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.

the body of a powerful abomination, but fought

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 maw full of terrifying

any Transcendent, really - was truly stunning. Sunny was not sure if he had ever faced an enemy with such mastery over their weapons of choice.

case, despite the best efforts of Sunny

couldn't even seriously wound him,

barely managing to stay

the two of them had received much more damage than Dire Fang. Both of their armors were battered and dented, and Sunny could taste blood on

despair crawl its way into his heart, he gritted his teeth and dashed forward to capitalize on the small window of opportunity Nephis had

The attack missed.

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

away by an unexpected, but perfectly executed elbow strike. The breastplate of the

in order to

without a doubt, but at this point,

a little bit less broken than the enemy at

'Argh!'

too bizarre, and too deep to be deciphered in a short amount of time. It had been perfectly tailored for his

not a question of talent. It was simply the innate superiority of a higher Rank multiplied by the amount of effort put into integrating essence into a combat style, both by Dire Fang himself and

the benefit of being

possibly the first dedicated essence technique Sunny had a chance to study. He had not even known that such things