Shadow Slave

'Well... that's new...'

Sunny had lived through many unthinkable disasters, managing to survive in the most dire and seemingly inescapable situations. The improbable tales of his close brushes with death could probably fill a book.

However, he had definitely never had a titan fall on his head.

'What the hell is this?!'

The great scaled beast was plummeting to the ground, its body riddled with terrible wounds. One of its three long necks was severed, the other hung lifelessly, held by only a few threads of flesh. Of its wings, only one remained. A cloud of vile miasma trailed behind it like a harrowing cloak.

The creature was maybe two dozen seconds away from crashing into the ground.

Sunny froze for a moment, stunned by the frightening visage of the titan that had been cast down from the skies. He wasn't the only one - Nephis was looking up, too, and so were the soldiers. Even the Nightmare Creatures halted, raising their bestial heads to witness the fall of one of their lords.

'Not good.'

Neph was the first to react. Her voice rolled across the battlefield, pulling the Awakened out of their shocked inaction.

"Pull back! Fighting Retreat! Move if you want to live!"

she sent

horde to cover the retreat. You... you

meaning of her words was clear. What Neph meant to say

Help me.

nature of their bond,

Sunny hesitated.

him, every second Awakened turned around and dashed back. Those who remained doubled their efforts to resist the

loose line. Then, it was the turn of those who had stayed behind to retreat. Like that, alternating between running and fighting,

a battle, you were risking your

flame that raged around her changed, growing narrower. A few moments later, the fire seemed to be

Sunny sighed.

as I wish,

impression. And the impression he was

Shadow Lantern, he called forth all the shadows that were stored

front of Sunny, a wall of shadows suddenly rose from the ground, blocking off a wide swath of the battlefield. The tide of Nightmare Creatures

flames. The wrought fire that she had wrapped tightly around her armor and compressed into a furious mass of incinerating white radiance was suddenly devoid of the pressure

deafening explosion rang out, and a crudely directed wave of white flame rolled from her staggering figure in a wide fan. It swallowed many ranks of Nightmare Creatures - some were torn to tiny pieces and turned to ash, crumbling into nothingness, some survived,

blocked the path of the abominations - half of the dam was the wall of shadows, the other was the wave

of their remaining essence to produce this