Shadow Slave

'l... damned... knew that this would happen!'

There was a scratching sound in the utter darkness, and then, a stream of bright scarlet flame shot out of a chemical flare. Rising it above his head, Sunny looked at the narrow cave, which was now flooded with dim, ominous red light. The darkness retreated, for now, but it seemed ready to pounce on him at any moment.

Feeling his heart beating wildly, he glanced at Saint, who still stood behind him, unfazed. Turning away, Sunny grumbled:

'Well... what did I expect... she was born in the Underworld, of all places. I bet Saint is feeling right at home in this misbegotten darkness...'

He remained motionless for a few moments, getting accustomed to the blood-red gloom that surrounded him. Then, Sunny hit his lip and took a step forward.

"Let's go. We still need to find the heart."

The Cruel Sight was not supposed to burn through its reserve of absorbed light so soon. The chemical flare, which was supposed to burn for at least fifteen minutes, stuttered and drowned in just five, forcing him to ignite a new one. It was as though keeping true darkness at bay exhausted any source of light faster than it should have been possible...

And the deeper into the mountain they went, the more pronounced that discrepancy became.

'Curse it all...'

Sunny had dreaded reaching the heart of darkness, but now that he was literally burning through his flares at a concerning speed, he couldn't wait to find it.

Sadly, it turned out to be harder than he had thought.

The human-made tunnels above had an obvious direction, but the chaotic network of caves was both harder to traverse and all over the place. Sometimes, he would follow a path downward, only to end up climbing for a while. Other times, descending deeper into the mountain only made the distant hum grow quieter, which told him that he was getting further from his goal.

In the end, Sunny abandoned all pretense of knowing what he was doing and chose where to go randomly, relying on his intuition to show him the way.

Soon, he discovered a new pattern.

the ones that fell correct to him. Armed with that knowledge, he hurried forward, knowing that there was

and Sunny only measured it by the amount of flares he had burned through. When there were only

finally reached

cave. 1n the dim red light, he could see dozens of similar dark holes opening into it, each leading to a different

Sunny did not pay them

giant orb of jet-black stone that floated in the center of the cave, burning darkly with the crimson reflections of the flare's fire. The darkness... the darkness flowed through it, or maybe was born from it. The hum he had heard came from the orb, like a rustle of waves that were imprisoned within it. Suddenly, he felt

that black sphere was... he knew that it was not something any human was supposed to

'Cut... run...'

Sunny gupled.

that thing. Then again, there was nothing guarding his own heart, either... if something managed to crawl into his chest, it would

Weave had to say anything

there, albeit strangely muddled. Nevertheless, he knew that he would be able to use Shadow Step to get the hell out of

time to waste,

flair

all hesitation away from his mind and thrust the blade of the Cruel Sight forward. It struck the side of the black orb... and

spear hitting polished stone seemed deafening, and when it died down... was it just

cold sweat

with

a hint of subdued emotion. Then, her eyes suddenly

Saint did something strange.

took a step forward and handed him

hilt of the jade jian, feeling the

"Pathetic."

at

...Was it a thought?

moment, Saint took another step forward and unsheathed her broken stone sword. The jagged line of its