Shadow Slave

Previously, Sunny had considered the living statues to be just that, monuments brought to life by evil spirits. There were a lot of revenants like that walking the streets of the cursed city.

Take the Black Knight, for example — Sunny was almost sure that the bastard was actually just a suit of armor with a vengeful wraith imprisoned within it. He had no proof that there was an actual body in that moving steel fortress, at least.

However, after watching the Stone Saint die right before his eyes, he wasn't so sure that she and the Black Knight were the same anymore. There certainly were similarities… even the design of their armors was somewhat similar, as though one had originated from the other. But the stone warrior's armor seemed much more… ancient.

And then there was the ruby dust that flowed from the stone creature's wounds instead of blood. Since when did statues have blood? It was almost like these strange creatures were designed to possess their own weird form of life. Come think about it, the stone warriors resembled artificial beings brought to life by some dark magic much more than they resembled undead creatures.

'Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries all around!'

Perhaps the runes describing the Stone Saint would provide him with some answers.

The Echo, meanwhile, was coming to life. Two magenta flames ignited in her gemstone eyes. The stone of her armor suddenly gleamed with subtle metal shine, the smooth surface of her granite skin turned slightly less rigid. Silently turning her head, the Saint gazed at Sunny through the narrow split of her helmet's visor.

"Let's see…"

He concentrated on the runes.

Echo: Stone Saint.

Echo Rank: Awakened.

Echo Class: Monster.

Echo Attributes: [Battle Master], [Stalwart], [Mark of Divinity].

That was the same as his original Attribute! What business did a Nightmare Creature have

with these other

Attribute Description: [Born on the battlefield, the Stone Saint is proficient in all forms

Stone Saint is highly resistant to all forms of damage,

were so deadly. They were literally a bunch of killing machines created to last as long

had created

gaze and read the next line of

Description: [Deep in the cavernous halls of his dark domain, the last child of the -unknown- had created them from stone to quell the fire burning

a descendant of one. In any case, that was before she was corrupted by… well. Whatever it was that had corrupted all the Nightmare Creatures, and

mattered. A monster was

warrior bore had to have come from their original creator, who was at least partially one of the Unknown. Which meant that the Unknown,

Just like mysterious Weaver.

motionless Echo with his altered eyes. What he saw made him smile

true essence of the Echo was weaved from the countless diamond strings that formed an infinitely complex pattern. Only in its case, the pattern was even

strings. One of them was situated in the place

And there, behind the shining pattern of the diamond strings, he noticed another, much more

strings were also seemingly made from diamond, but they were much

makes sense. Wait, how does

the Spell. They were artificial. The Stone Saint, too, was artificial, but in a much

that had been used to create the Stone Saint was eerily similar to the technique that the Spell used, although it did look extremely primitive in

that mean that the Spell itself had come from the

substantiated or even remotely believable. He needed to

would be

had something equally as interesting right within