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?"

blind girl was clearly surprised by his

"What? No."

Sunny grinned.

about a demon steak? I'm an excellent cook, I'll have you know. Uh… I think. Neph had sort of monopolized the preparation of food, so I had

seemingly inedible things, as well as meats of all sorts of Nightmare Creatures, in preparation for his journey into the Dream Realm. Here, hunger was as much of an enemy as the fiercest

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

on Cassie's face.

That's a

threw it down without hesitation and glanced at

"Are you ready?"

for a second, feeling the strength of his body

"Yes. Let's do this."

***

as their feet touched the ground, Sunny felt a heavy gaze burning a hole in his chest. Glancing up, he saw the crippled

gone, leaving only a bleeding

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

were pressed tight against his torso to stem the heavy bleeding. The other two were

terrifying, perhaps even more so than before. Because, despite the horrible wounds, his gaze was still firm and full of evil

and Nephis — the architects of his

covering the demon's once

Azure Blade

He's lightning

who had seen the terrible creature in action. As such, only he knew how dangerous

her eyes off

and aiming to circle the behemoth from the right

from the left

the time was right. Through the tacit understanding that they had developed through surviving dozens of life or death

was their

in, Sunny felt a slight shift in the demon's posture. Instantly, he knew that hell was about to break

deal with it himself. Sunny knew that he was much slower than the giant creature, but he still had to find a way to dodge the

Aspect Ability that made him ten times faster than the silver-haired girl — at

their speeds, no amount of reaction could have helped her. Instead, she was able to predict and manipulate

was in control of the

ancient demon of the Forgotten Shore. Luckily,