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!'

gargantuan iron links slowly fell toward the Sky Below, the island suddenly shot upward. Since it was still in the ascent phase, and now unrestrained by

'No, no, no!'

struck at Sunny with such fury that he couldn't even scream. He felt himself being slowly broken, and feverishly tried to come up with a

shadows… jump down and

from one another, which was far outside the Dark Wing's capabilities. He could try to chase after the piece of

an illusion caused by its colossal size. In truth, the torn end of it was flying through the air at tremendous speed, moving both down

Chain Worms were growing smaller

late to rush in pursuit of it, and every moment that passed made

You finally let your

fury at himself, but

didn't 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 coins, at the end of it, standing on the edge

had told him that something on the Twisted Rock was

There was nothing but stone and

was he supposed to do? How was he

think. He summoned his shadow back, and

going 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

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 and plunges down into the Sky Below, I'll just be falling forever inside of a box

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

was going

a few seconds more. Another crack appeared on the corpse of the

not move at

cracks on the stone widened and crawled in