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], [Soul

[Soul Beast] wasn't there

the new Attribute and

Description: "Soul Serpent can assume the form of a

blinked a couple

'...What?'

black serpent that coiled around his torso and arms. Then, Sunny carefully raised one hand and gave the

onto his palm

triangular head of

existence. Its jet-black scales rustled quietly as they 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

and stretched into the air, its head slowly rising and soon reaching as high as Sunny was tall. A forked tongue flashed for a moment,

its maw and hissed,

Sunny gulped.

seemed as deep as the lightless expanse of an ocean of shadows, and were full of strange, alien

was no aggression or ill will in them. Instead, there was

Serpent was greeting

shadow forward, and it swiftly wrapped itself around the serpent. Immediately, flowing patterns that were somehow even darker than the lusterless, obsidian scales revealed themselves, and the pressure that the shadow beast exerted instantly

ghostly, enveloped

a moment, and then

a good

giant snake, and then patted it on the head with

turn to blink… if it had any eyelids. Was

and lowered his gaze. There

the very bottom,

Abilities: [Serpentine Steel],

"A portion of the soul essence of those slain by the Shadow Serpent in its Soul Weapon or Soul Beast form is absorbed

Sunny's smile widened.

I can't use the Serpent to regenerate essence while it is not on my body. In fact,

the Shadow

to do great things together, buddy! You'll have

the Shadow had already turned back into a tattoo and coiled itself around his body. It was as though there had never been a terrifying creature in

take a