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.

***

was already deep into the night. Sunny, Nephis and Cassie huddled

happen, the shadow would probably alarm them

not, so be it. They

the rest of the night went

centurion and the scavengers, collected the two soul shards and moved to the opposite side of the small island, afraid that the remains

right. Not long after the group left the place of the battle, a dark spot appeared in the sky. Soon,

massive in size, easily weighing twice as much as the carapace monster. Its body was white as a corpse and muscular, like that of a lion. It had two mighty paws in the back and six in the front, protruding

black feathers, as well as its enormous wings. Its head resembled that of a raven, with large round eyes and a terrifying

its talons and beak. Then, satisfied, it

and flew back the

It was moving west.

as it disappeared into the distance,

do you think that thing

sky. After a few seconds, she

"I have no idea."

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

fire, they roasted the centurion's meat and had a delicious,

flood, climbing tall cliffs in the middle of a storm and battling an awakened monster — all done in a single day — they deserved some time

needed to sort himself out. Truth be told, he was feeling a bit

it had a lot to do with it. The thing was that, after the unexpected epiphany he had while trying to fight against the deathly

the clarity he gained never

though his very way of thinking and perceiving the world was now completely different. It

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

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

that he had made a big leap in his combat ability and overall power,

wondered if this was how

Mastery of the body,

But it felt as though he was on the

***

later, Sunny approached the western edge

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

her gaze, trying to guess what she was thinking

he failed. Changing Star was hard

feeling incredibly embarrassed. Finally, he gathered his courage and

saved my

glanced at him and

"I did."

words. In the end, he couldn't come up with