Shadow Slave

Sunny waited for a few moments, and then hurriedly stood up while summoning the runes. This was it… the moment he had been waiting for! After so much time, all the sweat and blood, his effort had finally paid off. He had made another step toward becoming a true battle master.

All it took was…

Sunny thought for a second, then glanced at the runes describing the Mantle of the Underworld first. Under the description of the [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment, a runic counter glowed:

Vanquished Foes: [2332/6000].

All it took was killing twelve hundred enemies with his own two hands… and dying by a Master's hand once.

Around nine hundred of those kills had happened in the Dreamscape, one in the waking world, and the rest in the wild reaches of the Chained Isles. Sadly, creatures slain by Saint did not count toward the requirement of the strange enchantment, or the number would have been any higher.

Still, it was good progress.

Turning away, Sunny found the string of runes he wanted to see the most:

Shadows: [Marble Saint], [Soul Serpent].

He concentrated on the latter and read:

Shadow: [Soul Serpent].

Shadow Rank: Awakened.

A wide grin appeared on his face. Sunny closed his eyes and listened to his soul, then circulated shadow essence through the coils of the serpent. He could feel that it was flowing even faster than before. The rate of essence expenditure and regeneration was also improved.

'Perfect!'

He had expected the process of evolving to a new Rank to take a long time, like it had happened with Saint back on the Forgotten Shore, but Soul Serpent had awakened instantly after he had reached the second level of mastery over the Shadow Dance, maybe due to its unique nature as an Aspect Legacy Relic.

'What else changed, I wonder?'

Sunny opened his eyes and looked back to the runes. He had already noticed that there were new ones in the description of the Shadow.

[Shadow Guide],

Beast] wasn't

the

Description: "Soul Serpent can assume the

blinked a

'...What?'

down at his bare chest and stared at the intricate tattoo of a black serpent that coiled around his torso and arms. Then, Sunny carefully raised

moved, slithering onto his palm and moving down his

of the tip of a sharp blade, a triangular head

touched the armored plates of the floor, and soon, petrified Sunny was looking at a giant snake, at least six meters in length, its body as wide as a large man's arm and strong enough

slowly rising and soon reaching as high as Sunny was tall. A forked tongue flashed for a moment, and then the

and hissed,

Sunny gulped.

mighty body, and shone with dark radiance. They seemed as deep as the lightless expanse of

no aggression or ill will in them.

was greeting its

and studied the dark creature's body. Then, he sent the creepy shadow forward, and it swiftly wrapped itself around the serpent. Immediately, flowing patterns that

ghostly, enveloped

hesitated for a moment, and

a good buy you

patted

had any eyelids. Was Sunny imagining things, or did the obsidian

a shrug, he glanced back at the runes, and lowered his gaze. There was one last surprise left for him

very bottom, several new

Abilities: [Serpentine Steel],

the Shadow Serpent in its Soul Weapon or Soul Beast form

Sunny's smile widened.

will help with the fact that I can't use the Serpent to regenerate essence while it is not on my body. In fact, as long as it continues to kill something, my essence might never run

the Shadow

together, buddy! You'll have plenty of tasty souls to eat, don't

back into a tattoo and coiled itself around his body. It was as though there had never been

take a look at that