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.

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 enemies he was

that the effects of the poison did not seem to be growing

had turned out to be much more complicated than anyone would have thought. Still, somehow, Sunny had managed to achieve his

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

at the quickly disintegrating corpse of the person who had once been called Solvane for a bit, then walked over and stood above him silently, looking away in her usual

at his new Memory. Slowly, his exhaustion diminished, and he could

happened, numerous questions inevitably assaulted his

the cargo hold of the ancient ship was just

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 succumbed to

so similar to the obsidian one that lay

all these questions and found no answers, one thought

Saint… I killed

was what Saints were really called. Sunny knew it to be true, but still couldn't quite believe

not someone to sell 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.

humans were much more of a force to be reckoned with than any beast or monster could ever hope to be. Only a devil of the same Rank, or maybe a powerful demon, could stand a chance in a

Sunny had killed

Corrupted Monster, with the same

technically, it was Saint who had delivered the strike… but

that no

from pain, and finally summoned the

thing he did was check his fragments.

Shadow Fragments: [1958/2000].

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

end of the list.

Memory: [Undying Chain.]