Shadow Slave

'What the…'

The shards of stone and the dancing flames moved, flying through the air toward the tall woman. Instead of crushing and burning her, however, they somehow assembled around her slender body, the pieces of stone levitating around it to form a strange armor, the fire shrouding her hands like incandescent gloves.

Sunny suddenly felt a deep, dangerous sense of unease.

"How dare you, vile shadow…"

The voice of the War Madein thundered in the darkness that the Shadow Lantern had created, and then, two furious white eyes ignited in its depths, piercing Sunny with a murderous gaze.

"How dare you challenge War…"

A split second later, the Maiden disappeared from where she stood, the stone slab beneath her feet exploding into a rain of shards. Almost instantly, she was already upon him, a flame-wreathed palm shooting forward to pierce his chest.

'Damnation… what is it with women of War always going straight for my heart? This is already the third time this happens!'

Sunny awkwardly blocked the devastating blow, and felt himself being thrown back by the terrifying force of the impact. Luckily, the Mantle of the Underworld had withstood the touch of the divine flames that shrouded his enemy's hands, if just barely, the enhanced enchantment of Memory of Fire still coursing through its polished onyx.

'Argh!'

Something wasn't right here… even for a Master, the speed and strength of this woman were way too terrifying. With three cores nearing full saturation and augmented with two shadows, he was supposed to be near the realm of the Ascended, at least, if not more or less on par with some of them. And yet, her might was far greater than his.

That could have been explained by possessing an Aspect that augmented one's physicality, but as Sunny had just seen, the white-haired War Maiden seemed to be some sort of an elemental sorceress.

'Ah… I see how it is…'

threw the Cruel Sight forward to prevent his enemy from chaining the next

fruitlessly across the carapace

leader of the Red Sect capable of manipulating the elements, she

seemed to also allow the white-haired Maiden to perceive her surroundings

beautiful face, the woman easily swatted both the Cruel Sight and the Midnight Shard to

suddenly appeared in one of Sunny's hands and slid between the chunks of stone protecting her body. The Moonlight Shard bit into the Maiden's body, failing

There was a benefit

and mighty

though. The stone carapace swirled around her, sending the Moonlight Shard flying away from his hand, and then two incandescent fists descended upon him. A spark

'Bad…'

cloud of darkness, no one would have

they would be able to perceive were the furious sounds

unlike anything he had ever seen. It was different from how humans of the

that it made Sunny realize how crude and clumsy his own, which he had been proud of before, really was. His essence was running low, too, because of

Maiden possessed a sublime technique, Sunny possessed a myriad of them. He was able to shift from one style to

a somber spear to a mirror sword and jumping between his four hands — Sunny had dismissed the Midnight Shard, knowing that it

Ascended… and through all of it, he was observing how

more transparent and predictable. The process was helped by the fact that Sunny had recognized

It seemed as though his death was only a matter of time… but in reality, he was

soon enough, that

of essence were almost empty, and his breathing was labored and arduous. One

then, he suddenly

to be another one of those in this dire

another terrible strike, he suddenly turned the blade