Shadow Slave

Chapter 863: Fractured

Sunny had seen souls that were radiant and full of light, and he had seen souls that were being consumed by a spreading corruption.

However, he had never seen a soul like Jet's.

It was lightless and shrouded in darkness, almost like his own. A single powerful core burned in its depths, superposed against her heart... the core itself was strange, bizarre, and filled him with an eerie sense of profound unease.

The ethereal orb was irregularly shaped and much larger than it was supposed to be, grossly overshadowing the size of other Ascended cores he had witnessed. Its surface was covered by a net of deep, twisting cracks... no, not quite. It was more like the whole core was assembled from numerous shards, as if it had been shattered once and then crudely assembled back into an uneven sphere.

Some shards seemed to match each other, while others did not fit well. bringing a sense of chaos to an already flawed and fractured, disfigured construct of Soul Reaper's core. However, there was also a certain order and beauty to the ugly disharmony of it.

The patchwork sphere of broken shards shone with furious, radiant light. It was brimming with a stunning amount of soul essence, which was much more than an Ascended should have possessed. However, unlike most cores, this one's radiance was not uniform. Instead, most of the light was concentrated in its depths, while the outer edges were dark and dull.

More than that, thin streams of light were constantly flowing through the cracks of the shattered core and dissipating into nothingness. They were like water slowly seeping out of a cracked vessel.

Despite that, Master Jet's essence did not seem to be diminishing. Instead, as Sunny watched, the strange soul core only grew brighter.

'What the...'

At that moment, Soul Reaper had just slaughtered another Corrupted abomination. This one had taken her longer to put down, since as a Monster, it possessed two cores. Each had to be destroyed with separate strikes.

creature twitched and collapsed to

Jet's fractured core. The remnants of the fetid darkness permeating it

he had just seen... and a little bit

are

to talk. His own soul was not exactly the picture

to study her battle technique. All he managed to notice was that her flesh was saturated by essence to a much larger degree than usual. It was as if, unlike all the other Awakened, Soul Reaper's ability to reinforce herself with essence was not limited by the modest capacity of human flesh, or at least had a limit so high that it put the rest

strong and fast despite possessing only a single core. This just went to show that having multiple cores was not an absolute advantage.... there were a

wouldn't be as

be able to win against

was not sure. He was reasonably confident in his ability, but then again, as someone who often achieved victory through being underestimated, he did not want to fall into the

if he won, what would be the cost? Losing one or two cores was not going to kill him, most likely,

to fight Soul Reaper despite being much more powerful

have loved to ponder on these issues, but sadly, his time was

used to hide behind, and their frenzy was

pushed it into

***

Creatures descended upon the three cohorts of the Irregulars. With Soul Reaper diving into their tide alone to hunt down the most dangerous foes, the initial clash was not as obliterating as it could have been. Supported by Queen

captains - was somehow holding off the entire flanking force of abominations by himself. Even if Irregulars had time to look

were the deafening shrieks of dying Nightmare Creatures and the cracking noises of parting chitin that resounded from the