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?

he should have been careful about what he wished

coming through

most frequent to appear in the waking world. As such, everyone was familiar with

at least for a fighter of Sunny's caliber. They would be comprised mostly of Dormant creatures,

were just a hint of the horror to

every Nightmare Creature coming from the Gate was going to be of the Awakened Rank, with more and more Fallen ones appearing as well. Their Classes were going

if Sunny was still alive by the time this second stage was nearing its culmination… well, two things could happen, neither

was going to end up really being

the Third Category, then there would be more and more waves of Nightmare Creatures, hundreds of Fallen abominations lunging into the real world from

then, the Guardian of the Gate would manifest itself into reality. The Guardian was always at least one Rank

first to find

its mottled, black fur. It landed on the

blade slashed

have slain a Dormant

as he did, more silhouettes lunged at him from the dark rift, their eyes burning with madness and bloodthirst as

full of defenseless,

so fast,

a very simple