Shadow Slave

A booming thunderclap shook the world... but the bestial roar that tore through the clangor of the battlefield was much more deafening. It rolled across the ravaged land like a physical force, sapping the strength of the warriors and making them sway.

...Sunny, who was very close to the source of that roar, cursed under his breath as he pushed the pain aside and twisted his body to avoid being sliced by the monstrous claws of the rampaging Saint. Dire Fang's hand flew past him, and while Sunny was trying to bring the Sin of Solace down on the creature's monstrous limb, Nephis attacked from the other side, her sword turning the whipping streams of rain into boiling vapor.

The two of them were like hunters fighting against a powerful beast. They circled around him and used their cooperation to make up for the gap in power, acting with the cunning and foresight that made humans so deadly.

Nephis was fighting in a way that would have made all the other Ascended freeze in stunned silence. She was just too fast, too strong, and too destructive. Her incandescent sword was hot and sharp enough to incinerate the world, and her skill and battle sense seemed to transcend the concept of limits.

Sunny was no less frightening. Hidden in the tenebrous embrace of the Shadow Shell, he fought with the ferocious power of a trueborn fiend and used his inhuman physique to move in a way that no human could repeat, and no opponent could predict.

Much more importantly, despite the stark difference between the two of them - one shrouded in burning darkness, the other suffused with beautiful light - they fought and acted as one.

That combination was too lethal for a mere beast to survive.

...However, their enemy was not a beast, no matter how animalistic his form appeared.

Dire Fang's Transformation Ability allowed him to become a strange hybrid between a wolf and a man. His claws, his fangs, his bestial eyes, his thick fur... as well as his inhuman rage, his savage bloodlust, and his primal might - all of it made Sunny feel as though he was fighting a Nightmare Creature.

But the Saint was not a Nightmare Creature. Behind all these monstrous traits hid the cold, calculating mind of a human. And, as a human, he had benefited from the vast legacy of accumulated knowledge and insight that all humans were the inheritors of.

a powerful abomination, but

of his Transformation, the Saint was using a strange mix of a hand-to-hand martial art and a knife-fighting technique - only, in his case, sharp claws were playing the role of the knives, and he had twenty of them. He had a

the level of skill this Transcendent possessed - or any Transcendent, really - was truly stunning. Sunny was not sure if he had ever faced

any case, despite the best efforts of Sunny and Nephis, they simply couldn't bring

seriously

barely managing

of them had received much more damage than Dire Fang. Both of their armors were battered and dented, and

heart, he gritted his teeth and dashed forward to capitalize on the small window of

The attack missed.

'He's... a monster...'

his body shook as it was batted away by an unexpected, but perfectly executed elbow strike.

reckless attack in order to buy him a little time

a doubt, but at this point, their

less broken than the enemy at the end

'Argh!'

deciphered in a short amount of time. It had been perfectly tailored for his monstrous Transcendent form, with its contradictory physical traits and attributes,

of essence control so intricate, deliberate, and ingeniously applied that it made Sunny question his own talent... no, it was not a question of talent. It was simply the innate superiority of a higher Rank multiplied by the amount

the benefit of being a vassal

to study. He had not even known that