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.

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

the stone giant had already brought them more than a thousand kilometers to the south. And by the evening, that number was going to

across the Labyrinth, indeed. In two days, they were going to traverse ten times more ground than Sunny, Nephis and Cassie had managed in two months of their bloody journey to the Dark City. And they had only achieved that much thanks to the desperate decision

a few hours of pure torture and

wasn't the only benefit that riding atop the ancient colossus had brought

smiled. Even without summoning the runes, he knew that he was once again at the same level as he had been before creating the Shadow Saint, and even

was no harm in looking,

the air in front of him, Sunny found the familiar cluster… and

Shadow Fragments: [494/1000].

is… this is…

he was still astonished to see just how many he had gained. In the short span of time after Cassie

thirty-two,

'Incredible!'

came from the Blood Flowers. In a direct confrontation, Sunny would have never been able to kill that many, but yesterday, all he had to 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 had cut down with the Midnight Shard, about two dozen abominations had died

one by his blood, but Sunny didn't want to even think about that experience, ever

ghastly flowers was an awakened monster, bringing him four fragments per kill. With the addition af a dozen or so locusts slain by the Stone Saint, Sunny ended up

only did he return to his peak form, but he was now stronger by

a

he was going to come close to

he had joined it in the first place, but before today, his ambitious

were