Shadow Slave

The Shadow attacked with the vicious strength of a true monster. Knowing perfectly well that his strength was not enough to block her sword, Sunny desperately moved the Midnight Shard to deflect the strike to the side.

The countless hours of practice and hundreds of thousands of times he had repeated his katas had not been in vain: his body moved with lightning speed, placing the blade in the path of the Stone Saint's weapon at just the right angle. Feeling the impact reverberate in his bones, Sunny gasped from the pain and stood his ground.

Guided by the Midnight Shard, the Shadow's sword glided to the side and missed his body by a wide margin. However, before Sunny had time to congratulate himself, the Saint simply continued moving forward and slammed into him.

Being hit by her shield felt like crashing into a stone wall at high speed.

Flying back, Sunny impacted against an actual wall and rolled to the floor. A small yelp escaped from his lips.

Getting distracted from her food for a moment, Effie glanced at him and called:

"Sunny? You're alive?"

He weakly raised a hand and brought his thumb and index finger together in the shape of a circle.

"...Yeah."

The huntress smiled.

"Good! Don't die yet, alright? It's going to be really inconvenient for me to get out of here without your help."

Sunny gritted his teeth.

'...Is that all you care about?'

"I'll try."

and had to

Saint returned to her spot and stood there indifferently, not paying any attention to his

heavy sigh, Sunny walked back to stand in front of

"Again."

***

course of the next few days, Sunny often wondered if he had really gone mad. Otherwise, why would he willingly subject himself to this

of only three things: spending time with Effie, practicing with the Stone

the deadly maze of the Dark City was by far the least dreadful. He even found

cursed ancient ruin teeming with abominable creatures as a

knew that he was

were, his training sessions with the menacing Shadow had turned out to be even more advantageous

was finally improving again.

the surface of the immense didactic potential of the [Battle Master] Attribute. For someone like

was a

observed the Shadow in the fight against

taciturn creature fought with the firmness of stone, combining flawless defense with devastating offense. Each action was efficient and perfectly calculated, with

not the only battle style that the Stone Saint was perfectly proficient in. Rather, it was something that she used based on her current weapons and opponents. Back when her original fought against two harrowing Fallen Beasts, her style was reckless

some foundational similarities between them, these two techniques were vastly different. It seemed as though

couldn't wish for a better sparring

the kernel of one that had been given him by Nephis — was flowing and unpredictable. It focused on adaptability and making it impossible for the enemy to anticipate your next move. The more Sunny fought against the Stone Saint, the more he realized

didn't mean that this style couldn't be improved. In fact, Sunny suspected that it was actually designed with the intention of being able to incorporate various elements from other sources. If so, it was a perfect foundational style

this made him wonder where this strange style had come from, and if Changing Star had

his mastery of the things he had already learned, and begin to incorporate elements of Stone Saint's stark technique into