Shadow Slave

Sitting on the floor of the cargo hold, with his back against the soft and spongy layer of rotting brown moss, Sunny bent down and spat a mouthful of blood. Breathing hoarsely, he stared at it for a moment, and then tiredly leaned back.

He did not feel too well.

[...Your shadow grows stronger.]

A bitter smile appeared on his face.

'What? Is that all?'

After all that had just happened, Sunny felt that he really deserved more.

This time, his hopes were not for naught.

The Spell remained silent for a bit, as though to torture him, and then added:

[You have received a Memory.]

'...Better.'

After that, he groaned and coughed some more blood.

All around Sunny, the brown moss was rotting, withering, and turning into dust. The same thing was happening to the vile mass of vines, albeit at a slower rate. Now that both the Corrupted Monster and its host were dead, the ancient wreck seemed to be cleansing itself.

He couldn't be bothered to pay attention to these changes, though, and was fully concentrated on his own miserable state.

Even though the whole battle took less than a minute, Sunny had sustained a lot of damage. His body was pierced and torn by the black thorns, and he had too much poison running through his veins. One of his ligaments seemed to be seriously torn, too, which brought him a lot of pain now that the adrenalin was starting to dissipate.

on his misadventures from almost the very start of it all, but Sunny had to reluctantly admit that with the caliber of enemies he was facing these days, its protective qualities

did not seem to be growing stronger.

killing the Wormvine had turned out to be much more complicated than anyone would have thought. Still, somehow, Sunny had managed to

alive… were going to have to clean up the remaining Sailor Dolls should the beasts regain

once been called Solvane for a bit, then walked over

for a while, not even summoning the runes to take a look at his new Memory.

questions inevitably assaulted his

in the cargo hold of the

for thousands of years? Why was Solvane immune to divine flame and couldn't be harmed by the

so

these questions and found no answers, one thought gradually

I killed

a Transcendent human, which was what Saints were really called. Sunny knew it to

a Saint… at least not at his current Rank. Saints were simply creatures of

were much more of a force

Sunny

killed a Corrupted Monster, with the same

technically, it was Saint who had delivered the strike… but it didn't matter. The

that no one

chuckled, then grimaced from pain, and

thing he did was check his fragments. The

Shadow Fragments: [1958/2000].

a human and a monster two Ranks above him gave twelve more fragments — four from the Saint, and eight from the Wormvine. Sunny sighed, lamenting the unfairness

runes appeared at the end of the

Memory: [Undying Chain.]