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.

Neph had sort of monopolized the preparation of food,

him how to cook all kinds of 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

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

appeared on Cassie's face. She gave him a

That's a

with the rope. She threw it down

"Are you ready?"

his eyes for a second, feeling the

"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 Carapace Demon staring right at him, a dark glint shining in

other one was gone, leaving only

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

tight against his torso to stem the heavy bleeding.

monster looked broken and tired. However, it was still terrifying, perhaps even more so than before. Because, despite

on Sunny and Nephis — the architects of

on the spikes covering

summoned the Azure Blade and glanced at

careful. He's

in action. As such, only he knew how dangerous the demon

not taking her eyes off the

Demon. Sunny was slightly ahead and aiming to circle the

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

deal the lethal blow when the time was right. Through the tacit understanding that they had developed through

their main

the demon's posture. Instantly,

Sunny knew that he was much slower than the

clan. Caster possessed an Aspect Ability that made him ten times faster than

to catch Caster unaware not because of her fast reaction — with that big of a difference between their speeds, no amount of reaction could have helped her.

in control

repeat that feat against the ancient demon of the Forgotten Shore. Luckily, his speed