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.

***

the 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

shadow would probably alarm

it. They were just too exhausted

of the night

the morning, no one was in a hurry to make any plans or suggest leaving the cliffs. They just gathered some meat from the dead carapace centurion and the scavengers, collected

group left the place of the battle, a dark spot appeared in the sky. Soon,

weighing twice as much as the carapace monster. Its body was white as a corpse and muscular, like that of a lion.

as its enormous wings. Its head resembled that of a raven, with large round eyes

its talons and beak. Then, satisfied, it grabbed a few scavenger carcasses with its paws and rose back into the

cliffs and flew back the

It was moving west.

it disappeared into

do you think that thing

looking at the sky. After a few seconds, she lowered her

"I have no idea."

his business. He still had

and had a delicious, hefty breakfast. Then, stuffed, the three of

at once, running away and barely surviving the sudden flood, climbing tall cliffs in the middle of a storm and battling an awakened monster — all done in a single day — they deserved some

sort himself out. Truth

was that, after the unexpected epiphany he had while trying to fight against the deathly mind fog, Sunny

he gained never went

very way of thinking and perceiving

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 became

had discovered an underlying order to the world that wasn't there before. That inner understanding gave him an

he had made a big leap in his combat ability and overall power, even though it wasn't tied to the number of consumed

wondered if this was how Nephis

the body, mastery of the mind.

still far away from being a master. But it

***

time later, Sunny approached the western edge of the

sitting there, her feet dangling over the edge. She

silver-haired girl and followed her gaze, trying to guess what she was

failed. Changing

embarrassed. Finally, he gathered

my life

at him and turned away

"I did."

trying to find the correct words. In the end, he couldn't come up with anything and simply