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!'

that connected Twisted Rock to the rest of the Chained Isles snapped in two, and as ten kilometers of gargantuan iron links slowly fell toward the Sky Below, the island suddenly shot upward. Since it was still in

'No, no, no!'

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

down and try to glide to the

ten kilometers separating these isles from one another, which was far outside the Dark Wing's capabilities. He could try to chase after the piece of the chain still connected to the Shipwreck Island, but chances of catching up with it were close

just an illusion caused by its colossal size. In truth,

silhouettes of the gluttonous Chain Worms were growing

was already late to rush in pursuit of it, and every moment that passed made the probability of success

you fool! You

full of fury at himself, but

make any sense. He was not on this island because of greed. Even though Sunny had made several risky decisions in order to get to the miraculous

him that something on the Twisted Rock was very

was it?! There was nothing but stone and bones

he supposed to do? How was he supposed

calm down and think. He summoned his shadow back, and briefly regained the ability to

be for long, though. The Crushing was already overwhelming his physical ability to resist its lethal pressure. Sunny had a few dozen seconds, at most, before he would be forced to retreat into 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 and plunges down into the Sky Below, I'll just

inevitably and without a doubt. As it rose higher and higher, it was going to start to fall apart. When enough of it was destroyed to obliterate the mysterious force that kept the isles afloat, the remaining debris

going to

a few seconds more. Another crack appeared on

not move at

stone widened and crawled in