Shadow Slave

'What the hell am I doing...'

Indeed. The wall of the city was breached, a menacing Nightmare Gate was towering above him, and not too far away, a furious conflict was raging in the rabble of the staging area. And yet, Sunny was staring at the runes that shimmered brightly in the air in front of him.

His vision was a little blurry, but the runes were clear and perfectly legible, as if existing outside of reality. Which they probably did.

'Oh, well...'

Sunny needed a couple of minutes to recover, anyway.

He looked at the field of runes, searching for the names of his Shadows. A new string of them replaced the old one:[Onyx Saint]

'Onyx, huh...'That had a nice ring to it.

Marble Saint had turned into Onyx Saint. Was his Marble Shell going to evolve into the Onyx Shell, as well, once he Transcended?

Sunny would have loved to pursue that train of thought, but unfortunately, he couldn't. His thoughts were slow and erratic, refusing to consider anything too complicated.

Giving up, he concentrated on the runes of Saint's name and started to read the descriptions.

Shadow: Onyx Saint.Shadow Rank: Ascended.Shadow Class: Devil.Shadow Attributes: [Battle Master], [Stalwart], [Ember of Divinity], [Heart of Darkness].

'Heart of Darkness... that's new.'

Sunny glanced at the mass of attacking arachnid warriors, catching a glimpse of Saint decapitating an especially menacing abomination with a swift slash of her black sword, then sending its body flying into the mob with a strike of her shield. Even before the rim of the shield connected with the creature's chest, the blade of the stone sword was already moving to deflect an incoming blow.

'...She's not dead yet.'

He looked back to the runes.

dwells in this

black stone in the tunnel... she

of divinity and true darkness now coexisted within Saint, somehow... there was something interesting about that fact, but Sunny, in his pitiful state, could not quite point to

louder, and a little closer, forcing him to look past the runes nervously and then hurry up. The Gate Guardian could

Sunny lowered his gaze.

Armament], [Mantle of Darkness], [Blade

'Two new ones.'

the first Ability was a bit familiar. He concentrated

this Shadow. When surrounded by darkness, and true darkness more so, her swiftness and might will increase. Her wounds will

a couple of

how she

lack, it was darkness. Although the staging area was usually well lit,

to be a formidable one, and combined with the embrace

herself from now on, at least when surrounded

her heart, but the rune could also mean soul. Sunny suspected that it alluded to both the true darkness dwelling

what the Black Knight had possessed, with

ruined cathedral, his own Ascended Devil seemed to possess dual affinity - both to the shadows and to the elemental darkness. Those were supposed to be mutually exclusive, but

Recalling how harrowing his journey through the

'Interesting...'

his gaze to the second of

[Blade of Darkness].

fearsome weapon, as long as the Shadow has mastered the use of that weapon. The Blade of Darkness can slay those of flesh and those of spirit; it never

Sunny smiled.

sword herself,

Since Saint was a Battle Master and a Weapon Sage, she could wield any weapon with superb proficiency... which meant that the true darkness she was a vessel

as strong as Saint was herself, growing stronger if Saint evolved again in the future. It was capable of killing both corporeal and incorporeal creatures. It could even be used to augment an existing weapon or a

of it was

when Sunny gathered enough