Shadow Slave

Soon after the Shadows left, the connection Sunny shared with them grew faint. He could still feel their existence, but not much beyond that. The same happened with the happy and creepy shadows — when Nightmare and the Soul Serpent left the range of Shadow Control, which had grown to about four kilometers, he lost the ability to perceive them, and the world through them.

Sunny felt that they were out there, somewhere, but that was it. The sudden loss of being able to see and hear through two out of his three shadows was abrupt and jarring, as though he had suddenly lost an eye and a limb. It made Sunny feel very uncomfortable.

Not only was his power severely diminished in the absence of his loyal companions, making him extremely vulnerable, but he also worried about them. There had been many opportunities to send Saint away to hunt on her own in the past, but Sunny never did. The risk was just too high… both for the Shadow and for himself. They were stronger together...

Shadows were not meant to be apart from their master.

But there was no other choice now. He did not know when the three Chain Lords were going to act, exactly, but there was not much time left before. Before the final confrontation began, Sunny had to become a Devil.

…Neph was already a Tyrant, after all. It would not do to let her remain so far ahead.

With a sigh, he turned around and walked back to his room. The gloomy shadow followed, trying to not show that it, too, missed its siblings.

The Shadows were gone, but there was still a lot Sunny had to do. He had to prepare himself for the battle, both mentally and physically.

The next few days passed without too much happening. Sunny trained archery with Kai, practiced swordsmanship with Cassie, and sharpened his mastery of the spear with Effie's help. The other three were busy with their own preparations, as well.

From time to time, all four left the Sanctuary to hunt and put their teamwork to the test. Sunny received a few fragments from those small expeditions, as well.

In the night, he continued to experiment with weaving. However, he was also careful to get enough sleep. It would not do to go into the final battle exhausted…

After several days of this, while Sunny was laying in bed, the Spell suddenly whispered into his ear:

[You have slain a Fallen Monster, Veiled Slayer.]

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

was — Saint, Serpent, or Nightmare — or even if they were wounded in the fight. All he knew was that

shadow fragments started to pour into his soul frequently, making the goal of forming a new core

Sunny could do

practicing weaving later, he could proudly say… that he had successfully managed to destroy thirty-eight out of the thirty-nine Memories received in the Red Colosseum. The only one remaining was the emerald bone flute. However, that saved him from damaging his

as easy as he had thought… well, it had never really been easy, but now, he realized that there were more things he had to consider

powerful an enchantment was, the more burden it put on the weave. To withstand it, weaves needed to be moored to anchors, each serving as a nexus for the strings

and the higher its capacity. However, the Rank of the shards also played a role, albeit in a slightly different manner. Apart from capacity, weaves also had

to be of a high enough Rank to endure it. Additionally, only the weakest of enchantments could be activated passively, relying

was

hard way that not all Memories could accommodate all enchantments, regardless of whether they had enough capacity and tolerance. Some were simply not meant for each other.

it heard, repeat the words Sunny thought of as well. Both of these changes improved upon

meant to

shield, and its purpose was to protect its master. And yet, that shield possessed enchantments capable of sowing utter devastation on the battlefield. So, it took Sunny a lot of time —

of its nature. He was still unable to fully grasp it, but after destroying dozens

not much... but

***

start of their fifth month in the Nightmare, Sunny found himself on a somewhat familiar island. Some distance away from him, a forest of tall trees stood, darkness

looked different from how it had been in the future. There, the trees were twisted and bent, their bark turned dark and rough. But here, they had no need to change and adapt to the devastating burden

more or less the

a long, terrifying muzzle. Its jaws were wide enough to bite a human in half, and strong enough to crush

the ground with a whimper. A second later, an arrow landed from above, piercing one of the wolf's paws and nailing it to the ground. A slender rapier flashed through the air, doing the

appeared near the wolf, pressing it down with