Shadow Slave

1035 The Fall of Falcon Scott (53)

As the river of darkness surged forward to devour Sunny, the small lantern of black stone hanging on his belt opened, and a tide of shadows rose from within it to meet the swarm of beetles.

He held nothing back, unleashing every wild shadow he had tamed, from mundane and shallow ones to those that were ancient, vast, and unfathomably deep. The night itself seemed to move, as well...

It moved to answer the call of the Master of Shadows.

Two dark tides met with a deafening thunder, and thousands of beetles were instantly broken, crushed, and ground into black dust. Some shadows were vanquished, too — and yet even more persisted. Permeated by Sunny's essence, they were as deadly and resilient as an Ascended weapon would be.

With no sun and no moon to illuminate the skies, there was nothing but dim starlight, and a few distant flames, to chase away the darkness. The whole world was shrouded in shadows, and so, Sunny had an almost infinite well of them to call upon. The only limitation was his essence.

However, the number of beetles was even more limitless. Despite thousands of them being destroyed in the initial confrontation, it was no more than a drop in the ocean. Already, even more were surging forward, crashing into the wall of shadows and tunneling into it with their sharp mandibles.

Gritting his teeth, Sunny poured more essence out, strengthening the wall and turning it into a tall dam. Almost instantly, cracks appeared on its surface, and a moment later, the river of dark beetles overflowed, spilling over the top of the dam and spreading wide to encompass it from the sides.

Funneled by the Dying Wish, all of them rushed toward a single point — Sunny himself.

'..Die!'

lashed out, slicing through two dozen beetles with a single strike. Almost at the same, a radiant orb of charged essence shot past Sunny and violently exploded in the surging mass of darkness — Samara had joined the fight, using her Aspect Ability directly instead of channeling it

to slow the beetles down a little. Sunny turned into a whirlwind of annihilating jade, delivering half a dozen swift attacks

though cutting through the small creatures was not too hard, the effectiveness of these attacks was low. Almost instantly, he switched to using the flat of the jade blade to crush them —

mind was split, one part commanding his body, the other controlling the manifested shadows

yet, it was not enough.

had flowed past him — some tried to turn around to attack from behind, but the pressure of the thousands more

and the heavy sledgehammer. Belle used himself as bait, phasing from place to place and using his sword to cut down as many small creatures as he could. Kim, with her rapier and buckler, was the least suited for this battle, but she did her best to lessen the pressure on the

streaking through the air like a bullet and exploding into a wave of destructive force. Once her supply of alloy beads and needles was exhausted, she

with each moment. Their number endlessly swelled, and the dam of shadows

away to his right, Bloodwave and his Echoes had engaged another tentacle of the Heart of Darkness. To his left, Saint and Nightmare were holding back the third. And further still, behind them, Jet and her cohort were

isn't working... this is not

knew that, if nothing changed, he and his soldiers would be devoured by the appalling vermin. Already, many of the dark beetles had gotten past his defenses and bitten into his skin. Their sharp mandibles only leaft shallow scratches

the Marble Shell be able to withstand countless thousands of mandibles plunging into it? Even if it did, it was only his skin that was so resilient. Once he was buried under a cold, slithering carpet of darkness, the

Sin of

behold? Ah, yes...

curse, Sunny tried to pay the whispers

on eviscerating as many of the beetles as he could. 'I... I need to

not quite. The last time, a few beetles were pulled along with him as he stepped through the shadows. Most likely because the small

'...Not alive?'

appeared in his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. Even if