Shadow Slave

Sunny almost managed to direct his endless fall toward the tiny gap between the remnant conflagrations of the divine flame, but on that incredible scale, even the smallest mistake was bound to take him many kilometers away from the goal.

…A mistake that he had inevitably made, since there were no lessons on navigating eternal voids, especially without any tools except for his own two eyes.

'Damn it!'

Right below him, swiftly approaching, was an ocean of obliterating light, heat, and fire.

The conflagrations themselves were rather small, no larger than a dozen meters in diameter, and chaotically scattered in the void at a considerable distance from one another. Each looked like a furious, undulant orb of dancing white flames.

The space between them, though, was not safe. It was permeated by immolating heat that nothing could withstand… at least nothing Sunny had at his disposal.

As the adamantine wood of the treasure chest started to slowly catch fire, he hesitated, then glanced at the empty darkness of the distant rift in the ocean of light. Whether by accident or by design, there was a point in the field of false stars where no conflagrations remained. A roughly circular breach was torn through them, promising him safe passage.

But how was he supposed to reach it?

If Sunny jumped off the plummeting chest right now, he would probably be able to glide all the way to the rift… the distance was just right. However, he was pretty sure that the Dark Wing would be instantly turned to ash by the terrible heat of the remnant vestiges of the divine flame.

Not to mention that he himself would probably get thoroughly cooked inside the Mantle of the Underworld if he remained corporeal for that long.

With a mental sigh, Sunny left the comforting embrace of the shadows.

A kneeling figure in an intricate onyx armor appeared on the lid of the smoldering treasure chest.

'Argh…'

hot. It almost felt as if he was inhaling fire. Other than that, however, the Mantle of the Underworld did a good job of keeping the heat at bay... and yet, Sunny could feel it starting to slowly get warmer. He didn't

the dark longbow, nocked an arrow on its string, and gritted his teeth. Then, sending a thin trickle of essence into the muscles of his shoulder and back, he

as though he was lifting a

the hell does Saint make it

for a second. After

fool? Aren't you

he let go of the

incredible speed, instantly becoming illuminated by a blinding radiance. It was strange… the void was full of light now, but with nothing to reflect it, the Sky Below still appeared black and empty. Only when something

felt the chest sway, and struggled to

and burned away. However, that didn't affect its flight too much. The arrow pierced the darkness and turned into a distant spark, covering almost an entire kilometer in just a few seconds.

time

flame licking his greaves, he held his breath… and used

shaft, Sunny shot out of it as if launched from a giant slingshot. As soon as he left the shadow, it instantly wrapped itself around his body, and then

'Crap!'

from being directly exposed to the immolating radiance. The Mantle of the Underworld suddenly shone in the torrent of light, instantly growing considerably warmer. It wasn't burning his skin yet, but he suspected that there was not much time left before that

with each moment. He was still plummeting toward the ocean of flames,

the more obliterating the

arrow and drew the bow again. This time, it was considerably harder, since he had nothing to stand on and had to rely solely on the strength of his arms and

few seconds it had taken him to draw the bow,

later, he used Shadow Step again, appearing almost two kilometers closer to

still decently far

'Curses!'