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?'

very peak of his rank, there would be a chance. But with his core

between their ranks was just

taciturn monster to appear and take action. Seconds that Sunny didn't have. By the time she

If he couldn't

to have to cut off

to grow

any case, he had to do

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 himself so

you want to live,

it at the last second. The sharp

was not due to the lack of determination, but because

which had been expanding rapidly as his blood filled it, stopped ballooning at some point. Now, strange

'What the…'

next moment, the vile creature suddenly convulsed. Letting go of his arm, it dropped to the ground and writhed in agony. Through the translucent film of its skin, Sunny could see

not a force… it was being killed by his blood.

more odd and tenacious of an Attribute

the Fallen Beast simply ruptured, spilling blood everywhere. Sunny stared at it with a blank

him out of the daze, the

have slain a Fallen

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

'Huh.'

received

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

remains of the abominable leech,

gargantuan tyrant to pursue him, Sunny rolled

he grabbed the rope, it began

was nearly reaching the hand of the stone goddess, a deafening roar thundered

the

it was already too late. His prey had

***

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

He felt so weak.