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…'

the [Stalwart] enchantment, the air he breathed in was thin and scoldingly 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

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 strained his body and drew

though he was

Saint make it look

the rift and hesitated for a second. After he did this,

to go back to, fool? Aren't you sick of that damned

let go

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

chest sway, and struggled to keep

its flight too much. The arrow pierced the darkness and turned into a distant spark, covering almost an entire

time to

greaves, he held

had sent flying in the direction of the rift was wrapped into one of his shadows. As the shadow unfurled itself from the igniting shaft, Sunny shot out of it as

'Crap!'

or shield him from being directly exposed to the immolating radiance. The Mantle of the Underworld suddenly shone in the torrent

was becoming more so with each moment. He was still plummeting toward the ocean of flames, approaching

got, the more obliterating

the void, Sunny nocked another 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

to

flew into the darkness, and several seconds later, he used Shadow

still decently far

'Curses!'