Shadow Slave

A moment later, a deafening roar of massive iron links being torn apart rolled other the entire island, which then lurched up by a few meters and suddenly came to an abrupt stop.

Sunny yelped, feeling the Crushing assault him with even more obliterating force.

'The chain… the chain is failing!'

Why did it happen so soon?

For a few moments, he felt nothing but pure, bestial panic. Then, he forced himself to regain control over his mind and threw a desperate glance toward the not-so-distant edge of the Twisted Rock.

Would he be able to escape in time?

He lingered for a moment, then gritted his teeth and commanded one of the shadows to slide off his body onto the ground.

As soon as it did, a muffled scream escaped from his lips. It felt as though a giant hammer struck his body, making every bone in it shudder and groan. Sunny turned his head to the side and spat a mouthful of blood.

'Curse it all…'

The shadow flew to the edge of the island and slid over its edge, desperately trying to reach the dying chain.

…But it was too late.

As Sunny watched in horror, one of the links of the heavenly tether broke. Only one, the weakest of them all… but that was all it took.

'No!'

slowly fell toward the Sky Below, the island suddenly shot upward. Since it was still

'No, no, no!'

that he couldn't even scream. He felt himself being slowly broken, and

through the shadows… jump down and try to

that would never work. There were more than ten kilometers separating these isles from one another, which was far outside the Dark Wing's capabilities. He could try to chase after

of the heavenly tether was falling deceitfully slow, but it was just an illusion caused by its colossal size. In truth, the torn end of it

silhouettes of the gluttonous Chain Worms were growing

pursuit of it, and every moment that passed made the

Goddamn great, you fool! You

growled, full of fury at himself,

of greed. Even though Sunny had made several risky decisions in order to get to the miraculous coins, at the end of it, standing on the edge of the Shipwreck Island, he put

had told him that something on the Twisted Rock was very important to

was it?! There was nothing but stone and bones in this

was he supposed to do? How

think. He summoned his shadow back, and briefly

The Crushing was already overwhelming his physical ability to resist its lethal pressure. Sunny

way out. Hide inside the dead Mimic or the Covetous Coffer? No, the items inside the Memory maintain their weight, which means that they, too, will be affected by the Crushing. And even if not, what's the point? Even if the chest survives until the Twisted Rock itself is torn apart

going to start to fall apart. When enough of it was destroyed to obliterate the mysterious force that kept the

going to

motionlessly for a few seconds, then for a few seconds more. Another crack appeared on the corpse of the Mordant Mimic. Then, the stone beneath

did not move

cracks on the stone widened and crawled in every