Shadow Slave

1037 The Fall of Falcon Scott (55)

Sunny had spent many long months in the body of the nameless shadow spawn. From the bloody floor of the Red Colosseum to the burning streets of the Ivory City, he had fought countless battles with the Awakened the creature's four clawed hands.

...However, he had never experienced being the Shadow Devil as an Ascended.

Possessing the power of a Master and augmented by shadows, he exploded with truly terrifying might. At three meters of height, Sunny had suddenly turned into a vicious herald of destruction. He lunged into the mass of dark beetles, eviscerating hundreds of them in a split second.

He was holding a sword in each of his four hands — two of them were the Sin of Solace and the Midnight Shard, and two were shaped from shadows. Each moved with staggering speed, weaving a translucent sphere of devastation in the river of darkness.

Fighting with four swords was, perhaps, not the best idea against most opponents — however, Sunny did not need a lot of control and agility to deal with the beetles. All he needed was speed... more speed, more attacks, no matter how crude. With four swords and longer reach, the rate at which he destroyed the vile creatures increased tremendously.

He cut and crushed them with his four swords stomped them with his clawed feet... even his tail was swiping through the swarm, obliterating many beetles. For a few moments, the river of darkness seemed to slow its advance.

Sunny used those moments to slaughter even more, alleviating the pressure on his cohort and allowing Samara to renew her bombardment of charged essence.

The strangest thing about it... was how comfortable he felt.

Even while shaping the shadows into the form of the Shadow Devil, Sunny had no idea of how easy or hard it would be to control that shell. As it turned out, it felt almost indistinguishable from the real thing... all he needed to do was summon the memories of the Second Nightmare into his mind, and bring them to life with the help of Shadow Dance.

Like shadowing a memory of a creature instead of the creature itself.

not have been able to turn himself into many other creatures, if any at all. However, his knowledge of the Shadowspawn was nothing short of instinctual — instead of controlling the

able to keep being the Shadowspawn for long. He had to do a lot of other things, as well — like power his Memories and manifest more and more shadows to repair

but they were still on a timer. If nothing changed soon, the result would be

now. Just... kill! Kill as many as you can! The damned. beetles have

into

limit, but that limit never came. His speed, his strength, his force... all of

hurricane of swords, claws, horns, and fangs, the river actually recoiled, giving up several meters of frozen soil. Sunny thrust one of the shadow swords forward and let go of it at some

reaction to destroy numerous creatures. He was hurt by the devastating current of electricity, as well,

no time to think,

Sunny was holding the swarm of the

was pulling them toward him like a magnet, but instead of washing the towering Shadow Devil away like a dark tide, they were being constantly ground to dust cut to pieces, and incinerated by lightning as soon as they entered

after another to bloom amid the swarm, while Luster fed her a steady flow of essence. Both were nearing their limit... but they had not reached it yet. The

little progress the second swarm

with, seemed the most damaged. The three Echoes were holding it back, but the fearsome Saint himself was nowhere to be seen. He was probably hidden somewhere within the river of darkness, fighting furiously... since the Echoes had not dissipated, he had to be

nothing about were Soul Reaper and her cohort since they were too far away. Still... he

'Keep fighting... keep fighting...'

feel his shadow

He tried to repair the wound delivered to the towering Shadow Devil by summoning and manifesting more shadows, but many beetles were already crawling within. Their mandibles scraped against the silk of the Graceless Dusk or his skin

becoming clouded from fatigue. It took a lot, to keep the shadow shell intact and moving... he had to let the dam crumble a couple of minutes ago, already, because the pressure of it

Nevertheless, Sunny kept fighting.