Shadow Slave

Sunny looked at the wounded demon, a grim look of resolve on his face.

At this point, there was no reason to argue. They had no other choice but to face the guardian of the island themselves. Sunny's bag of tricks was all empty anyway — in the end, their fates were still going to be decided by sharp blades.

Someone was going to get killed, and someone was going to be the killer.

"How are we going to deal with his armor?"

Nephis weighed the sword in her hand and glanced down.

"I will break through the armor. Can you create an opening?"

Sunny nodded, not wasting time on unnecessary questions. If Changing Star was certain of her ability to cut through the demon's carapace, he had no reason to doubt it.

Creating an opening… that was not going to be easy. Even though the monster had suffered terrible injuries, he was still a force to be reckoned with. His size alone was going to pose difficulties. They would have to bring the behemoth down to his knees before even thinking of carrying out any sort of an effective attack.

And he was not just going to stand still under their assault, either.

But what else was there to do?

While Nephis was tying the golden rope to the branch, Sunny walked over to Cassie and lightly squeezed her shoulder.

She tried to force a smile.

"I take it that the Carapace Demon is still alive?"

Despite the heavy, cold, dark feeling gripping his heart, Sunny tried to make his voice sound relaxed and carefree.

"Yeah, but just barely. Don't worry too much. This whole thing will be over in no time."

'One way or another,' he added inwardly.

Cassie's smile weakened. She was clearly not convinced by his clumsy attempt to reassure her.

Sunny hesitated.

"Hey. Have you ever eaten demon meat?"

girl was clearly surprised

"What? No."

Sunny grinned.

Uh… I think. Neph had sort of monopolized the preparation of food, so I had no chance

a lot of time teaching him how to cook all kinds of seemingly inedible things, as well as meats of all sorts of Nightmare Creatures, in preparation

as we get our hands on some demon meat, I'll make you a steak. It'll be the most

a real smile appeared on Cassie's face. She gave

a

the rope. She threw it down without hesitation and glanced

"Are you ready?"

for a second, feeling the strength of his body being enhanced by

"Yes. Let's do this."

***

heavy gaze burning a hole in his chest. Glancing up, he saw the crippled Carapace

was gone, leaving only a bleeding black

body seemed even more debilitating. Its carapace was fractured in several places and covered in cracks, each seeping with azure blood... sadly, none of the cracks were near the vital organs. His horns were shattered, as was one of his front legs — in addition to several rear ones that were either

stumps of his two severed arms were pressed tight against his torso to stem the heavy bleeding. The other two were

before. Because, despite the horrible wounds, his gaze was still firm

on Sunny and Nephis — the architects of his sorry

the rising sun shone on the spikes covering the

Azure Blade

careful. He's lightning

only one who had seen the terrible creature in action. As

taking her eyes off the enemy, and

two of them walked toward the waiting Carapace Demon. Sunny was slightly ahead and aiming to circle the behemoth from the right

Star was a step or two behind him, aiming to circle the creature from the left — the side where his pincer arm was slowly

letting his partner deal the lethal blow when the time was right. Through the tacit understanding

was their main

closing in, Sunny felt a slight shift in the demon's

Sunny knew that

Speed wasn't everything in a fight. Take, for example, Changing Star's training fight against the proud scion of the Han Li clan. Caster possessed an Aspect Ability that made him ten times

of reaction could have helped her. Instead, she was able to predict and manipulate the opponent's

was in control of

now, they had to repeat that feat against the ancient demon of the Forgotten Shore.