Shadow Slave

'Not good…'

The vine wasn't as large as some of the ones Sunny had seen back on the ancient ship, but it was still as thick as a man's arm, with curved black thorns protruding from its glistening surface.

The vine brought the sickeningly sweet smell with it.

Sunny hacked at it with the Cruel Sight, but barely managed to break the vine's skin. As a fine aerosol of aromatic juice shot into the air, the damned thing moved.

His eyes widened.

The vine easily shredded the leather boot of the Puppeteer's Shroud, as if the Awakened armor of the fifth Tier was made out of tissue paper. Before the sharp thorns could saw off his foot, however, Sunny cursed and brought the Cruel Sight down once more, this time augmenting the silver blade with both of his shadows.

The shortsword hacked through the vine, severing the stretch of it that was wrapped around Sunny's leg. The rest of it didn't like being cut one bit: surging forward, it aimed at his torso. Several more appeared from beneath the most at shot at Sunny, too.

However, now that nothing was holding him, he could finally use Shadow Step again. Before the vines reached his body, Sunny turned into a shadow. Safe and sound in their tranquil embrace of the darkness… for now, at least… he slid a few meters away and stared at the struggling abomination.

The creature was entangled by several thick vines, which moved across its body, leaving bloody trails on it. Sparks flew as the black thorns scraped fruitlessly across the adamantine surface of the wooden chest, though. It seemed to be much tougher that the rest of the creature's body.

The monstrosity gathered its limbs underneath it, then pushed with all its might, trying to stand up. An angry shriek escaped from its maw.

The vines were trying to hold it down, but either they were much weaker here, far away from the wreck, or the abomination was much stronger than Sunny had thought. It raised to its knees, then lashed out with its talons, ripping two of the vines apart.

Suddenly liberated, the monstrosity crawled from underneath the remaining vines, and then dashed toward the edge of the island on all fours.

Sunny hissed.

'Crap!'

it just lay still

escaped the shadow and ran after the unreasonably

edge of the island and jumped off of it

"What the hell!"

the edge a few seconds later and

expression appeared on

***

of a stone structure similar to the one Sunny had seen on the other side of the island. This one was slightly different, though, mainly because both of the massive stone pillars had broken and collapsed

chain itself was different,

Isles. It seemed… sick, somehow. Weakened. The chain was covered in rust, its iron links dim and

long, stretching for good ten kilometers or so into the distance. Because the Shipwreck Island continued to descend, it was slightly angled upward. Sunny could

grotesque Chain Worms were crawling all other the weakened

just how disturbing these creatures were. With their long serpentine tails, human-like

already dead, and they were simply

like small hills of flesh. The scales on the latter ones looked like they were now made out of steel, and shined as

'...Crap.'

swaying dangerously as it went. From time to time, it fell

wasn't long before the bizarre abomination encountered a Chain Worm. The winged creature lunged at it… only to be kicked in the muzzle

suddenly grabbed by a long root that lazily extended from the darkness of the Dark Side, then disappeared

in the terrible sight, giggled, then turned around, and continued

Sunny hesitated.

was