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.

only two possibilities. Time was going to catch up to the devouring corruption, and it was either going to slowly consume everything… or starve

with nothing to feed on except for cold stone? Did it need to feed on flesh and souls, or would

am going

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

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

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 island, Sunny was simply going to die. Probably jump down into nothingness to avoid becoming

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

hope was to find something inside the pagoda

that the rot would swiftly wither and

great hall until he reached the staircase that 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

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

body was covered in a cold sweat. Raising a trembling hand, Sunny wiped

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

that stone head of hers.

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

Sunny entered the third level of the Obsidian Tower… and froze, dumbfounded by what he saw

see. Wait, no. What the hell am

three halls he had explored — mostly because the pagoda narrowed the higher it went, but also because the level was separated into

floated in the air, each at a different level of being disassembled

from the pile of broken dolls in the basement

walked closer. He felt as though he was in some bizarre

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

boast of

were these arms brought here and taken apart? Who had

didn't look like it… why would he need