Shadow Slave

Sunny tore the Chain Worm apart, pieces of flesh and puddles of blood covering the red stones of the arena like a ghastly carpet. Then, shrouded in impenetrable shadows, he thrust his hands into the mangled carcass of the slain abomination and ripped three bloody soul shards out.

…Ironically, killing the Fallen Demon had not been too hard for him. A long time ago, Master Roan had described these vile creatures as incredibly formidable and deadly opponents, someone that even he would not have wanted to face alone. But that was because Master Roan was a human.

Chain Worms fed on metal, and as such, steel weapons and armor were useless against them. Sunny would have been in trouble if he was still in his human body, and most of his arsenal of Memories suddenly became ineffective. However, he was a demon now — one of the shadowspawn, or Shadow's kin, or whatever it was he had been turned into.

His claws, his fangs, and his shadows were the perfect weapon to destroy such abominations.

Of course, fighting against a creature one Rank higher than him was not easy. But, augmented by three shadows, he had managed to dismantle the massive abomination without too much trouble. In fact, killing the Chain Warm had been much easier than killing Master Pierce. He wasn't even wounded, at least not seriously.

The crowd grew silent, shocked by his display of ruthless brutality, and then exploded with cheers. Glory, glory… it seemed that they enjoyed seeing someone triumph against a stronger opponent much more than anything else.

'Crazy bastards…'

Sunny glanced at the spectators with resentment, then walked over to the young Awakened and pushed the soul shards into his hands. The youth looked at them with a frown.

"These… are these soul shards?"

'Gods. How can he be an Awakened and not know what a shard looks like?'

Sunny stared at the young man darkly, then nodded and raised one hand to his chest, making a fist.

The Awakened hesitated:

"Don't you want to consume them yourself?"

Sunny snarled, then shook his head. Finally convinced, the youth crushed the shards in his fists and froze, a funny expression appearing on his face.

a strange

'...Whatever.'

shards away out of altruism. For better or worse, the young man was now his partner. The stronger he became, the better he would be able

lot of healing. That,

fifth cage, and then to the sixth.

Sunny was

Worm had tested him in ways he had not expected, draining him of essence, damaging his body, and putting a heavy strain on his endurance. He

seemed to ignore the island where the colosseum was located. In fact, Sunny had not felt the island move either up or down even once. Perhaps it had

one they had

the arena was circular in shape, with six gates

on the red stones, steam rising from the pools of blood surrounding them. And in the middle of the killing stage, two humans stood, their faces hidden behind the

tall, strong, and clad in archaic armor. Their garments were painted bright red, and so were the plumes of their helmets. One was armed with a spear and a shield,

were worshippers of War God, just like the spectators singing from the stone seats of

The young man shivered:

"Warmongers… these mad dogs…"

he studied the two humans. Both were Awakened, and from the look of it, of sufficient power and skill. They were calm

all of them were here for, willingly or not. The masters of the arena wanted their slaves to fight for it, but they also wanted to achieve it themselves. After the initial culling had taken place, the final obstacle the gladiators had to

the slavers had to survive the onslaught of the slaves,

the battles in the arena served a singular purpose — to deliver the best and the most formidable opponents

'Mad dogs, indeed.'

people were insane. Sunny was now

Awakened warriors, if he wanted to survive. Or rather, if he wanted

this fight, being aware of his surroundings was going to be more important than raw strength. No Awakened human could challenge him in terms of raw might, after all… unless their Aspect

the least dangerous an enemy of his could possess. It was easy to understand

nature of Aspects that made Awakened so