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.

wonderful armor and accompanied him on his misadventures from almost the very start of it all, but Sunny had to reluctantly admit that with the caliber of

not seem to be growing stronger. Blood Weave had the situation under control, and he was bound

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

still alive… were going to have to clean up the remaining Sailor Dolls should the beasts regain their courage after the Corrupted Monster's death, but he couldn't muster enough

at the quickly disintegrating corpse of the person who had once been called Solvane for a bit, then

the runes to take a look at his new Memory. Slowly, his

that happened, numerous questions inevitably

cargo hold of the ancient ship was

Wormvine? How had they survived for thousands of years? Why was Solvane immune

was it so similar to the obsidian one that lay on the altar

all these questions and found no answers, one thought gradually encompassed all the

I killed a

had described Solvane as a Transcendent human, which was what Saints were really called. Sunny knew it to be true,

in his wildest dreams had Sunny ever considered being able to kill a Saint… at least not at

and nature, Transcendent humans were much more of a force to be reckoned with than any beast or monster could ever hope to be. Only a

Sunny

killed a Corrupted Monster,

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

is definitely something that no one is

chuckled, then grimaced from pain,

he did was check his fragments. The number was

Shadow Fragments: [1958/2000].

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

of the list. He held his breath and

Memory: [Undying Chain.]