Shadow Slave

Jumping off the dead scavenger, Sunny retrieved his sword and whistled, letting Cassie know that it was safe to come out. Soon, she crawled out of a small opening in the coral wall and carefully put her feet on the ground. Leaning on her staff, the blind girl stood up and slightly turned her head, listening to the light sound of his footsteps.

Sunny approached Cassie and took her hand, gently placing it on his shoulder. Then, carefully avoiding puddles of blood, he guided the blind girl to the Echo. They talked on the way.

"Did those centipedes show up?"

During their journey through the labyrinth, they discovered that the scavengers were not the only creatures populating it. Different types of monsters lived in the crimson forest, hiding inside the reefs during the night and coming out to hunt once the sun was up.

There were sentient colonies of carnivorous worms that attacked from beneath the black mud, flesh-eating flowers that strangled their prey with bloodsucking vines, and weird transparent tentacles that they had once seen dragging a desperately resisting scavenger into a dark, cavernous crevice.

They still didn't know what type of creature had been hiding in the crevice. Sunny hoped that they would never find out.

In short, the labyrinth was home to all kinds of horrors, every one of them at least of the Awakened rank. They were all carrion eaters, living off the remains left behind by the monsters of the dark sea. Given the opportunity, they were also more than willing to devour each other — not to mention the three juicy humans.

Luckily, the carapace legion turned out to be extremely territorial and seemed to have the upper hand in this region of the crimson reef. While their armor, size and physical strength made the scavengers formidable opponents, dealing mostly with one type of creature was infinitely better than constantly facing unknown danger.

The centipede monsters were the latest enemy of the carapace legion they had met. Some of these critters were more than three meters long, with glistening red chitin and hundreds of tiny, scurrying legs. They were abhorrently fast and agile, being able to move through mud, climb the coral walls and even drop on the unsuspecting victims from above with incredible speed.

What's worse, their bodies were able to secret a corrosive black oil that melted through the strongest armor in seconds. The only redeeming quality of the centipede monsters was that their chitin shells weren't very tough and could be easily pierced by a sword.

Sunny answered without turning back:

"Yeah, six of them. And a few scavengers, too. We let them fight each other and then finished off the survivors."

Cassie gulped.

"Were you hurt?"

"Nothing our armor couldn't handle."

"What about the centurion?"

He glanced at the half-devoured carcass and smiled.

"It's not going to bother us again."

was the second awakened monster they had slain after entering the Dream Realm. Compared to the first encounter, this battle went

even kept both of

many soul shards did

Sunny counted.

"Should be eleven."

it was Cassie's turn

so

He nodded.

"Yeah."

his bad luck was to blame, but neither he nor Nephis had been able to acquire a single one for the past two weeks. It was almost as though the Spell had decided that they had already gotten

never be

He sighed.

the games he and Cassie liked to play during camp was to discuss what they would buy after coming back to the real

and avarice, Sunny approached the Echo and looked up

"Hey, you! Stop chewing!"

obediently froze, a piece of meat still hanging from its

"Spit it out!"

climb to her seat

half of the centurion. What's up with that? Of all the Echoes in the world, why did

squinted at it. What a rare show of solidarity. The shadow didn't have any

was it

'Cheeky bastard…'

Cassie laughed.

badmouth my steed. He is a great Echo! I like him very

a "he"

made these bags himself to increase the group's carrying capacity. After all, the scavenger was supposed

got to the least pleasant task — harvesting the oil sacks from the centipede monsters' corpses. Each had two of them, connected to a special gland. The whole process

to utilize the centipede oil yet, but Nephis insisted on collecting as much of it as possible. She

least, the oil was highly

the sacks, she had already gathered all the soul shards and was standing in front of the Echo. He showed her

"All done?"

She nodded.

sky, trying to determine the time. The sun was right above them,