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.

two possibilities. Time was going to catch up to the devouring corruption, and it was either going to slowly

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

am going to

harrowing rot, Sunny tried to suppress his fear and

seem like the rot was spreading.

he wasn't 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 whole of the Obsidian Tower, and then across the whole

doubted that he would be able to find a second secret island out

something inside the pagoda to save

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

and skirted around the outer wall of the great hall until he reached the staircase that led higher, to the third level. There,

to the silver brazier, Sunny gritted his teeth, and

view, he let out a relieved sigh and realized that his entire body was covered in a cold sweat. Raising a trembling

least. The Shadow seemed absolutely unperturbed by the horrific visage they

that stone head of

cowardly. He was sure that the bastard would have been trembling

level of the Obsidian Tower… and froze, dumbfounded

Wait, no. What the

halls he had explored — mostly because the pagoda narrowed the higher it went, but also

in the air, each at a different level

was as though someone had stolen them from the pile of broken dolls in the basement of the Obsidian Tower and

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

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

not boast of that

taken apart?

didn't look like it… why would he need