Shadow Slave

As Sunny was walking toward the next enclosure, he had a few seconds to think.

The first thing he realized was that, despite the fact that the Spell remained silent, he had in fact received the shadow fragments from the three dread wolves. The feeling of his cores, and thus body, growing a tiny bit stronger was there, even though it was hard to sense the minuscule change in all the chaos.

'Strange… this is all so strange…'

His connection to the Spell seemed to be gone, cut by the steel collar on his neck, and yet not all of his powers disappeared. Sunny couldn't access his Soul Sea and summon Memories or runes, but he still possessed the ability to absorb fragments. He was also able to command his shadows to augment his body, as well as use Shadow Step... even though its range seemed to be limited by the walls of the arena.

What did it all mean?

Well… from the look of it, while the Spell was gone, his Aspect remained. There was a lot of meaning hidden in this simple fact, but Sunny had no time to unpack it.

What else was his Aspect capable of?

Walking under the rusty gate, Sunny hesitated for a split second, and then summoned the Soul Serpent.

A moment later, almost unnoticeable on his obsidian skin, an intricate tattoo of a coiling serpent appeared, wrapped around his arms and torso. When Sunny sent shadow essence coursing through it, the coils shone with dark radiance, revealing themselves for everyone to see.

His lips moved, revealing powerful fangs in a frightening grin.

'So you are here as well, buddy…'

What did it mean? It meant that Sunny didn't have to fight unarmed anymore. It also meant that Saint was with him, as well.

He might not have been the most deadly of creatures at the moment, still unaccustomed to this new lumbering body. But the two of them?

were a

new confidence, he entered the second killing box, sending his

there made him squint

a battle going on in the enclosure, a pair of humans desperately trying to fight off a swarm of small, swift lizard-like creatures. Both of them wore white tunics, the younger one unarmed, while the older one had a simple sword in his hands and a leather cuirass protecting his

laying on the ground, terribly disfigured by the sharp claws and

through the souls of the lizard-like gremlins. From the look of it, they were all Awakened, the same as the wolves he had fought — Sunny measured the strength of the monsters during the battle and judged their Rank to be

man was an Awakened, as well, with a single radiant soul core, while the older one had none at all. He was a mundane

fell to the ground, the gremlins easily tearing through his cuirass and sinking

pushed the others away, his partner was already mortally wounded. He shuddered, a river of blood flowing from a ghastly gash in

wild, happily

"Glory! Glory! Glory!"

last surviving human raised his head, pain and sorrow mixing with hatred in his light

long, though, because the remaining gremlins

found a

didn't command the Soul Serpent to assume the form of a

not seem too dangerous, anyway. At least not with their remaining numbers and

'Curses…'

demon's gaunt body was too tall, heavy, and unwieldy. Every motion required more effort, and was slower than he was used to. Even though there was inhuman strength in the shadow creature's steel muscles, which was supposed to translate into explosive speed, dragging so much mass around was still different from operating a small

have thought that I would

narrow eyes shone with rabid bloodlust, and their jagged claws were aimed at his flesh, lusting to rip

in shadows, with the coils of the Soul Serpent shining darkly on his skin, Sunny took a step forward and caught all four creatures from the air, then slammed their skulls against

though he was having trouble controlling his new body, how could these beasts ever hope to survive a battle against

very special one,

his teeth and lunged forward, a low growl escaping from his mouth. His four arms moved, crushing flesh and bone. Several beasts managed to slip past his assault and sink their claws into his thighs, one even trying to bite off a big chunk of