Shadow Slave

Monsters did possess some rudimentary intelligence, however, they could not compare to humans. At their core, they were still predators who acted mostly on instinct. Their cunning was beastly in nature and was not that hard to overcome. That gave the three Sleepers a chance to leverage their advantage.

After finalizing the plan, they made some preparations.

While Changing Star was getting ready, Sunny had retrieved the soul shards from the eight dead scavengers. After delivering them to the silver-haired girl, he watched as she brought them to her chest and crushed them in her fist one after another, absorbing the essence of each shard into her soul core. After a few minutes, when the changes caused by the absorption were over, Nephis opened her eyes and slowly inhaled.

To a Sleeper, consuming the shards of eight awakened beasts was equivalent to slaying sixteen dormant creatures. While not tremendous, it was still a significant boost in physical ability. Her body had become stronger, faster, enhanced in every way.

They were going to need every bit of that strength to survive.

Because of how attuned Nephis was to her physicality, getting accustomed to her new limits did not take long. Very soon, she looked at him and asked:

"Are you ready?"

Sunny sighed glanced at his shadow, hoping to get some moral support.

The shadow pretended to not notice and ignored him.

'Disloyal bastard!'

"As ready as I'll ever be."

Nephis nodded and turned to Cassie.

There was nothing really to say. They had already discussed everything there was to discuss, and empty words could not make the blind girl worry any less. Come to think of it, Sunny wouldn't have wanted to trade places with her, even though out of the three of them she was the only one who didn't have to risk her life in combat.

Facing the enemy, no matter how terrifying, was better than waiting powerlessly for the outcome, knowing that there's nothing you can do to change it. From that point of view, he was actually the lucky one.

Cassie tried to put on a brave face. She turned to Nephis and forced a smile:

"Go and kill that thing. Maybe you'll finally get something decent to wear and stop making me feel so guilty."

A corner of Changing Star's lip curled up.

"Okay."

After that, she turned to Sunny and returned to her usual serious self.

"Let's go."

later, he was standing on top of the rocky ridge, looking down at the deadly monster. The shadow was wrapped around his body, enhancing

the ominous feeling that this was

'I don't like this.'

his hand and

lightly shook it, causing the clear melodic ringing to resound

***

moved, turning its massive torso around and looking for the source of the

he was already facing the other way. As soon as the bell rang, he turned

a considerable distance to the ground. Sunny hit the rocks hard and rolled, trying to disperse the force of the impact. As soon as he got back to his feet, he ran, trying to get as far away as

its hulking body, breaking through the layers of rocks as though they were paper. Simultaneously, there was a flash of lightning and

trying to pierce his body with one of its scythes. Shards of rock were flowing like a torrent from its spiked

enough. Without slowing down, he lowered

rushing at him like a speeding train was enough to make any person falter. However, Sunny stood his ground, raising

all, he was

dozen meters away from him, the monster

strung between two massive boulders

rope and ran into it at full speed. If it was a normal rope, it would, without a doubt, immediately snap. However, the golden rope was a Memory,

to, unfortunately, were quite mundane. They shattered

the damage was

its balance and crashed into the ground face-first, sliding forward on wet stone and leaving behind a

pierced the ground, jerking its massive body to a

was allowed to stand up, their fates

Echo was

stopped pretending to be one of the dead scavengers, got up and dashed forward. Just as their enemy was about to rise, it jumped on its carapace from behind, pinning the creature down with its weight, and locked its pincers on the creature's arms just beneath the point where the bone

the fact that the Echo was wounded by the spikes growing from the monster's

A second was enough.

between its terrifying scythes, she leaned forward and

if the awakened monster had the same weak spot on its back as its lesser relatives, the scavengers, had. However, there was no reason to assume that there was no gap

had to be flexible could

into the narrow gap. Then, the sword disappeared into the monster's body, penetrating so deep that

yes!' Sunny

next second, his expression

didn't even seem to notice the wound that was supposed to be if not fatal, then at least heavily debilitating. Straining its body a little, it suddenly twisted, throwing the Echo off its carapace, and rose to its feet. The bone scythes scraped against the rock as it