Shadow Slave

Landing into the poisonous miasma of the ancient wreck, Sunny immediately turned into a shadow and glided over the ancient wooden boards, which were long ago overgrown with brown moss and bulging, thorned vines.

To be honest, he would have preferred to move through the ship as a human. Sunny knew that he was going to inhale at least some of the poison while fighting the being that dwelled in the cargo hold, so having some time to get accustomed to the debilitating effect of the toxin was better than going through that process in the middle of the battle.

But he couldn't risk getting noticed too soon. The whole battle was supposed to be over in just a few moments, anyway... alas, Sunny had little hope that everything was going to go as planned.

His previous experiences had taught him that very few things ever did.

Remembering the path he had taken during the hunt for Noctis coins, Sunny glided through the narrow corridors. This time, they were vastly different from how they had been before… after all, the monster was wide awake now.

The vines sprawling through the ancient wreck were pulsating and moving, spouting clouds of deadly mist. The air was murky and full of disturbing sounds of something slithering beyond the wooden bulkheads. It was as though Sunny was inside a giant, living organism.

A virus cell that invaded the ancient wreck to kill its host.

…Luckily, these were mostly just the roots of the vile vines. The parts that were really mobile and dangerous were far away, currently killing the cohort of Fire Keepers.

Suddenly grim, Sunny increased his speed, and soon reached the gates of the cargo hold, which were bent outward, as if straining to contain something pressing on them from the other side.

He could feel the vast space beyond the gate, and a massive shadow of the creature in its center, its form rhythmically expanding and contracting, as if breathing. With each contraction, a wave of warm wind blew through the remnants of the flying ship.

He lingered for a fraction of a second, and then gathered his resolve.

There was no time to waste.

once more, Sunny appeared in the cargo

what the hell… is

hold was very large, and filled almost entirely with thick, brown vines that snaked outward and disappeared in the breaches in the ancient wood. They all originated from a single source… a vast, pulsating mass of moss in its

the very heart of

human, their body twisted in a terrible convulsion. Sunny couldn't tell if the human was a man or a woman, alive or dead, but he was sure of one thing… the vines sprawling through the entire island all came from

the mouth of the abhorrent corpse, from their ears, piercing their chest and abdomen, snaking from beneath the skin of

ancient human, killing them, but also somehow keeping them alive and breathing. And as long as the human breathed, the vines would continue to exist and

is the thing I need to

no matter how experienced and powerful he became, there were things that humans were just not meant to be able to behold calmly. Staring at the ghastly

had some measure of humanity left in his soul. As long as Sunny did

close, exit the shadows, and thrust the Cruel Sight into its chest. The divine

trying to traverse the

went wrong

able to get anywhere near the terrible creature, the corpse suddenly opened its

and as dark as

directly at him, as if the creature could easily pierce the veil of darkness and separate the intruding shadow

Sunny was caught.

'N—no way…'

that the incredible stealth augmentation of his Aspect was broken

then, all hell broke

***