Shadow Slave

Sunny took a step forward and brandished the Soul Serpent, feeling the indomitable nature of Saint's grounded battle style permeate his bones. The gloomy shadow wrapped itself around the blade of the odachi, causing it to shine with dark radiance.

Just like the taciturn demon, this Serpent shared a kinship with the shadow, and as such, the augmentation it received was even more powerful than Sunny himself could enjoy. Even though the odachi was only of the Dormant Rank, for now, this alone made it equal to an Awakened blade in terms of sharpness, durability, and lethality.

He activated the [Living Stone] and [Feather of Truth] enchantments of the onyx armor to make it light as a feather and able to heal the damage it was bound to receive.

Then, Sunny summoned the Blood Blossom charm and willed the armor to integrate it, activating the [Underworld Armament] enchantment. This way, the enhancing effect the crimson flower had on his Memories and Shadows was going to be inherited by the Mantle itself, and then strengthened even further.

He had not told the other Awakened to make the Nightmare Creatures bleed just to seem cool. He literally needed there to be as much blood flowing to the pavement as possible, so that his armor and sword became as powerful as possible.

The Gate was open now, revealing a dark rift in the fabric of reality, as wide as the street itself and as tall as the buildings. It seemed to devour all light around it… and call to him.

Call for him to enter.

…Sunny wasn't too preoccupied with the gate itself, though. His gaze was locked on the unclear silhouettes moving through the darkness.

Soon, the first Nightmare Creature burst into the daylight, leaving cracks on the asphalt with its black claws.

'...Good.'

Had he not wanted to accumulate shadow fragments? Had he not wanted to raise the counter of the [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment?

should have been careful about what

abominations coming through the rift today

Second Category Gates were the most frequent to appear in the waking world. As such, everyone was familiar with how they

of advancing Nightmare Creatures were not going to be too terrible, at least for a fighter of Sunny's caliber. They would be comprised mostly of Dormant creatures, with some Awakened abominations mixed in. Their Classes and numbers,

just a hint of the horror to

the Awakened Rank, with more and more Fallen ones appearing as well. Their Classes were going to rise, until there were as many Demons as there were Monsters and

by the time this second stage was nearing its culmination… well, two things could happen, neither promising him

was going to end up

waves of Nightmare Creatures, hundreds of Fallen abominations lunging

reality. The Guardian was always at least one Rank higher than the Gate's Category, and could be

through the initial waves first to find out what was going to

to appear from the darkness resembled a terrifying hound with bloodred bone spikes growing from its mottled, black fur. It landed on

grew silent as Shadow Serpent's blade slashed across its neck, severing

slain a

at him from the dark rift, their eyes burning

whole world full of defenseless, untainted souls for them

fast, you

had a