Shadow Slave

Time was moving very slowly…

No, it was Sunny who was moving too fast. It almost felt as if the world had frozen.

The rain was suspended in the air, the fountains of mud had grown still, the distant figures of dying Awakened were like grotesque statues.

In this nearly static world, only two things seemed unbound by paralysis — the monstrous Saint in front of him, who was no slower than Sunny himself, and a bolt of lightning that was crawling across the sky, extending toward the ground as it forked and illuminated the bloody battlefield.

'Faster!'

Suddenly, a deafening roar exploded from Dire Fang's mouth, strangely distorted and haunting. It would have hit Sunny like a wall…

But he was prepared.

The [Silenced] enchantment of the emerald bone flute activated, creating a dome of absolute silence around him. Sunny passed through the sorcerous roar without being struck by its crushing power… however, behind him, Nephis had to endure its full weight without the protection of her flames.

Stripped of their augmentation, she couldn't resist it like she had before.

Erasing the image of her falling figure from his mind, Sunny concentrated on the task.

If anything, the importance of success had only become more stark now that his partner was debilitated. If he failed, both of them were going to die.

But he had already rejected the possibility of failure.

He was going to win. He was going to do what he promised to do. He was going to kill a damned Saint!

At that moment, Dire Fang was more than a chance adversary to Sunny. He was the embodiment of everything Sunny wanted to destroy — the rotten authority of the great clans, the vile curse of the Chain of Nightmares, the torturous brand of powerlessness that he bore on his soul ever since Falcon Scott.

inescapable shackles

overwhelmingly powerful enemy, an enemy that was nearly impossible

But…

somehow did

would be able to overcome the other impossible

he was on the verge of losing here in East Antarctica, as

no choice but to finish it all with one strike — not only because Nephis was weakened and

a serious wound but failed to make it fatal, then that augmentation would only explode further, turning his

only had

Dire Fang's Aspect, deciphered the battle style of the Transcendent monster, and found a way to counteract his debilitating sonic attack. Now, all that remained was

it would

Sunny apart, and his fangs

But that was alright.

of the Forgotten Shore, Sunny was a master

into Shadow Dance, the Saint

was as

would act based on his formidable experience

because the Saint had never fought a shadow spawn before. He was still judging Sunny as if Sunny was a

considered himself a human, he

body in an extreme and almost unnatural way. At the same time, he used the physical characteristics of

the raindrops above his head,

a bestial growl as he used all his prodigious

skilled to allow the unexpected attack to reach its mark,

split second before Sunny could bring his

pushed forward, catching him in the