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.

laugh and slowly stood up. Just like that, their roles were reversed. The War Maiden was on her knees, and

a moment, and then looked at the patch of shadows where Sunny was hiding, his mind full of

out, Sunless. It's safe

'What the hell...'

his corporeal form and glanced at Solvane, his eyes

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 the stone floor, the tremors that had been running

awoken Sunny on his last night in the

stared at the sorcerer, a harrowing guess

the ghastly movement under her skin grew stronger and more noticeable,

this… thing? My… my

Noctis smiled.

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

essence flowed freely, coursing through his mangled body. The terrible wounds covering it started to heal at an incredible pace. As Sunny watched,

his empty eye socket, slowly turning into a

forward, leaned forward, and looked at Solvane.

was created when the ashes of the Heart Grove mixed with Aidre's blood. You

with boundless rage

at the

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

he took it into himself, making his body both the bait and the trap for the person who had desecrated the Grove and killed its Lady. All this time, the sorcerer

pale smile appeared on Sunny's

ruthless

thing or

terrible shriek. The skin on her

let

time… I am defeated…

teeth, and then