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 of

powerful enemy, an enemy that

But…

somehow did manage to defeat

overcome the other impossible obstacles

losing. He had lost in the Antarctic Center, and now, because of Mordret and his cursed schemes, he was on the verge of losing here in East Antarctica, as well. And so, he was willing to

was weakened and vulnerable right now, but also because of the

terrifying physical might was augmented by rage and pain. If Sunny delivered him a serious wound but failed to make it fatal, then that augmentation would only explode further,

only had one

single chance. He had learned the secrets of Dire Fang's Aspect, deciphered the battle style of the Transcendent monster, and found a way to counteract his debilitating sonic attack. Now, all

it would be

that exceeded all reason. His claws were ready to tear Sunny apart, and his fangs were ready to sink into Sunny's flesh. Even though

But that was alright.

Forgotten Shore, Sunny was a master of killing things that were

Shadow Dance, the Saint had not

technique was as formless and shapeless

based on his formidable experience of participating in countless battles. However, there was a problem with that approach,

shadow spawn before. He was still judging Sunny as if Sunny was a mere

considered himself a human,

his body in an extreme and almost unnatural way. At the same time, he used the physical characteristics of his fiendish shell to switch from running on two

result, the Saint's claws tore through the raindrops above his

let out a bestial growl as he used all

allow the

could bring

hand pushed forward, catching him in the