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 catch up to the devouring corruption, and it was either going to slowly

that thing last for thousands of years with nothing to feed on except for cold stone?

am going to find

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

like the rot was spreading. At least not

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,

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

the pagoda to

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

his back against the cold obsidian, Sunny dismissed Saint and skirted around the outer wall of the great hall until he reached the staircase that led higher, to the third level. There, he

to the silver brazier, Sunny gritted his teeth, and then cautiously ascended

his entire body was

at least. The

stone head of hers. Do Shadows have the ability to be

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 would have been trembling all over if not for

thoughts, Sunny entered the third level

I see. Wait, no. What the

himself in was smaller than the previous three halls he had explored — mostly because the pagoda

the air, each at a different level

from the pile of broken dolls in the basement of

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

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

boast of that level

here and taken apart? Who had

would