Shadow Slave

'Here we go…'

Sunny faced the stairwell and stood motionless, looking at the black rot through his trembling shadow. Sensing something, Saint turned around, too. The tip of her sword hesitantly rose into the air.

The next few moments were going to decide whether he was going to live or die... or maybe be condemned to a fate much worse than death.

One level lower, the harrowing corruption that had been spreading from the severed arm of a deity was moving. The black ulcerous flesh was rising and falling, as if in the throes of… death? Or transformation?

Sunny gritted his teeth, waited for a second…

And then breathed out with immeasurable relief.

'Dying… it's dying.'

It felt as though he had been sentenced to execution, only for a pardon to arrive at the last possible moment, when the rope was already pressing on his neck.

Indeed, the terrifying rot was withering. As thousands of years that passed since it was locked in the Obsidian Tower caught up with it, the devouring corruption appeared to be dying of starvation. The stone surface assimilated into it convulsed and wriggled, as if consumed by pain. The silver brazier was melting.

The growths of the bulbous black flesh were slowly receding, their color turning ashen. The process was slow, but at the edges of the patch of corruption, the rot was already turning into… into wisps of darkness, which then disappeared without a trace.

As tension left Sunny's body, he couldn't help but sway a little.

'Good… something has gone my way, at last.'

Before, he had been considering his options and finding no possible way to escape from the rot if it was to start spreading.

could do would work, considering that even the original owner of the seven-fingered hand resorted to

the Cruel Sight, which was now infused with divine flame. But something told Sunny that the massive brazier where the rot had taken root had once been full of it, too… that was apparent from how charred the

of years of burning in annihilating divine flame couldn't

Neither divine flame nor an actual deity had been able to damage the black rot, but its hunger — and the

'Thank gods…'

deeply and tiredly closed his

corruption was slowly dying, pieces of it slowly disappearing, bit after bit. All that was left behind

He grimaced.

would they allow

his head, Sunny wiped the sweat off his face,

he picked up the long, sharp needle and

out of polished iron, but due to the traces of divine blood absorbed by it, the cold metal had assumed a feint golden shine. Sunny looked at it for a long time, trying to understand if this was a mundane

the end, he had to admit that he had no

didn't see any spellweave inside of

bit, then summoned the Covetous Coffer and carefully placed the needle inside. The skeins of diamond string also went in, easily disappearing into the gluttonous

time

bit, then reluctantly headed back toward the second level of

was going to watch the harrowing rot die, and then try to approach the

***

Sunny was sitting on the lowest step of the stairs leading

of it, to be

hunger of thousands of years could not destroy it so easily, it seemed. The black flesh

of a living being nearby and lusting to absorb it… him. But the profane infestation was too

brazier, which had long ago become a part of the horrid corruption, melted and fell apart, then disappeared into wisps of pure darkness. Soon, it