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…'

likely. To Kurt's misfortune, though, he had met a

fist seemed to teleport forward, tearing through the

the knife, he saturated his body with essence and lunged back, smashing through the velvet seats and momentarily appearing a dozen meters away. As soon as his feet touched the ground,

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

for the Ascended, one for Sunny, and the last one for his

the knife and summoned the shadow to wrap itself around his body, feeling his strength and speed become even more enhanced. He dashed forward, and finally felt the cool wooden surface of the Cruel

'Not… not too bad…'

tore this thought to

careful! He's planning

thought, a dark smile appeared

the

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

of it, each ending in three terrifying curved claws.

felt angry at his

Echo… curses, of course

would the bastard frequent the Slaughterhouse and its

If he had to guess, he would be willing to bet that the creature was at least of the Fallen

arena meant for

sword appeared in

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

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

capable of handling the Echoes without too much trouble, even

to her shadow,

with dancing shadows and dashed forward… while Sunny simply took a step back, and

easier it was for Sunny to get to him, after

in the killer's eyes, and brought

in the form of a short sword right now, so the almost non-existent distance between the two of them was not

Although he was incredibly fast, Sunny was much, much faster. He

'Easy…'