Shadow Slave

As it turned out, the cohort had endured the fury of the heavens for almost an entire day. Before the storm had appeared, the night had still been far away, and now, it was already a new morning.

The colossus was steadily marching south, completely unshaken by his terrifying battle with the abyssal leviathan. Sunny was growing more and more certain that the ancient statue, while brought to a semblance of life by some unknown power, was not truly sentient.

The headless giant was more like an Echo than a living thing, but then even Echoes seemed to possess some remnants of a personality — at least his poor Scavenger had one. Quiet Dancer often behaved like a prudish and cantankerous young woman, too… no matter how strange it was to describe a flying rapier in that way.

Not to mention Shadows, who were much more alive than Sunny felt comfortable admitting.

Compared to all of them, the colossus seemed rather… lifeless.

Just what kind of a being was he?

Sprawled on the ground, Sunny glanced sideways and observed the Stone Saint, who was standing indifferently at the edge of the platform. He wondered what this living statue thought of her strange colossal sibling. Was she in awe of him or didn't care one way or another?

It was hard to tell. But then again, he was not in the mood to think too much right now.

Sunny was truly exhausted and hurting all over. Everyone was, really.

Despite the incredible achievement of surviving the onslaught of two entire tribes of Nightmare Creatures, the storm, and an encounter with an actual horror of the depths — or rather, because of it — the members of the cohort looked truly pathetic.

Each of them was either laying on the stone surface of the swaying platform or sitting with a lost look on their face. They were all wounded, tired, and wet.

usual luster, and that alone screamed of how rough this recent hardship had been on them. Even when compared to the usual ruthless reality of

brought them more

to traverse ten times more ground than Sunny, Nephis and Cassie had managed in two months

few hours of pure torture

that riding atop the ancient colossus had

that he was

was no harm in

appeared in the air in front of him,

Shadow Fragments: [494/1000].

is… this is…

the short span of

thirty-two, to

'Incredible!'

do was cause their hosts to plummet to the ground and let gravity do the rest. Between those sent to their deaths by the Prowling Thorn and those he

another one by his blood, but Sunny didn't want to

ghastly flowers was an awakened monster, bringing him four fragments per kill. With the addition af a dozen

only did he return to his peak form, but he was now stronger by just shy of a hundred

a day's

this continued, he was going to come close to fully

first place, but before today, his ambitious

were becoming