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?'

true, then nothing 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 Aspect Ability focused on versatility

ranks was

that Sunny didn't have. By the time she was able to

with only one option. If he couldn't get rid of the

was going to have to cut off his

to

had to do

a moment. Despite understanding that this was

want to live, just do

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

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

his blood filled it, stopped ballooning at some point. Now,

'What the…'

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

by his

was far more odd and tenacious of an Attribute than he had

ruptured, spilling blood everywhere. Sunny stared

of the daze, the voice of the Spell

a Fallen Beast,

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

'Huh.'

received

shook off his astonishment and lunged forward. He

from the eviscerated remains of the abominable leech, he turned

the body of the gargantuan tyrant to pursue him, Sunny rolled on the ground, jumped over

rope, it began contracting, bringing him out of the underground

nearly reaching the hand of the stone goddess, a deafening roar thundered from below, washing over his

the Dead was

it was already too late. His prey had

***

lowered himself to the ground. The breath was escaping from his lungs with

felt so weak. And