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.

put down the bastard all by yourself.

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… Sunny had become an Awakened less than a year ago. He was never formally trained, and

a kid

He shrugged.

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

slowly shook

in the day. But hey,

and looked at the pile of

moments of silence,

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

the ashes, trying to imagine Kurt as young and promising. It wasn't too hard… however, thinking about a person he had

he had been at the end — a depraved, demented murderer. More of a

scratched the back of his

then what happened to

lingered for a bit,

cut out for the kind of life we live. In

few moments, and then asked the question

told about having a powerful protector. What was that all about? Are you going to be in trouble? Wait…

Jet smiled.

did you believe that fool? Don't worry, he was just being delusional. Sure, he had rather powerful masters. But these people… they're not going to make a fuss about someone like him. Kurt became of no use to them

smile suddenly grew wider… but also

to deal with, Sunny. And they would

practical sort. They wouldn't hesitate to discard a broken tool, and that was what people like Kurt were… tools to be used and discarded once they couldn't

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

came to his

strange words Kurt had said right before

the Obel scale, so why even bother? Nothing will

was

few moments, then asked