Shadow Slave

"Before the battle, Morgan had said that she would have been certain of Valor's victory if not for Mordret's Reflections. Now that her final Echo had revealed itself, Sunny finally understood what she meant.

The arrival of the worm titan instantly changed the situation on the battlefield, but even such a creature was not enough to spell certain defeat for the forces of Clan Song.

...A mere Corrupted Titan would not have been able to doom the monstrous beings gathered on the desolate Antarctic plain today, and an Echo of one was tremendously powerful, but not nearly as dreadful as the real thing would have been.

So, even though the situation had changed, the outcome of the battle still hung in fragile balance.

The dead were rising to assist the outnumbered warriors of Valor. The main body of the Echo itself had to be dealt with, as well.

Instead of quelling the furious bloodshed, the arrival of the abominable worm only seemed to drive the chaos to a new, inconceivable level.

One thing it did manage to achieve instantly, though, was force Beastmaster to finally reveal herself.

Sunny felt her presence before he saw her.

It was as though an invisible hammer fell from the sky, pressing every soldier of Clan Valot into the ground. The Awakened, who had been fighting with indomitable resolve up until now, suddenly staggered and swayed. Their movements grew sluggish and strained.

'Aargh...'

Sunny gritted his teeth as he shook off the effects of the mental assault. Even his incredible resistance against mind attacks had been insufficient to fully deflect Beastmaster's diabolical power... the poor warriors of Clan Valor stood no chance against it.

Their only saving grace was that the enchantress was forced to spread herself thin to influence a thousand powerful Awakened at the same time. Their concentration was broken, and their strength was severely diminished, but at least they survived - if the task in front of the daughter of Ki Song had been less enormous, she would have probably managed to either subjugate them or outright shatter their minds.

The most frightening thing about it, though, was that the ordinary warriors were not even her main target.

Sunny saw it from the corner of his eye... but once he did, he couldn't look away.

calmly in front of the ravaged span of it where Whispering Blade had been fighting against the Reflections. Sunny did not know if she had used her Transformation Ability, but for some reason, the alluring Saint looked even

mesmerizing. But

that looking

as though

'Damn it...'

a step forward, the four Reflections that had been fighting

exploded, and she was obscured by a cloud of

ethereal mental attacks, the other invisible swords - he was suddenly not sure that he was qualified. How was he

'Later.'

now, he still had an unfinished

Beastmaster's calamitous assault had restored the lethal equilibrium between the two fighting forces. The titanic Echo was clashing with

was still

cut down one of the Masters who had attacked him before - the one

into his ear, and at the same time, the

way through the ring of

her golden hair was sticking to her face, painted red by blood. Nevertheless, her amber eyes were as calm and severe as always, full of grave resolve and unbreakable

of pain and exhaustion,

after bearing the

was bringing down its stinger on Sky Tide's cracked sword. The two of them fell to the ground, and the Sin of Solace

was no retaliation from the Nightmare Creature, because Saint Tyris had pierced

Sunny was recovering, she pulled her sword out of the thrall's corpse and braced it to block an

rain of radiant sparks. She was tossed back and grunted, spitting out

'You bastards...'

his feet,

many of them around, and they were too powerful - he could face them, and he could defend Saint Tyirs. But he wasn't sure that he