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.

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

feed on except for cold stone? Did it need to feed on flesh

guess I am going to

rot, Sunny tried to suppress his fear and took a

didn't seem like the rot was spreading. At least not

going to get closer to it. But he also knew that if the worst happened, he had no tool at his disposal that would save him. If that thing began to grow, slowly spreading across the

else to retreat to in the Sky Below, after all. And he doubted that he would be able

something inside the

was a possibility that the rot would swiftly wither and die. Not

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

silver brazier, Sunny gritted his teeth, and then cautiously

thing disappeared from view, he 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,

his side gave him a little confidence, at least. The Shadow

stone head of hers. Do

didn't know whether or not Saint could feel fear, but the gloomy shadow certainly could. In fact, behind its haughty exterior, it was rather cowardly. He was sure that the bastard

third level of the Obsidian Tower… and froze, dumbfounded by what

Wait, no. What the

previous three halls he had explored — mostly because

chamber in particular, dozens of porcelains arms floated in the air, each at a different level of being disassembled into

of broken dolls in the basement of the Obsidian Tower and then brought them here to… to do

disassembled arms, and then walked closer. He felt as though he was in

it turns out, the porcelain dolls were much more complex than he had thought. In their disassembled state, their limbs showed how intricate the design was, and how many moving parts went into making each one as functional and articulated as that of a human. The joints, in particular, seemed like a marvel of engineering… not to mention the incredibly

not boast of that level of ingenuity

brought here and taken apart? Who had done it? The Prince of the

it… why would he need