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

he entered the second killing box, sending his shadow

he saw there made him squint

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

terribly disfigured by the sharp claws and triangular fangs of the abominations,

Awakened, the same as the wolves he had fought — Sunny measured the strength of the monsters during the battle and

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

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

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 ghastly gash in his neck, and weekly pushed the hilt of the sword into

happily chanting the

"Glory! Glory! Glory!"

his head, pain and sorrow

dwell on his loss for long, though, because the remaining gremlins were already rushing

found a new

his body as precisely as possible. He didn't command the Soul Serpent to assume the form of a weapon or summon Saint yet, preferring to

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

'Curses…'

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

that I

second behind. Their narrow eyes shone with rabid bloodlust, and

Sunny took a step forward and caught all four creatures from the air, then slammed their skulls

how could these beasts ever

very special one, at

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