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?

Saint were a

entered the second killing box, sending his shadow sense forward to encompass

he saw 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

ground, terribly disfigured by the sharp claws

vile darkness spreading through the souls of the lizard-like gremlins. From the look of it, they were all Awakened, the same as the wolves

as well, with a single radiant soul core, while the older one had none at all.

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

dashed to help him, but it was already too late. Even though the Awakened youth managed to kill several beasts with his fists and pushed the others away, his partner was already mortally wounded. He shuddered, a river of blood flowing from a

went wild, happily chanting

"Glory! Glory! Glory!"

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

for long, though, because the

found a

the Soul Serpent to assume

least not with their remaining numbers and their attention split between

'Curses…'

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

I would miss being

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

Serpent shining darkly on his skin, Sunny took a step forward and caught all four

could these beasts ever hope to survive a battle

very special one, at

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