Shadow Slave

In the deadly silence that settled over the underground arena after the Spell had spoken its last sentence, Sunny stared motionlessly at the flakes of ash swirling in the air.

'...An Echo?'

He was now in possession of a new Echo.

A human Echo.

Of course, it was only logical that an Awakened could leave one behind. Sunny had received his first-ever Memory after killing a human, after all, and those were not too different. However, somehow, he had never considered commanding an Echo left behind by a dead man. One that he had killed with his own two hands, no less.

Wasn't it a little bit too ghastly?

He imagined the soulless, empty copy of Kurt staring at him with lifeless eyes, and shivered a little.

The situation was only made more morbid by the fact that a softly glowing soul shard was left in the pile of ash that the killer had turned into. Just like with Nightmare Creatures, the strange nature of Sunny's Aspect left the crystal intact despite absorbing the shadow fragment. If an ordinary Awakened was in his place, the shard would have formed empty and cracked.

Sunny had never dug into the corpses of his human victims to retrieve one, so this was his first time seeing a soul shard left behind by one of his own kind.

…Before Master Jet could see it, too, Sunny bent down, picked up the luminescent crystal, and hid it in his sleeve. His face twitched slightly.

Just as he did, an amused voice resounded from behind him:

"Well, I'll be damned… that was fast."

He hesitated for a moment, and then turned around.

Master Jet was surrounded by a scene of devastation, the interior of the underground theater in her vicinity completely destroyed. She was casually leaning on her glaive, and there was an amused expression on her face. Kurt's Echoes, of course, had disappeared after his death… however, Sunny didn't know how many of them she had killed before that happened.

In any case, there were no wounds on her body.

Master Jet whistled.

bastard all by yourself. That's,

voice, it was clear that she was pleasantly surprised. And why wouldn't she be? Kurt was… had been an Awakened with at least ten years of experience under his belt, with a fully saturated soul core and an insidious, deadly Aspect. While Sunny…

a kid from

He shrugged.

nature of his powers. A little knowledge of the shadows was all it took,

slowly shook

day. But hey, why am I

Jet sighed and looked at the

few moments of silence,

know, he was a promising young Awakened too, once. One of the few who didn't treat me like a walking corpse back

promising. It wasn't too hard… however, thinking about a person he had

— a depraved, demented murderer. More of a rabid beast, really, than an actual

the back of

then what happened

jet lingered for a bit, and

guess. Not everyone is cut out for the kind of life we

the Cruel Sight, thought for a few moments, and

having a powerful protector. What was that

Jet smiled.

to make a fuss about someone like him. Kurt became of no use to them the moment he lost control. What's more, he turned into a liability. So, if anything, we did

grew wider… but also

deal with, Sunny. And they would have to go through

It all made sense, after all. Powerful people were also practical sort. They wouldn't hesitate to discard

join a Legacy clan. I guess that is what I would have become if I did. Master Jet warned me against

something else came

strange words Kurt had said right

anyway. You know about the Obel scale,

was the real reason

few moments,