Shadow Slave

Summoning Saint to stand side by side with him once again, Sunny glanced at the gates of the Spire, grimaced, and jumped down from the mound of coral.

'I don't like this at all…'

Out there on the island, it was quiet. Too quiet.

Even though all the Nightmare Creatures were now behind him, slowly devouring the Dreamer Army, the open space pierced by the gazes of the severed heads of stone colossus was too ominous and foreboding to not spell trouble.

But Sunny was done being afraid a long time ago.

'You fear me, instead.'

Walking forward, he passed between the giant heads and entered the empty space in front of the cyclopean gates. Feeling as though someone was staring at his back, Sunny shivered and approached the seven locks.

Halfway to the gates, he stopped, hesitated for a moment and then looked back, at stone heads.

This was the first time he saw the faces of the seven heroes.

The face of the Lord was noble and dignified, the face of the Priestess — beautiful and gentle. The Slayer was arrogant and cold, her lips twisted in a crooked grin. The Stranger wore a helmet, darkness nesting in the crack of its visor.

'...People. They were just people.'

Turning away, Sunny sighed, then shook his head in dejection.

'I won't judge you for what you have done. But I hope… I really that we will be able to do better.'

With that, he took another step forward… and froze.

Something had changed on the stretch of land between him and the gates of the Crimson Spire. A cold wind suddenly howled, throwing bits of coral into the air.

fall down. Instead, more and more of the crimson shards flew up, slowly forming into seven

and outstretched his hand, summoning

coral stood in front of him and Saint, blocking the path to the star sigil. He recognized

of the Knight. The slender figure of

him. Their movements were crude and inhuman, but radiated a sense of terrible, profane power. Despite their outward appearance, he felt that these creatures were desecrating

grinned and walked toward the coral golems, the blade of

you? Do you really think this

gleamed,

fools, come

dashed forward and raised

strike, however, the Stranger appeared in front of him as though out of nowhere and put his round shield in the path of the austere tachi. Hitting

Sunny's eyes widened.

'Fast…'

a second later, he noticed a beak of a war hammer flying toward his temple with terrible speed. Gritting his teeth, Sunny

rolled through his body, he was thrown backward and slid on the red

How are they

malice. Each of the golems was powerful enough to rip an entire cohort of Sleepers to

Saint raised her shield and hit its rim twice with the blade of

'Whatever. Let's do this!'

***

still furiously resisting the horde of Nightmare Creatures. By now, all of the monsters had left the coral bridge and descended upon the Sleepers, consumed by the mad

was no distinction between the first and the second line now. All those still alive were engulfed by the bloody chaos of the slaughter, desperately trying to survive in the midst

survive the devastating pressure that the horde exerted in the zealous attempts to extinguish that light. Any human that tried to approach

corpses littered the ground, their cursed blood boiling and evaporating into the air. Not only was her presence relieving the pressure from the rest of the Sleepers, but they also found strength

salvation, how could they give up? As long as her light was there to banish

was why no monster had managed to break through the remnants of the first two lines and

at the terrible scene of the massacre below him, and then raised his face