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…'

to prevent his enemy from chaining the next

scraped fruitlessly across the carapace of levitating stone shards surrounding

capable of manipulating the elements, she also drew

white-haired Maiden to perceive her surroundings despite the veil of shadows

scowl on her beautiful face, the woman easily swatted both the Cruel Sight

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 to

grinned. There was a benefit to having four

high and mighty now, are

than hurt, 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 of flame traveled through the whirlwind of stone shards and licked

'Bad…'

rolling cloud of darkness, no one would have been

perceive were the furious sounds of a frightening,

than Sunny. Her Aspect was fearsome, and her skill was unlike anything he had ever seen. It was different from how humans of the waking world fought, but in no way inferior… in fact, her murderous technique was utterly sublime in its

it made Sunny realize how crude and clumsy his own, which he had

possessed a sublime technique, Sunny possessed a myriad of them. He was able to shift from one style to another effortlessly, dancing like a shapeless shadow, making it difficult

Cruel Sight danced with him, swiftly changing its form from a somber spear to a mirror sword and jumping between his four hands — Sunny had dismissed the Midnight Shard, knowing that it would not be able to withstand

monstrous Ascended… and through all of it, he was observing how she moved, how her shadow moved, how they

making her incredible technique more transparent and predictable. The process was helped by the fact that Sunny had recognized the same foundation in it that he had witnessed when Effie attacked him earlier… the two were a master and a pupil, after

death was only a matter of

enough,

of essence were almost empty, and his breathing was labored and arduous. One of his horns was broken, or rather cut cleanly, the edges turned glossy and black

he suddenly saw it. An

be another one of those

raised her hand to deliver another terrible strike, he suddenly turned the blade of the Cruel Sight slightly, so that it faced the enemy with the flat