Shadow Slave

Sunny had no clue how to create, decipher, or manipulate runic magic. His inherent ability to see the weave and inner structure of magical items, the one he had received after consuming the drop of ichor that fell from Weaver's eye, also gifted him with an innate understanding of the essence of spellweave.

While studying the Memories created by Spell, Sunny was not able to fully understand the intricate purpose of the vast patterns of ethereal strings… but he at least could intuitively feel a hint of it.

He had no such advantage when it came to other forms of sorcery. So, despite the fact that he had managed to perceive the enchantments encompassing the Red Colosseum, it was not like he could simply change them, or create new ones to counteract the old.

He could study the runes, of course… but with no teacher and only his wit and intelligence to help him draw the correct conclusions from observing various enchantments, it would take hundreds of years to gain enough insight to learn how to create any meaningful runic sorcery of his own.

Sunny, however, wasn't discouraged. Yes, he would not be able to create runic sorcery any time soon.

But destroying things was always much easier than making them.

Locked inside the narrow cage, surrounded by the smell of Nightmare Creatures and filth, Sunny stared into the darkness and thought.

Destroy the enchantments of the Red Colosseum…

In theory, it was simple to achieve. He just had to break enough runes to disrupt the paths they created for the soul energy. The problem with that, however, was that the runes Hope had used were giant, and carved into nearly unbreakable stone. Sunny doubted that he would be able to do enough damage to the arena to cause its sorcery to fail.

...Causing a smaller and temporary disruption, however, was not entirely impossible. He felt that he would be able to achieve that much, at least… perhaps enough to free himself of the binding enchantment for a second or few.

freedom be enough to escape

going to

in the darkness, a seed of a desperate plan started

***

causing it to sway lightly. Raising one of his four monstrous hands, he stared at it for a while, and then commanded shadow essence to stream forward, concentrating at the tips of his

a strange metamorphosis. It was now much more nuanced, vibrant, and

essence concentrated in the tips of his fingers, he felt a strange, ghostly tingling

moments, then pinched the air near one

surprise,

of the radiant strings he was used to seeing inside Memories, and neither did it look like the flowing liquid that essence was

the grey wisps that rose from Saint's armor when one of the shadows wrapped itself around

elusive, not at all like the

slightly, and pulled the fog with one hand while trying to get a hold of it

caused the strand to break, dissipate, and disappear, blown away by a

to take some

a thin and durable string, emptying a small portion of his reserves with each failure. By the time morning came, he had not made any progress at all, and only managed to waste most of his essence in futile

so much power was going

glanced at the giant in a tattered

matter. I'll be dead either way. But now, at least,