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 Kurt's misfortune,

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

As soon as he threw 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

knives flew at terrible speed toward Master Jet and Sunny. Their purpose was not

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

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 Sight's hilt appear in his

'Not… not too bad…'

tore this

careful! He's planning

thought, a

moment, something massive broke through the floorboards and struck

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

Kurt clicked his tongue.

"...So annoying."

was staring at the thing that crawled

two long arms that had one too many joints growing out of it, each ending in three terrifying curved claws. The towering thing was vaguely humanoid in shape, with broad shoulders and a small

angry at his

curses, of course he has an

else would the bastard frequent

a dormant beast Sunny had ever seen. If he had to guess, he would be willing to bet that the creature was at least of the Fallen Rank, and had

the arena meant for

sword appeared in

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

If it was anybody else, Sunny might have been worried… Soul Reaper, though, seemed unperturbed. She simply

capable of handling the Echoes without too much trouble, even if one of them was a Fallen

paying attention to her shadow, though? That was

shadows and dashed forward… while Sunny

used, the easier it was for Sunny to get to him,

the killer's eyes, and brought the Cruel

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

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

'Easy…'