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?'

would be a chance. But with his core mostly empty and his Aspect

their ranks was

monster to appear and take action. Seconds that Sunny didn't have. By the time she was able to do anything, he would

one option. If he

to have to cut

be able to grow

In any case, he had to

over his head, Sunny gritted his teeth and hesitated for a moment. Despite understanding that this was the only way, he was still struggling with the idea of crippling

you want

stopped it at the last second. The sharp blade hovered mere centimeters away from

not due to the lack of determination, but because

expanding rapidly as his blood filled it, stopped ballooning at

'What the…'

of his arm, it dropped to the ground and writhed in agony. Through the translucent film of its skin, Sunny

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

far more odd and

second later, the whole body of the Fallen Beast simply ruptured, spilling

the daze, the voice of

have slain a Fallen Beast,

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

'Huh.'

have received

wide, Sunny shook off his astonishment and lunged forward. He still had to escape from

soul shard from the eviscerated remains of the abominable leech, he

tentacle that burst from the body of the gargantuan tyrant to pursue him, Sunny rolled on the ground, jumped

rope, it began contracting, bringing him

the stone goddess, a deafening roar thundered from below, washing over his body

the Dead was finally

already too late.

***

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

so weak. And