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 was at the very peak of his rank, there would be a chance.

between their ranks was

time she was able to do anything, he would already be dead, either sucked

only one option. If he

going to have

Nephis would be able to grow him a

not. In any case, he had to do

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

want to

forcefully brought the Midnight Shard down… but then stopped it at

determination, but because Sunny noticed a subtle change happening to the

it, stopped ballooning at some point. Now, strange

'What the…'

and writhed in agony. Through the translucent film of its skin, Sunny could see the innards of the giant slug bursting open.

it was being killed by his

odd and tenacious of an Attribute than

Beast simply ruptured, spilling blood everywhere. Sunny stared

out of the daze,

a Fallen

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

'Huh.'

have received a

eyes grew wide, Sunny shook off his astonishment and lunged forward.

soul shard from the eviscerated remains of the abominable leech, he turned around and sprinted to the golden

the gargantuan tyrant to pursue him, Sunny

he grabbed the rope, it began

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

of the Dead

too late. His prey

***

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

so