Shadow Slave

Sunny was still reeling from having his soul torn apart, then sewn back together. However, the battle was raging, so he had no time to recover in peace... that was fine. He was long used to fighting in the most dire conditions, anyway.

It took him only a moment to assess the situation. It seemed that he had been out of it for quite some time. The battlefield was ravaged and upturned, with the river itself slightly changing course. Its water, which had been clear once, now seemed muddy and noxious. Effie and Kai were still fighting the ghastly centipede in the shallows, with Saint supporting them from the darkness. The three seemed to be doing fine.

The soldiers, however, were straining to hold their ground. The slope of the river shore was littered with shattered bones, and hundreds of the Tyrant's abominable minions had already been destroyed. But there were hundreds more, and now that Saint was busy turning the Skull Centipede into a pincushion and weighing it down with the help of the [Burden of Peace] enchantment of Morgan's Warbow, there was no one to serve as the wave breaker against their tide.

There was only Jet. Soul Reaper moved like the beautiful visage of death among the bone fiends, erasing one after another from existence, but she was just one woman. No matter how fast and lethal, she couldn't be in several places at the same time.

Sunny hesitated, trying to make a decision. His instinct was to go for the biggest threat, personally removing it from the equation. However, the Tyrant was still strong and ferocious. Even without most of its powers, the centipede was putting up a dreadful fight. It was hard to say how long it would take to bring it down. The soldiers, meanwhile, would continue to suffer under the onslaught of the bone fiends until it did.

So what was he supposed to do? Follow his habits and race to kill the Tyrant, or act against instinct and put his trust in Effie and Kai, concentrating on reinforcing the ordinary soldiers instead?

Sunny sighed. 'Instincts are great. But humans rose above beasts for a and thanks to reason."

In the end, no matter how unnatural it felt, he could do no better than to follow the plan. The role he had been assigned was to lure the Tyrant to the ambush, and then put obstacles in the path of the bone army to make it easier on the Awakened and the mundane soldiers.

going to put himself between the

fray, he dismissed Nightmare and the little imp. They had already done their job by guarding him -

the shadows gathered on the ground in front of him. The first four were

resembled the happy shadow... a little bit too much. So much, in fact, that

front, he could sense a hint of boundless deviousness. The shadow was up to no good...

raised his eyebrow and sighed. "...You're a

innocent surprise. Eventually, the shadow shook its head with utter sincerity.

was as though the shadow was saying: "Who? Me? Oh no, of course not! I

eyes. "Yeah... yeah, right. Well, let's go then. I don't know

the back of its head and glanced at its siblings, as if unsure what to do. When the other four

He inhaled deeply, getting used to his new limits, then caught sight of Effie breaking a dozen

used the [Blessing of Dusk]

the western half of the defensive line, while

the sound of breaking bones rolled over the

Skull Centipede. Saint had debilitated and slowed it down with her arrows, which gave Effie an opportunity to deliver a devastating blow to the creature's head, cracking its

killed a Corrupted Tyrant. However, it did give Kai a chance to deal