Shadow Slave

Kurt moved with terrible speed, covering the distance between the center of the arena and the first row of the seats, where Sunny and Master Jet were, in a split second.

Just from the way he moved, it was easy to tell that his soul core had been fully saturated a long time ago. He was indeed a powerful Awakened.

…Still, it wasn't enough time to summon a Memory.

The white sparks that were supposed to form into a glaive were just starting to manifest themselves around Jet's hand, but he was already upon her. One of Kurt's hands shot forward, a knife forged out of a strange lusterless alloy appearing in it as if out of nowhere.

The was no magic involved in its sudden appearance, though. The knife had just been hidden in a secret sheath on his forearm.

Of course, Master Jet was much faster. She blocked the strike before it could ever reach her flesh… at the last moment, however, Kurt twisted his wrist and let go of the handle, sending the knife flying past her.

…Right at Sunny.

He had barely any time to react.

The Cruel Sight was still in the process of being summoned, so Sunny used his other hand to try and swat the knife away. It jerked up, but then froze.

'No, wrong!'

A fraction of a second too late, Sunny realized that the knife was not aimed at his body.

It was aimed at his shadow.

And since he had wasted precious time being mistaken about the killer's intentions, it was too late to move his body away to make the shadow shift out of harm's way.

Luckily, Sunny's shadow could move on its own.

It suddenly went out of the sink with his movements and jumped away, letting the knife bury itself in the floor and send a net of cracks through the sturdy synthwood boards.

Shaken, Sunny belatedly jumped back.

'What is this…'

been killed by that devious attack, most likely. To

seemed to teleport forward,

back, smashing through the velvet seats and momentarily appearing a dozen meters away. As soon as his feet touched

terrible speed toward Master Jet and Sunny. Their purpose was not to kill or wound them,

meant for the Ascended, one for Sunny, and

to wrap itself around his body, feeling his strength and speed become even more enhanced. He dashed forward, and finally felt

'Not… not too bad…'

tore this

He's

a dark smile appeared on

through the floorboards and

Reaper easily sidestepped the attack and jumped back, then suddenly twisted, making her shadow grow smaller. A fourth knife appeared out of

Kurt clicked his tongue.

"...So annoying."

staring at the thing that crawled

each ending in three terrifying curved claws. The towering thing was vaguely humanoid in shape,

angry at his

of course he has

frequent the Slaughterhouse and

If he had to guess, he

the arena meant for dormant

curved sword appeared in Kurt's hands, Sunny got his

the shadows. These seemed not to be Fallen, at least. He wasn't sure if they were beasts or monsters, though… just that they looked rather menacing. One was covered in black chitin and had a long tail that ended in a jagged blade, drops of poison falling from it and leaving smoldering holes on the floor; the other was like a repulsive mix of a human and a pale centipede, its limbs numerous and thin as bone needles; the last one resembled a marionette with sharp knives sewn to its

though, seemed unperturbed. She simply raised her glaive and smiled darkly. The

trouble, even if one of them was a Fallen

to her shadow, though? That was not

Creatures attacked, Kurt surrounded himself with dancing shadows and dashed forward… while Sunny simply took a step

more shadows the bastard used, the easier it was for Sunny to get

the

was in the form of a short sword right now, so the almost non-existent distance between the two of them

the silver blade and swiped at Sunny with his curved sword. Although he was incredibly fast,

'Easy…'