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…'

Awakened would have been killed by that devious attack, most likely. To Kurt's

already turning her block into an attack. Her fist seemed to teleport forward, tearing through the air so fast that

essence and lunged back, smashing through the

free more knives flew at terrible speed toward Master Jet and Sunny.

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

itself around his body, feeling his strength and speed become even more enhanced. He dashed forward, and finally felt the cool wooden

'Not… not too bad…'

this thought to

He's planning

finish the thought, a dark smile appeared on

the next moment, something massive broke through the floorboards and struck her…

grow smaller. A fourth knife appeared out of nowhere and pierced the floor where

Kurt clicked his tongue.

"...So annoying."

at the thing that crawled from under the

like a mound of worn rags , with two long arms that had one too many joints growing out of it, each ending in three terrifying curved claws. The towering thing

felt angry at his own

Echo… curses, of course

frequent the Slaughterhouse and its

had to guess, he would be willing to bet that the creature

arena meant

appeared in

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

have been worried… Soul Reaper, though, seemed unperturbed. She simply raised her glaive

Echoes without too much trouble, even if one of them

to do so while also paying attention to her shadow, though? That was not

and dashed forward… while Sunny simply took a

the easier it was for Sunny to get

noticed a hint of surprise in the killer's eyes, and brought the

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

incredibly fast, Sunny was much, much faster. He moved

'Easy…'