Shadow Slave

The Stone Saint walked toward the Black Knight with stalwart indifference. Her body shone with dark radiance, and there were wisps of ghostly grey fog dancing on her elegant armor. The ruby eyes of the taciturn monster burned with menacing crimson flames.

The darkness that served the devil had been vanquished by Changing Star's incandescent light, but the shadows populating the ancient temple only grew deeper because of it. Now, they were shifting, as if reaching toward the Saint to fall upon her shoulders like a mantle.

Without slowing down, the Shadow raised her shield and hit its rim twice with the edge of her sword, as though challenging the Black Knight to a battle.

With the two creatures finally facing each other, it became even more apparent that there was a mysterious connection between the two of them. Despite the fact that the Black Knight towered above the graceful living statue, their general appearance and the design of their armaments were eerily similar.

It was just that in front of the intricate stonelike armor of the Shadow, the devil's own formidable full plate, which had been masterfully forged from indestructible black steel, seemed almost… crude.

Facing the original masterpiece, he looked like a clumsy imposter.

Sunny knew that his intuition was right when he caught a hint of the same dim, nascent emotion that the Shadow had shown toward the walking colossus.

Despite the fact that the Fallen Devil was vastly more powerful than her and both outclassed and outranked her, witnessing him, the Stone Saint felt nothing but disdain.

Contempt, even.

Sunny more than half a second. In the next moment, both creatures dashed

The battle had begun!

being saturated to the brim by the shadow fragments Sunny had collected from hundreds of Nightmare Creatures — and a few humans — the augmentation provided by the shadow was able to make him powerful enough

she was enhanced by the shadow even more than he would be

two Fallen Beasts even before becoming a Shadow, although it had been at the cost of her life.

of

the gap between the two of them was just too vast. Even with the help of the shadow, the Stone Saint was clearly not a match for the Black Knight in terms of

she was

and turned into a whirlwind of steel, the

ghostly green blade slid off the surface of the greatsword without any result, but the impact of his strike managed to slow

reach superiority against him, she struck upward at the pommel of the greatsword with her shield. The hands of the Black Knight were thrown above his head, and using that opening,

surface of her stonelike pauldron.

The momentary gap in the defense of the devil

of the Dawn Shard, the sword hit against the breastplate

deep into

the ease with which they were able to pierce the seemingly impregnable armor of the Fallen Devil. Just a moment before, Caster's jian didn't even leave a scratch on the black steel of

a

incandescent steel penetrating his chest at all. Regaining his balance, he indifferently swiped his sword down, forcing both Nephis and the Stone Saint to stagger back. The black blade hit the marble floor, causing the ground to shake and throwing Neph to