Shadow Slave

Glistening in the dim twilight of the underground chamber, an enormous leech was attached to his forearm. The creature was about a meter long, its slimy skin slightly translucent and red as dried blood.

It was indescribably repulsive.

…What's worse, though, was that its sucker had effortlessly broken through the leather vambrace of the Puppeteer's Shroud and sunk deep into Sunny's arm, splitting open his skin and muscles.

Currently, the leech was gorging on his blood, its belly slowly ballooning as crimson fluid rushed into it with frightening speed.

'Ah… ah… aaaah!'

With a sense of disgust and horror, Sunny slammed his fist into the spongy flesh of the revolting monster. Augmented with the power of shadows, his punch was powerful enough to easily break a human skull.

The abhorrent slug, however, did not even react to it. It just continued sucking out his blood. All Sunny achieved was sending a wave of pain rolling through his body.

'Not good…'

Instantly summoning the Midnight Shard, he enhanced its edge with the help of the shadow and hacked at the leech, putting all his strength behind the strike. The blade of the tachi was as sharp as a razor, and with the augmentation provided by shadow, it…

…Slid helplessly off the leech's skin, not leaving even a scratch on it. The slug wasn't affected at all. It was still drinking his blood, consuming a dangerous amount of it with each second.

Sunny stared at the disgusting creature, dumbfounded. His body was already starting to suffer from blood loss, a sickening weakness slowly spreading through it. There wasn't much time left until it would cause him to lose consciousness.

And then, inevitably, die.

'Think, think…'

The leech had broken through his tier-five awakened armor without any effort. It was immune to the damage done by the Midnight Shard, which had never failed to cut down any monster he faced before. This could only mean one thing.

The damn slug was a Fallen Beast.

Sunny blinked in disbelief.

'That thing is a Fallen One? Are you kidding me?'

he could do would harm the leech. Maybe if he was at the very peak of his rank, there would be a chance. But with his core mostly empty and his

gap between their ranks

for the taciturn monster to appear and take action. Seconds that Sunny didn't have. By the time she was able to do anything, he would already be dead, either sucked dry

one option. If he couldn't get

was going to have to cut off his

be able to grow him a

case, he had to

hesitated for a moment. Despite understanding that this was the only way, he was still struggling with the idea

you want to

Shard down… but then stopped it at the last second. The sharp blade hovered mere centimeters

not due to the lack of determination, but because Sunny noticed a subtle change

which had been expanding rapidly as his blood filled it, stopped

'What the…'

agony. Through the translucent film of its skin, Sunny could see the innards of the giant slug bursting open. It was as though it was being torn from within by some invisible

a force… it was being killed by his blood. The damn

Blood Weave was far more odd and tenacious of an

ruptured, spilling blood everywhere. Sunny stared at

daze, the voice of the

have slain a Fallen Beast,

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

'Huh.'

received

off his astonishment and lunged forward. He still had to escape from this

the abominable leech,

him, Sunny rolled on the ground, jumped over a pile of

as he grabbed the rope, it began contracting, bringing him out of

the hand of the stone goddess, a deafening roar thundered from below, washing over his body in an almost palpable

Lord of the Dead

it was already too

***

to his knees, and then tiredly lowered himself to the ground. The breath was escaping from his lungs with laborious, raspy

He felt so weak. And