Shadow Slave

Heat.

It was hot. Lethally hot… a mundane human would not have lasted in this suffocating heat for long. Even as a Master, Sunny was struggling to breathe. His skin was burning.

Sitting on the sand, hunched, he covered his eyes and looked up at the merciless white sun.

The sun was like a small silver coin that hung high in the cloudless azure sky.

White sand. Azure sky.

This was indeed the desert Nephis had once tried to cross. The one that lay east of the Forgotten Shore, stretching far and wide along the Hollow Mountains.

He couldn't see the dreadful black peaks, though. Either this part of the Nightmare Desert was much further north than the small fragment Nephis had traversed, or much further east, where the Hollow Mountains were no more.

In either case, Sunny was in big trouble. Nephis had told them that the further one went into the desert, the more dangerous it became. Eventually, she could not advance anymore, and chose to take her chances in the mountains instead…

Just how deadly was this desert, for Nephis to decide that venturing into a known Death Zone was a better choice?

There was one more thing, too… if it was the same desert, then he had to find shelter before the night came. Failing to do so meant death.

Death...

Sunny sighed.

He was sitting on the white sand, casting five stark shadows. A few dozen seconds had already passed since his arrival in this cursed land, and very soon, something was bound to find and attack him.

He had to move, but his mind was plagued by too many thoughts.

it's

a sense of triumph. He had

the balance on the battlefield had been bound to shift. Mordret's reflections would have been destroyed… the remaining two enemy Saints would have been either

have achieved a sweeping victory. None of its key figures would have perished, and plenty of Awakened would have remained alive to continue defending East Antarctica until

that had happened, of course.

had lost. Once again, he had

was so tiring, to always have victory slip through his fingers at the last

'Curse it all…'

crushed by

but the only victor was the Nightmare Spell. These three

annihilated or would be soon… oh, and more than a few government elites, too. All the Awakened of Valor and all the Awakened of Song were as

then, it was not a guarantee that they

would still

the most powerful defenders. And much worse still,

was going to

it. Don't

Sunny gritted his teeth.

his mind… but if he continued thinking about it, he would drown in

that was much more harrowing than the Forgotten Shore, without any way to get back to the waking world. His friends

had to find them… if they were still alive… and figure out

his first time escaping hell,

there was a will, there was a

bunch of

through the sand beneath

how could he escape the Nightmare

There were four ways.

the Hollow Mountains. Needless to say, surviving a journey through two entire Death Zones was highly