Shadow Slave

The red cloud enveloped Gunlaug, seeping through the crack in his helmet. A second too late to react, the Bright Lord reeled away… but not before inhaling the pollen of the nightmarish flower.

Sunny didn't know when and how Nephis had gotten it, but he knew that he wasn't mistaken — this was the pollen of the Blood Flower, the grisly parasitic blossom that he himself had the misfortune of inhaling once, a long time ago.

The memory of the bloodthirsty red flowers growing through his lungs sent shivers through Sunny's entire body. Back then, the only reason for why he had not become a host for the insidious Nightmare Creature was because of the Blood Weave. Without it, he would have been devoured from the inside in mere minutes.

…And now, the Bright Lord was going to fall to the same fate.

'She… she really did it…'

The rest of the Sleepers gathered in the great hall did not know that Gunlaug was already as good as dead, however. Including the tyrant himself.

Bending over in a fit of violent coughing, he growled:

"What? What have you done to me, bitch?!"

Nephis was still where he had dropped her, kneeling on the floor. Her armor was shattered and torn, with rivers of blood streaming down the cracked white metal. The brilliant radiance of her skin had been extinguished, but there were incandescent flames burning under it.

The horrible wounds on her chest were slowly closing, and the lacerations on her face were already gone, leaving it just as perfect as it had been before. That face, however, was bloodied and pale, contorted in an expression of terrible agony.

In her eyes, however, there was dark malice.

A chorus of whispers rolled through the crowd when they witnessed the ghastly wounds healing themselves. Be it the members of the Host or the slum dwellers, all of them had two words on their lips:

"Immortal Flame!"

"Immortal Flame!"

someone shouted, their voice full of stunned

the blessing of the

to her feet. Then, she struggled to look at the

"I... I killed you."

the crack in the golden mask, Sunny saw Gunlaug's blue eye first narrow, and then suddenly open wide. In

time, a suppressed scream escaped from his

'...It's about to start.'

shifted a little, subtly positioning

staggered and groaned. There was

a shaky laugh resounded in the throne room of the ancient

really?

of liquid gold and merged with the strange armor. He took a step toward Nephis, but then swayed and fell to one

cracks in the visor of his

of people were watching him, stunned, their eyes full of disbelief,

Bright Lord raised his head

joke! I can't… can't

cold and

there was also

hesitated for a moment and then said, her voice strangely

Your nightmare is

laughed. There was a disturbing, gurgling sound coming from somewhere deep in his throat, as though he was drowning in

too good. Yours is… only

that, he slowly rose and then turned away. Swaying, the Bright Lord took one step forward, then

led to the throne of white marble and climbed them, blood spilling from the cracks in his helmet, his golden armor flowing and swirling around his

the great hall of the ancient castle with a strange,

he just whispered a few almost inaudible words and leaned on the back of the throne, his body relaxing. Sunny was perhaps the only one who had heard him, due to the

tried. In the beginning…