Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the severed arm of an unknown deity, then at the harrowing, profane rot spreading from it. Then, he tiredly rubbed his face.

'...Why can't anything ever be easy?'

He was sure that his fate was somehow connected to that arm, which meant that he was going to have to get to it somehow. But Sunny was also sure that there weren't enough rewards in all of the universe to make him go anywhere near that rot, let alone touch something infected by it.

He had the feeling that this thing was way, way out of his league.

In fact, he suspected that a divine being had ruthlessly severed their own arm because even someone as powerful as that had no means to resist that spreading corruption.

What was Sunny supposed to do, then?

Well…

Trying to remain as far from the rot as possible, he studied it for a while before coming to a strange conclusion… or rather, a strange question.

If the corruption was so terrible, then why had it not spread through the entire tower? Why had it only managed to crawl a few meters out of the silver brazier, turning a small portion of the second level of the pagoda into its flesh?

'Scratch that. Why didn't the whole island become one giant chunk of rotten black... whatever the hell that thing is?'

The answer was not hard to guess. It was because the rot, just like everything else inside the tower, had been sealed away from time for thousands of years.

And now that Sunny had broken that seal…

His frown deepened as he glanced at the silver hearth that was overgrown and had become a part of the spreading rot.

to the devouring corruption, and it was either going to slowly consume everything… or

for thousands of years with nothing to feed on except for cold stone? Did it need to feed

am going

an eye on the patch of harrowing rot, Sunny tried to suppress

didn't seem like the rot

save him. If that thing began to grow, slowly

Sky Below, after all. And he doubted that he would be able to find a second secret island

his only hope was to find something inside the pagoda

would swiftly wither and

higher, to the third level. There, he summoned the taciturn demon again, hesitated for a bit, and then left one of his shadows to

irrational panic at the thought of turning his back to the silver brazier, Sunny gritted his teeth, and then cautiously ascended

let out a relieved sigh and realized that his entire body was covered in a cold sweat. Raising a trembling hand, Sunny wiped his face, and then continued

his side gave him a little confidence, at least. The Shadow seemed absolutely unperturbed by the horrific visage they had

can't even fit into that stone head of hers.

behind its haughty exterior, it was rather cowardly. He was sure that the bastard would have

distract himself with these thoughts, Sunny entered the third level of the Obsidian Tower…

see. Wait, no. What the hell

than the previous three halls he had explored — mostly because the

floated in the

dolls in the basement of the Obsidian Tower and then brought

and then walked

complex than he had thought. In their disassembled state, their limbs showed how intricate the design was, and how many moving parts went into

automatons could not boast of that level

were these arms brought here and taken apart? Who had done it? The Prince of

didn't look like it… why would he need to study his