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 together for warmth and slept as though they were dead, too tired to make someone keep

happen, the shadow would probably

so be it. They were

of the night went

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 the two soul shards and moved to the opposite side of the small island, afraid that the

were right. Not long after the group left the place of the battle, a dark spot appeared in the sky. Soon, it became larger and approached the cliffs, landing near the

white as a corpse and muscular,

covered in long black feathers, as well as its enormous

creature feasted on the dead centurion, easily breaking its carapace apart with its talons and beak. Then, satisfied, it grabbed a few scavenger carcasses

and flew back the way it

It was moving west.

the black dot as it disappeared into the distance, Sunny

What do you

sky. After

"I have no idea."

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

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

two scavengers at once, running away and barely surviving the sudden flood, climbing tall cliffs in the middle of

sort himself out. Truth be told, he was

it. The thing was that, after the unexpected epiphany he had while trying to fight

clarity he gained

very way of thinking and perceiving

now able to think much faster and act without hesitation. Many things that previously seemed obscure and frightening suddenly became predictable,

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

end of the First Nightmare. He felt that he had made a big leap

at the sky, Sunny wondered if

the body, mastery of the

master. But it felt as

***

Sunny approached the western edge of

dangling over the edge.

silver-haired girl and followed her

Changing Star was hard to

feeling incredibly embarrassed. Finally, he gathered his courage and

saved my

at him and

"I did."

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