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.

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

with nothing to feed on except for cold stone? Did it

guess I am going

harrowing rot, Sunny tried to suppress his fear and took a step

like the rot was

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 whole of the Obsidian Tower, and then across

to retreat to in the Sky Below, after all. And he doubted that he

his only hope was to find something inside the pagoda to save

that the rot would swiftly wither and die. Not that Sunny

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 an eye on

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

terrible thing disappeared from view, he let out a relieved sigh and realized that his entire body was covered

him a little confidence, at least. The Shadow seemed absolutely unperturbed by the horrific visage

stone head of hers.

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 would have been trembling

with these thoughts, Sunny entered the third level of the Obsidian Tower… and froze,

no. What the hell am I looking

was smaller than the previous three halls he had explored — mostly because the pagoda narrowed the higher

in that chamber in particular, dozens of porcelains arms floated in the air, each at a

the basement of the

stared at the floating garden of disassembled arms, and then walked closer. He felt as though he was

many moving parts went into making

of that level of ingenuity

were these arms brought here and taken apart? Who had done

look like it… why would he