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.

with the caliber of enemies he was facing these days, its protective qualities left a lot to be desired. Sadly, even such a powerful

though, it was that the effects of the poison did not seem to be growing stronger. Blood Weave

battle was over. The plan worked, in the end, even if killing the Wormvine had turned out to be much more complicated than anyone would have thought. Still,

Keepers… if they were still alive… were going to have to clean up the remaining Sailor Dolls should the beasts regain

Solvane for a

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

happened, numerous questions inevitably assaulted his

happened in the cargo hold of the ancient ship

was Solvane, and how had they ended up as the host of the Wormvine? How had they survived for thousands of years? Why was Solvane immune to divine flame and couldn't be harmed by the Cruel Sight, but

had that knife come from, in the first place? And why was it so similar to the obsidian one that lay on the

and found no answers,

Saint… I killed a

were really called. Sunny knew it

dreams had Sunny ever considered being able to kill a Saint… at least not at his current Rank. Saints were simply creatures of another plane, unrivaled

a force to be reckoned with than any beast or monster could ever hope to be.

Sunny

a Corrupted Monster, with

had delivered the strike… but it didn't matter. The result was the

something that no one is going to

from pain, and

thing he did was check his fragments.

Shadow Fragments: [1958/2000].

him gave twelve more fragments — four from the Saint, and eight from the Wormvine. Sunny sighed, lamenting the unfairness of his Aspect for

appeared at the end of the

Memory: [Undying Chain.]