Shadow Slave

Somewhat surprised, Sunny struggled to open his eyes. As his vision slowly focused, he saw Neph's pale face looming above him. Her short silver hair was wet, sticking close to her skin.

She was standing on her knees beside his broken body, caressing his face with her hands. In her eyes, there was a strange expression.

It was as though she was frightened, but resigned to something.

Her pupils were wide and dark.

'Wh—what?'

Greeting her teeth, Nephis moved her hands to his collapsed chest and pressed them lightly against it, causing a pulse of pain to radiate through Sunny's body.

Then, a soft, radiant brilliance suddenly ignited beneath the skin of her palms, reflecting in her grey eyes like two dancing white sparks.

Almost immediately, Changing Star's face contorted in a grimace of excruciating agony, and she let out a terrible, muffled scream.

Her skin became white as a sheet of paper, and as she bit her lower lip, drops of blood soon rolled to her chin.

As the radiance grew in intensity, Nephis shut her eyes tightly, tears streaming down her tortured, bloodless face.

Sunny, on the contrary, felt like he was in heaven. All pain disappeared from his body, replaced by gentle, all-encompassing warmth. He felt as though he was being cleansed by something pure and sacred.

By a white, pristine, purifying flame.

Under the influence of the flame, his dying body began to repair itself. His shattered bones were reassembled from the shards. His torn flesh regenerated and became whole again. His collapsed lungs and damaged heart were brought back to life and rejuvenated, instantly turning strong and healthy.

Suddenly, he could breathe again.

As his chest moved, drawing in a new breath, Nephis flinched away with a harrowing moan. The white radiance beneath her skin dimmed and disappeared, letting the darkness return to its rightful place.

Crawling away a few steps, Changing Star stopped, standing on her knees and hands, and violently vomited. Her whole body was shivering uncontrollably, as though on the verge of a seizure.

As the shivers died down, she slowly lowered herself to the ground and lay there motionlessly, catching the raindrops with her mouth.

Sunny, meanwhile, raised his hands and carefully explored his body.

To his surprise, nothing really hurt. It was as though he was never wounded in the first place, let alone almost died.

With the help of Nephis and her mysterious Aspect Ability, he was completely healed.

It was a miracle.

***

time the storm was over, it was already deep into the night. Sunny, Nephis and Cassie huddled together for warmth and slept as though they were dead, too tired to make someone

to happen, the shadow would probably alarm

so be it. They were just

rest of the night went without

meat from the dead carapace centurion and the scavengers, collected the two soul

dark spot appeared in the sky.

much as the carapace monster. Its body was white as a corpse and muscular, like that of a lion. It had two mighty

its enormous wings. Its head resembled that of

feasted on the dead centurion, easily breaking its carapace apart with its talons and beak. Then, satisfied, it

left the cliffs and flew

It was moving west.

black dot as it

you think that

at the sky. After a

"I have no idea."

simply nodded and went about his business. He still had to perform his thousand

a delicious, hefty breakfast. Then, stuffed, the three

against two scavengers at once, running away and barely surviving the sudden flood, climbing tall cliffs in the middle of a storm and battling an awakened monster —

out. Truth be told, he

not his traumatic near-death experience, although it had a lot to do with it. The thing was that, after the unexpected epiphany he had while trying to fight

clarity he gained never went

though his very way of thinking and perceiving the world was

felt that he had become calmer. He was now able to think much faster and act without hesitation. Many things that previously seemed obscure and frightening suddenly

was as though he had discovered an underlying order to the world that wasn't there before. That inner understanding gave him an advantage that was hard to

at the end of the First Nightmare. He felt that he had made a big leap in his combat ability and overall power, even though it wasn't tied to

Sunny wondered if this was how Nephis always

of the body,

But

***

time later, Sunny approached the western edge of

her feet dangling over the edge. She was looking west, lost

the silver-haired girl and followed her

he failed. Changing Star

shifted, feeling incredibly embarrassed. Finally, he gathered his

saved my life

at him

"I did."

trying to find the correct words. In the end, he couldn't come