Shadow Slave

Welthe froze… but only for a moment. Then, she threw Cassie aside and dashed toward the door, disappearing in a blur. Sunny was pushed away, rolling on the floor and almost crashing against one of the empty mirror frames. By the time he regained his balance, she was already gone.

Pierce growled, then threw a murderous look at him and screamed:

"Kill them!"

With that, he dashed out of the chamber, too, dismissing most of the Echoes to take them with him.

…The fools still hoped that they could save their men.

Or avenge them, at least.

Sunny also couldn't really be mad at Pierce for ordering their death… he would have done the same. Now that their plan to bind Mordret had failed, the next best option was to make sure that there were no more vessels for him to possess. The sentinels were already as good as dead. That left only Sunny…

However, Sunny was not one to let go of the grudge.

'Curse you, you bastard…'

There were only two Echoes remaining in the mirror chamber. One was moving toward Cassie, already thrusting its sword forward. The other was towering over Sunny, its heavy battle axe raised.

Sunny glared at the Echo, not amused.

In the next moment, a stygian serpent appeared from the shadows behind the creature, wrapping its long and powerful body around the macabre effigy. Then, its head shot forward, the maw opening to a terrible width. Sharp fangs closed on both sides of the Echoe's face, easily piercing through the skull and crushing it with a grisly crunch.

At the same time, Cassie rose to one knee and deflected her enemy's sword with a long dagger. A slender rapier flashed from behind her, piercing the creature's neck and emerging from its other side in a shower of blood.

Both Echoes fell to the floor, disintegrating into a rain of sparks. From start to finish, they had not made a sound.

Sunny rushed to Cassie and bent down, trying to ascertain the severity of her wound. His voice sounded tense and worried:

"Are you okay?"

was blood flowing down her delicate neck, but the cut seemed shallow and not at all dangerous. A sense of profound relief spread through

The blind girl nodded.

Go! There won't be

without saying a word,

be another chance… they were faced with two equal threats — one was the pair of Ascended knights, and the other was

make sure that

to destroy the mirror fiend, so leaving Mordret without a vessel was going

at the precipice of the stairway, and then commanded it to hide. Now, he appeared

'...Fast.'

the Night Temple was submerged in darkness now that no one was alive to keep the lanterns aflame. Rushing through it, he followed the Masters, and reached the

crashed through the door, pulverizing it into a cloud

What met them inside…

Was a bloodbath.

***

had been clean and orderly, somewhat somber, but looking like a well-inhabited

all Sunny could see was

of the hall was one vast, morbid pool of the crimson liquid, with severed limbs

it was revolting

vile slaughterhouse, a lone figure was sitting cross-legged, a

sentinel looked

her bearing, her gaze, her presence — had changed. It was relaxed and friendly, almost polite. She looked… exactly how Mordret had sounded, back when he and

gruesome bloodbath surrounding her was ghastly, bizarre, and deeply

Masters appeared inside the hall, eight Echoes weaving themselves from sparks of

cut out of a single piece of a pristine white stone into the air, then caught it again,

Welthe. You have finally

directly at Sunny, who was hiding in

It is such a pleasure to finally meet you face to face. Well… I guess we've already met a few days ago. Still, what an occasion. I've waited for it

his eyes growing cold and frightening, as though there was a dark ocean of unfathomable depth hiding beneath their surface, full of harrowing

waited to meet the two

growled, taking a