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

that the effects of the poison did not

was over. The plan worked, in the end, even if killing the Wormvine had turned out to be much more complicated than

clean up the remaining Sailor Dolls should the beasts regain their

quickly disintegrating corpse of the person who had once been called Solvane for a bit, then walked over and stood

not even summoning the runes to take a look at his new Memory. Slowly, his exhaustion diminished, and he could think clearly once

happened, numerous questions inevitably assaulted

had happened in the cargo hold of the ancient ship was

for thousands of years? Why was Solvane immune to divine flame and couldn't be harmed by the Cruel Sight, but succumbed to one strike of the wooden

so similar to the obsidian one that lay on the altar in the Sanctuary of

no answers, one thought gradually encompassed

Saint… I killed

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

himself short, but not even in his wildest dreams had Sunny ever considered being able to kill a Saint… at least not at his current Rank. Saints were

Monster was of the same Rank as a Saint, and even possessed one more soul core… but there was no comparison. Due to their Aspects and nature, Transcendent humans were much more of a force to be reckoned with than any beast or monster could ever hope

Sunny had

Corrupted

delivered the strike… but it didn't

definitely something that no

from pain, and

he did was check his fragments. The number

Shadow Fragments: [1958/2000].

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

runes appeared at the end of the list. He held

Memory: [Undying Chain.]