent, milky eyes stared into the distance as he chewed, streams of blood flowing down its chin.

Seeing that the creature's upper arms were busy, one of the soldiers screamed and lunged forward, brandishing his long spear. Without turning its head, the tyrant extended one of its shorter lower arms, caught the soldier's head in an iron grip and squeezed, crushing the poor man's skull like a soap bubble. A moment later, the headless body was tossed over the cliff and disappeared into the abyss below.

Shifty doubled over, puking his guts out. Then he shakily rose to his feet and glared at Sunny.

"Well? We've taken a look, now what?"

Sunny did not answer, pensively observing the tyrant with his head slightly tilted to one side. Shifty stared at him some more, then turned to Scholar.

"I'm telling you, old man, the boy is sick in the head. How the hell can he be so calm?!"

"Shhhh! Lower your voice, fool!"

Blood drained from Shifty's face as he slapped himself, covering his mouth with both hands. Then he cast a fearful look in the direction of the tyrant.

Luckily, the abomination was too busy feasting on the slaves — lucky ones who were already dead and unlucky ones who were still alive — to pay them any attention. Shifty slowly exhaled.

Sunny was preoccupied with thinking, measuring his chances of survival.

'How do I get rid of that thing?'

He didn't have any special powers, nor did he have an army ready to bury the tyrant under a mountain of bodies. He didn't even have a weapon to at least scratch the damn bastard.

of the tyrant's arms, bursting into a rain of sparks. The young soldier — Sunny's heroic liberator — had just tossed a burning piece of wood at the monster and was now defiantly

"Face me, devil!"

distraction! Just

for Sunny to kill the Mountain King with his own two hands, he had decided to enlist some help. A human wouldn't be up to the task, so instead, he was planning to use a

myself, let's make gravity do it for

foolish bravado presented an opportunity.

he started running toward the far end of the stone platform, where the heavy wagon was perched dangerously close to

perhaps confusing his calmness with confidence, or maybe divine inspiration. After all, it was a widely known

claws, slashing it with the sword. The sharp edge slid ineffectively across the dirty fur, not living even a scratch on the creature's flash. In the next

wagon. Once there, he hurriedly looked around,

upper end of the stone platform, where it narrowed and turned back into the road. It was turned sideways to block the wind, with its front facing the mountain wall and its back facing the cliff. There were two large wooden wedges placed under the

remove both of them. Then push.

"What? Why?"

stared at him with a dumbfounded expression on his face. Scholar just looked at the wedges, and then

just half a second away from being completely eviscerated. From time to time, his sword flashed in the air, but to no avail:

as far as Sunny could see, were already dead. So he really needed that one to live a little bit

yet!'

he simply

"You'll see."

the bodies, blood and viscera littering the stone platform, but for once, luck was on his side. A short amount of time later, he had

a horribly disfigured body of a slave locked

to land on his feet, sliding several meters across the stones. All of his limbs were still in place; there were no terrible wounds on his body, either. Without skipping a bit, Hero rolled forward, picking up his sword from where it fell on the ground, and then rolled

the hell rolls

waste, Sunny finally managed to unlock the shackles. Shaking the dead slave out of them, he then promptly locked them once again, this time around the chain itself — ending up with a makeshift slipknot

his resolve,

and Scholar, who were still waiting by the

"Now!"

picking up a sizable length of chain, Sunny

spared him half a glance. His eyes lingered on the chain for a moment and then quickly followed it to the wagon. Then, without showing a hint of emotion, the young warrior doubled

too?

unnecessary thoughts, Sunny concentrated on the weight of the chain in his hands, the distance between him and the