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.

what a strange

'...Whatever.'

The stronger he became, the better he would be able to aid Sunny, both in battle and while

lot

the fifth cage, and then to the

point, Sunny was nearing his

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

not felt the island move either up

they had

with six gates in its walls. Four were already opened, and two still stood

surrounding them. And in the middle of the killing stage, two humans

archaic armor. Their garments were painted bright red, and so were the plumes of

God, just like the spectators singing from

The young man shivered:

"Warmongers… these mad dogs…"

crowd as he studied the two humans. Both were Awakened, and from the look of it, of sufficient power and skill. They were calm and solemn, their eyes empty of even a hint

also wanted to achieve it themselves. After the initial culling had taken place, the final obstacle the gladiators had to overcome each day was

had to survive the onslaught of the slaves, if they wished to

the best and

'Mad dogs, indeed.'

these people were insane. Sunny was now more sure of it

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

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 was solely

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

nature