Shadow Slave

Chapter 866: White Stone

A huge cloud of snow and stone debris rose into the air. Hitting the ground with a muffled yelp, Sunny rolled and tried to maintain the shape of his odachi. Luckily, his training had not been in vain - even after being startled by the earth-splitting fall of the Tyrant and jolted by the sudden collision with the slope of the mountain, he did not allow the shadow sword to unravel.

'Argh... damn...'

Slightly disoriented, Sunny sat up and looked around, expecting to see monstrous insects rushing to finish him off. To his relief, the soldiers of the stone hive were in a similar position as him - despite possessing six legs and a center of gravity that was much lower to the ground relative to their height, they were all sprawled on the cold rocks, trying to get up.

Actually, there were surprisingly few of them around him. Those that were alive, at least... crushed corpses littered this particular stretch of the slope, flattened so thoroughly that it was hard to recognize the shape of the chitin-clad abominations.

Sunny strained to regain his wits and frowned.

'...Did I do that?'

The damage seemed too exaggerated to be done by Sunny or his shadow tentacles. He couldn't see very far, either, because a wall of white stone was blocking his view.

'Where... where did this crag come from?'

If he remembered correctly, there were no large boulders or tall outcroppings near where he had fought. Had he rolled that far down the slope?

As Sunny was trying to understand why a wall of rock suddenly appeared in front of him, a stream of inky black liquid flowed down its smooth white surface.

of stone

...His eyes widened.

'Oh... crap...'

Sunny managed to get a better look at the thing that he had assumed to be a

by Sky Tide's vicious attack. The creature seemed battered, with its milky-white chitin cracked in several

jade beetle's expressionless black eye shifted and peered directly at him. Its terrifying mandibles move

'Oh, crap!'

down, shattering the mountain slope and sending

odachi whistled through the air and struck the white chitin, only to bounce off of it without dealing any damage. The jade beetle stared at him with its unfathomable black eyes and moved, slowly rising. It opened its maw, where a cloud of black ash

ash enveloped him, something very

he

finished manifesting itself into reality, and he instinctively caught it by letting go of the hilt

does it

then did the only thing he could think of infusing some of his last drops of essence into the Cruel Sight to imbue it with an elemental property, he threw the spear

elemental damage to choose, though. Neither divine flame nor soul

that might work... I

moment later, the Tyrant suddenly shuddered and let

chance to run away. Turning around, he dashed up the slope with as much speed as he could muster. The cloud of ash shot to chase him, but quickly dissipated due to the fact that the jade beetle was

had chosen was not the most destructive, but it was insidious, persistent, and extremely painful... that element

precise, it was a special kind of wicked corrosion that the [Dark Mirror] had memorized after Sunny inhaled a lungful of

had overcome it without any trouble, so he did not expect to deal much damage to the Tyrant. However, it had hurt like hell to deal with it, so Sunny hoped that the damned monstrosity would be