Shadow Slave

1017 The Fall of Falcon Scott (35)

The monstrous killer whale cut through the crimson darkness, descending upon the ethereal blossom of flowing white cloth.

His mouth opened, revealing a palisade of terrifying fangs. His blue eyes had turned deep red, glowing like spotlights and full of murderous intent.

As the great predator approached, the pallid flower exploded with movement. The shorter petals swirled, creating a barrier of white cloth around the small, unclear shape hidden in their center. The longer ones, which had been drifting gracefully on the currents, suddenly contracted and shot forward like tentacles.

Bloodwave roared.

Powerful currents surrounding his body churned, surging forward to meet the petals. He dodged nimbly, continuing to move forward as his jaw closed on one of the white tentacles.

There was no blood, no torn flesh, and no crushed bone. It was as though the petal was indeed nothing but white silk, and damaging it was like cutting a piece of lifeless cloth.

Sunny did not see much of what happened after, because he had his own problems to worry about.

There were just too many thralls around him, all powerful enough to pose a serious threat. Even with most of them assaulting the port fortress somewhere far away and above, the Terror's drowned guard was enough to kill him and Naeve ten times over, if they were not careful enough.

'Damn it...'

Propelling himself forward through the dark water, Sunny collided with a hideous creature made of iron and bone. The Sin of Solace passed through the abomination's body, cleaving it apart. However, the next thrall was already upon him.

human hands wrapped around his throat, trying to rip it open with dreadful strength. Sunny's skin turned hard as stone and resisted the pale fingers, but he still found himself being strangled. Using shadow

the cold hands off, he twisted and kicked back, pushing himself and the thrall away from each other. His adversary was

more were already closing

not going

only one mistake away. Sunny relied on his superior speed and maneuverability to slay the thralls, which meant that the moment he was immobilized or stalled, the tables would be turned. He was not a stranger to fighting with everything on the line, but not in an environment as strange and unfamiliar as

fatal mistake in a place the rules of which he did

hesitantly turned onto his back and looked in the direction where Naeve was battling a throng of

certainly knew

adjusted his battle strategy in order to always keep Naeve in his sight, earning a few shallow

He had plenty of insight into the underlying laws of conflict, and much better than that, his mastery of Shadow Dance allowed him to read most of his

been doing throughout this battle, like

truly grasp all of their patterns, but their rudimentary battle styles were also crude and unsophisticated. Sensing the movements of their shadows for a few moments was enough to

approach might have been the wrong one,

more complex, profound, and refined — in terms of scope and sophistication, it was up there with the most

scion of a

not something that he could learn in

minor insights Sunny did gain were already enough to qualitatively change

that's how you do

grand, but they were extremely valuable. What better teacher could there be than a man supposedly carrying the lineage of Storm God, the