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

enemy, an overwhelmingly powerful enemy,

But…

Sunny somehow did manage to defeat

would be able to overcome the other impossible obstacles that pressed him into

tired of 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.

only because Nephis was weakened and

Saint's already 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, turning his enemy into

had one

Dire Fang's Aspect, deciphered the battle style of the Transcendent monster, and found a

it

be killed. He was already moving, rushing forward with speed that exceeded all reason. His claws were ready to tear Sunny apart, and his fangs were ready to sink

But that was alright.

Sunny was a master of killing things that

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

he, when Sunny's technique was

could do was try and predict how his enemy would act based on his formidable experience of participating in countless battles. However, there was a problem

spawn before. He was still judging Sunny

considered himself a human, he was also a bit

body in an extreme and almost unnatural way.

claws tore through the raindrops above his head, while his

as he used all his prodigious strength to push

to allow the unexpected attack to reach its mark,

second before Sunny could bring his

hand pushed forward, catching him