Shadow Slave

"...My Shadow?"

Sunny unlocked his eyes wide.

'Saint!'

It seemed that Saint had finished her evolution into a Devil ahead of schedule. All things considered, her timing was nothing short of impeccable.

Even in his disoriented state, Sunny knew that he could not ignore such luck.

As the first of the Nightmare Creatures emerged from the Gate, he abandoned his attempts to crawl forward and called upon his Shadow, instead.

The coldness of the polar night seemed to grow slightly darker. Then, an intricate sabaton forged out of black, stonelike metal stepped on the ground beside him.

Sunny weakly turned his head to look up at Saint, who was as aloof as ever.

His taciturn knight... had changed.

Initially, she had been roughly the same height as him, becoming taller after evolving into a Demon. Now, Saint towered above Sunny. Obscured by the beautiful onyx armor, the lines of her stone body were still slender and graceful... but at more than two meters of height, the fearsome Shadow seemed extremely imposing.

Her oppressive presence was worthy of a Devil.

The black armor itself had not changed much - it had always been a product of magnificent craftsmanship, and seemed even more superb and menacing now. However, Saint's skin, which had been grey like stone before, then white as alabaster, was now as smooth and black as polished onyx - at least what little of it could be seen through the slits of her visor.

The ruby jewels of her eyes burned with ominous crimson flames.

the vast rift of the Nightmare Gate indifferently, then glanced at Sunny. It almost seemed...

forced out a weak

I'm glad to see

trembling hand and pointed at the emerging

argh... go deal with them, if you don't mind. I'll stay here for

the flood of monstrous creatures and strolled forward. Her steps were calm

his hand drop back to

to

piece of rubble, Sunny used some of his last essence to send the Broken Oath to

a dark radiance. The shadows around the demonic knight swelled,

however, was that there was a hint of true, elemental

meters away from them, the Nightmare Creatures were being born from the revolting nothingness of the Gate. A flood of

hands each, their inhuman faces brimming with black eyes and jagged mandibles. They wore carapace armor and wielded weapons made of sharpened chitin, moving with astonishing speed and possessing dreadful might. As Sunny watched, one of the creatures easily threw a piece of the broken wall that must

as if trying to embrace the broken, burning world. Darkness flowed from under her vambraces, over her

- it was whole once again, but utterly black in appearance. A feeling of dark, nebulous power radiated from its stygian blade. On her other hand, a round shield of stonelike metal appeared, its surface

enemy, Saint raised her

shield twice with its blade, as if challenging the harrowing

'D-damn...'

sat on the ground,

had simply strolled forward, and then dove into the mass of enemies as soon as the last of the soldiers ran past her. She collided against the arachnid warriors with her shield, sending a dozen of them stumbling to the ground, and then twisted into a whirlwind of annihilating darkness, her sword slicing through

blood, severed limbs, and broken

received the same augmentation, seeping strength and vitality from her enemies. The graceful knight

was too strong, too fast, and