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.

pieces of did not fall down. Instead, more and more of the crimson shards flew up, slowly forming into seven

his hand, summoning the Midnight Shard

seconds later, seven golems of crimson coral stood in front of him and Saint, blocking the path to the star sigil. He

the Knight. The slender figure of the Slayer. The graceful figure of the

weapons to point at him. Their movements were crude and inhuman, but radiated a sense of terrible,

golems, the blade of his sword pointed

really think this will be enough to stop

gleamed, turning cold

come and get

dashed forward and

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

Sunny's eyes widened.

'Fast…'

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

and slid on the red coral,

are they so

approaching him with steady, inevitable malice. Each of the golems was powerful enough to rip an entire cohort of

shield and hit its rim twice with the blade of her

'Whatever. Let's do this!'

***

Creatures. By now, all of

still alive were engulfed by the bloody chaos of the slaughter, desperately trying to survive in the midst of absolute

bloodshed, shining like a radiant sun. She fought alone, because no one else could survive the devastating pressure that the horde exerted in the zealous attempts to extinguish that light. Any

furious deity, eviscerating one abomination after another. All around her, burning corpses littered the ground, their cursed blood boiling and evaporating into the air. Not only

up? As long as her light was there to banish

no monster had managed to break through the remnants of

the crimson coral, Kai gazed at the terrible