Shadow Slave

Suddenly, Noctis seemed… different.

He was still beaten, mangled, and covered in blood, but the sorcerer's presence subtly changed. If before it was faint and weakening, now, it became brimming with power, potency, and free-flowing energy.

Vast, furious… unrestrained.

And suffused with madness.

Despite the fact that Noctis was on his knees and crippled, he suddenly seemed terrifying. The morbid grin on his torn and disfigured face seemed more menacing than pitiful now. His one remaining eye glistened, reflecting the distant light of the crimson moon.

It was as though something that had been suppressing the sorcerer's true power all this time finally set him free.

Noctis inhaled deeply, and at the same, Solvane suddenly swayed. The hand she had used to crush his ribcage was still pressed against her body, blood streaming down on the red tunic.

Her beautiful eyes widened.

And then…

Something moved under her skin, making the War Maiden let out a pained scream.

She staggered back and looked at the kneeling sorcerer with a pale face.

"What… what have you done to me?"

Noctis smiled. His voice sounded hoarse and full of unfathomable emotion when he spoke:

"What else? I have fulfilled your most ardent wish, Solvane. I… have defeated you."

She stared at him in shock, then suddenly shuddered and let out another tortured scream. As drops of blood flew out of her mouth, the beautiful Transcendent stumbled and fell to her knees. Her sublime face was deathly pale and contorted by a grimace of terrible pain.

croaking laugh and slowly stood up. Just like that, their roles were reversed. The War Maiden

the patch of shadows where Sunny was hiding,

come out, Sunless.

'What the hell...'

a few seconds, then assumed his corporeal form and glanced

and starting to make sense. The magical circle in the sorcerer's residence, the river of blood that Noctis had fed to the soil below, the cracks on

awoken Sunny on his last

sorcerer,

dark. As the ghastly movement under her skin grew

thing?

Noctis smiled.

noticed? Yes, there is no point in trying to summon your Abilities. My little pet is a bit hungry for soul essence, you see. I've been starving it for a few hundred

at an incredible pace. As Sunny watched, the bloody hole in the sorcerer's chest closed, his shattered ribs coalescing

blood formed in his empty eye socket,

forward,

it is a vine that feeds on powerful souls. The profane seed that eventually birthed it was created when the ashes of the Heart Grove mixed with Aidre's blood. You remember Aidre, don't you Solvane? Well… allow me to return her

with boundless rage and

at the sorcerer

Aidre's blood. He had kept it in the ground beneath his residence for hundreds of years, nurturing the abomination by feeding it

desecrated the Grove and killed its Lady. All this time, the sorcerer was restrained by having to suppress the creature and prevent it from devouring him from the inside. And when the monster finally found a new host... he was finally free to exert his full

pale smile appeared on Sunny's

ruthless

or two from the unforgiving

convulsion, letting out a terrible shriek. The skin on her

then let out a

all this time…

her teeth, and then suddenly