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 was nearly impossible to

But…

somehow did manage to

other

schemes, he was

finish it all with one strike — not only because Nephis was

If Sunny delivered him a serious wound but

had one

incredible feats to earn that 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

it would be

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

But that was alright.

was a master of killing things that

had absorbed the essence of Dire Fang's battle style into Shadow Dance, the Saint had not gotten a

could he, when Sunny's technique was as formless and

could do was try and predict how his enemy would act based on his formidable experience of participating in countless

spawn before. He was still judging Sunny as if Sunny

considered himself a human, he was

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 feet

the raindrops above his head, while his

he used all his prodigious strength to push himself off

fast and skilled to allow the unexpected attack

bring his sword down on the Saint's

hand pushed forward, catching