Shadow Slave

"Draw your bows! Take aim! Endure!"

Kai's words were meant to keep the morale of his troops more than they were meant to serve as actual instructions. To tell the truth, he did not have to do much, at least not yet. There were no such things as coordinated volleys when it came to archers — everyone just had to send one arrow after another into the seething mass of Nightmare Creatures, as fast as they could.

He had to do the same, too.

On the ground near him, several quivers full of arrows waited for their turn. Kai was shooting without a respite, alternating between using the Blood Arrow and these mundane ones. It took time for the ghastly Memory to return to his hands, so he had to use something else in-between.

A good archer had to be able to fire twelve times in a minute. An excellent one — twice that.

Gritting his teeth, Kai drew his bow, took aim, held his breath, and fired. Every movement had to be efficient, quick, and precise. As soon as one shot was done, another one immediately started. Draw, aim, release. Draw, aim, release. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat...

In these moments, he had become less of a human and more of a methodical battle machine that ran on all cylinders without stopping even for a moment.

He put an arrow in the eye of a terrible abomination that looked like a giant snake made of seaweed and rotting flesh. Another pierced the chest of a massive bestial primate and impaled him on the carapace of a mantis-like creature. The third bit into the neck of the mantis and greedily drank its tainted blood, causing the monster to stumble and fall.

Kai felt like he was drowning.

Back in the waking world, archers were always portrayed as nimble, graceful warriors, someone who excelled in agility and speed as opposed to brute strength and physical might. They were beautiful maidens, elegant youths, and cunning rogues. Maybe that was why he had been attracted to bowmanship, to begin with.

The reality, however… couldn't be further from the truth.

It took a lot of strength to pull the string of a combat bow. The draw weight of a good bow was as much as fifty kilograms, on average. Twenty times the weight of a sword…

And Memory bows like his were much more monstrous. They were never meant for mundane humans, so pulling that string every few seconds burned through his stamina in mere minutes. Very soon, Kai's muscles screamed in pain, and his lungs seemed to be on fire.

But he couldn't stop… he had to keep shooting, no matter what.

at it! Draw,

could he allow this insignificant pain, this unearned exhaustion to slow him down when out there, below, so many humans were dying in agony to

drew in a hoarse breath and glanced up, almost

gaze lingered on the indifferent grey

five black dots appeared high above the battlefield, flying in an eerily perfect circle above it. A cold chill

"Messengers…"

massacre that was happening below them with vile indifference. Even though he could not see their harrowing

'...Why aren't they attacking?'

and fell down through the circle created by the Messengers. And then, another.

from the grey skies and dove down, swiftly approaching the ground.

His

allow fear to prevent him from

"Skyward squads! Aim high!"

attention and repel the aerial threat. However, engrossed

Kai grimaced.

again, this time easily piercing through the clangor and havoc

"Skyward! Squads! Aim high!"

used to sing the most difficult notes in front of hundreds of thousands of people. Only

back to reality by his voice,

…Just in time.

of the winged abominations in the chest. The monster convulsed and

tremor ran through the entire net, and drops

a mundane arrow, Kai had a moment to take in the sight of the descending swarm. For

locusts he had fought before, massive abominations with hungry maws and bat-like wings, repulsive birds with fleshy tentacles growing from beneath their pale

dots continued