Shadow Slave

As the dust settled, Sunny abandoned his hiding spot on the roof of one of the buildings surrounding the square and jumped down. Avoiding the puddles of fetid blood, he walked among the corpses littering the ground and approached the dying stone monster.

The Nightmare Creature was lying on her back, her body battered and broken. From up close, Sunny was able to see it better.

The black armor of the strange monster was slowly turning to stone. In its gaps, he could see her slightly lighter skin. It was smooth like polished granite and dark grey in color. Streams of ruby dust was flowing from the terrible wounds, looking almost like blood.

Two crimson gems that served her as eyes slowly moved, focusing on Sunny. There was no particular expression in them, just tired stillness. The flames that used to burn inside were slowly dimming.

The statuesque creature stared at him without making a sound. In fact, Sunny wasn't sure that these monsters were even capable of producing sounds. Throughout the whole fight, she had remained eerily silent.

He sighed.

"Life is not fair, huh?"

With these words, he summoned the Midnight Shard and thrust it through the visor of the dying creature's helm. Even at the death's door, the stonelike flesh of the living statue proved to be extremely tough. However, he put enough strength into his strike, not wishing to make the poor thing suffer more than necessary.

He was always glad to kill a Nightmare Creature, but this one deserved a quick death. To be honest, he was very impressed by the small stone warrior's desperate last stand.

"They didn't know who they were messing with. But you showed them…"

At that moment, the familiar voice of the Spell resounded in the darkness:

[You have slain an awakened monster, Stone Saint.]

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

Sunny smiled.

shadow fragments. Finally! Four hundred

he forgot what he

ear, it

received an Echo:

***

Sunny's eyes opened wide.

hear it

Echo? He had finally

lowered his voice and said

heard it

at Sunny in exasperation, then gestured at its mouth, lowered its hands and

He smiled.

That's what the Spell

he paced back and forth for some time, then suddenly

Now that the stone people are gone, who knows what kind of horrors will

made a move to leave, but then stopped and

should get some

every day that you stumble upon that many dead Nightmare Creatures before the carrion eaters arrive to feast on the corpses. This

hesitated for a few seconds, trying to decide which monsters to approach first. The spiders were obviously much stronger. If they were really of the Fallen rank, their soul shards would be incredibly

anything with a bunch of Ascended soul shards would be very suspicious. Plus, it would take a while to find the crystals inside the massive bodies of the

rank, but their shattered remains were easy to search. The other inhabitants of the cursed city could arrive at any

stones and kneeled beside it, hoping to notice the gleam of

suppressed the desire to linger here to the last possible moment and quickly dashed away, putting the