Shadow Slave

…Somewhere far away, in the depths of an endless and inescapable nightmare, a blinding disc of an incandescent sun was bathing the dunes of a vast desert in a flood of immolating heat. The sands of the desert were flawlessly white, and the azure sky above them was deep and boundless like an ancient ocean, with not a single cloud blemishing its silken expanse.

Being battered by the heat, a lone figure moved across the sand.

It was a young woman with striking grey eyes, her skin covered in terrible burns, her silver hair dirty with blood and surrounded by a radiant halo of reflected light. She wore charred remains of a shattered armor, and wielded a broken sword, its silver blade fractured and ending in a jagged edge close to the hilt.

The young woman walked forward, the trail of her footprints stretching far into the distance and disappearing over the horizon. To her left, there was nothing but an endless sea of white dunes; to her right, a line of black mountains eventually created a boundary for the scorching desert.

Far ahead, there was a tree with scarlet leaves and a scattering of something that looked like pale fruit hanging from its wide branches.

...This was where Nephis was headed.

She had to reach the tree before the night came, or… no, it was better not to think of it.

Her water had long run out, and the thirst was slowly taking hold of her mind. Her tortured body was a sea of pain, but she could still walk. She could still fight.

She was still not willing to give up.

…After a while, the tree grew closer.

Nephis stopped and stared at its white bark, its scarlet leaves, and the shapes she had thought were fruit. But they weren't. Instead, tens of thousands of skulls hung from the beautiful branches, fastened to them with glistening threads of black silk.

a clear pool in the shadow of the great tree, and on its bank, with his back to her, stood a

'A… human?'

figure was too tall to be

a weapon. Two hands held long swords, their blades sharper than a razor and curved slightly, two hands held menacing twisted sickles, and the last two held a heavy

the creature's rusted armor

a hand, as if begging the creature

of cause, it

lunged at her, striking down with one of the sickles. It moved faster than lightning, sending a scarlet cloud of fallen leaves swirling into the air with a strong gust

a step back, Nephis raised her broken sword to deflect the devastating strike, as if forgetting

pure sunlight appeared where the blade should have been and stopped the sickle from

from the force of the impact, but remained standing. Her

burn, then…

the next moment, white flames ignited

then became brighter, and brighter… and then,

the armored giant, her

thousands of skulls

with the flow of the battle as if it

the harrowing pain, her beautiful face grew colder and colder, becoming almost

left molten marks on the body of the ancient demon. And even though