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. That's,

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

a kid from

He shrugged.

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

slowly shook

Still, Kurt had quite a reputation back in the day. But hey, why am I

and looked at the pile of ash

moments of silence,

too, once. One of the few who didn't treat me like a walking

imagine Kurt as young and promising. It wasn't too

remember him as he had been at the end — a depraved, demented murderer. More of a rabid beast,

scratched the back

then what

lingered for a bit, and

everyone is cut out for the kind of

for a few moments, and then asked the question he really

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

Jet smiled.

masters. But these people… they're not going to make a fuss about someone like him. Kurt became of no use to

grew wider… but also

Sunny. And they would have to go through me first

after all. Powerful people were also practical sort. They wouldn't hesitate to discard a broken tool, and

what I would have become if I did. Master Jet warned me against it

else came to

words Kurt had said right before launching his suicidal

know about the Obel scale, so why even bother?

scale was the real reason for

few