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 hold… and froze, slightly stunned by the terrible

what the hell… is

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,

very heart of

Sunny couldn't tell if the human was a man or a woman, alive or dead, but he

corpse, from their ears, piercing their chest and abdomen, snaking from beneath the skin of their arms and legs. The sight of it was both terrifying and repulsive, but most of all, it was… ghoulishly

the vines had once exploded from the body of the 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 grow, too, slowly absorbing the ancient ship, the

is the thing

of them, but 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

a welcomed guest… fear told him that he was still sane, and had some measure of humanity left in his soul. As long as Sunny did not surrender to fear, it

Cruel Sight into its chest. The

trying to traverse the vast

went wrong

soon as Sunny moved, and long before he was able to get anywhere near the terrible creature, the corpse suddenly

were empty, dead, and as dark

as if the creature could easily pierce the veil of

Sunny was caught.

'N—no way…'

the fact that the incredible stealth augmentation of his Aspect

then, all hell broke

***