Shadow Slave

Nightmare flew through the battlefield where the servants of dead deities fought against each other, unable to resolve their ancient grudge even after thousands of years had passed. All around the galloping steed, giants made of black bones clashed with murderous fury.

Each strike of a rusted blade, each blow of a vicious claw, each snap of crushing jaws produced powerful shockwaves that stirred the white sand and made it seem as if the world was on the verge of collapsing. Angry sparks flew into the air, and a cacophonous clangor filled the dark sky.

'Crazy, crazy... this is crazy!'

Sunny was in the form of a shadow, gliding across the sand in front of Nightmare. He was serving as a guide, and the black stallion followed, carrying Jet and Seishan.

Sunny's mind was in overdrive, absorbing every minute detail of what was happening around them. He had to find a way to avoid the ancient wraiths and slip between them, somehow, while not being destroyed by their destructive wrath.

It was not easy... no, it was almost impossible. His only saving grace was that the dead did not seem to pay them any attention.

Still, just the aftershocks of their dreadful attacks were enough to obliterate a puny Ascended like Sunny.

'Damn it all!'

As they moved away from the ruin, Sunny saw...

A black skeleton easily parting the night sky with its obsidian sword. The abominable bone behemoth that had been attacking the dead swordsman shuddered and collapsed, making the whole desert shake. Its mountain-like skeleton, almost a kilometer long, was cleanly cut in half along the spine.

A phalanx of ancient warriors marching forward to meet the charge of monstrous skeletal cavalry. The moment the two tides of black bones met, millions of stars were suddenly extinguished in the sky.

Two giants colliding above the dunes. One wielded a sword, while the other had iron shackles fastened around its wrists and ankles. The heavy chains rang as a gargantuan shackled hand shot forward, grabbing the colossal sword and flinging it away.

in the

'Curse...'

it did not hit the sand - instead, the ancient weapon plunged into

won't survive

the Nightmare Desert had been before, but it was known that one of the last - or at least one of the fiercest -

existed back then, or maybe this land had been turned

the dead every night to continue the ferocious clash, either. Why did the continue to fight? What

knew was that this was no place for the living. It was barely a place suited for the dead,

to powerful Corrupted creatures. The strongest... he did not even want to know. From what Nephis had said, the true horror was hidden in the heart of the desert, where the champions of the

struggled to imagine what could be more horrific than the catastrophic clash happening around them, but

and harrowing the fighting between the dead was, it was only a matter of

an echo of a distant

planning to reach some other ruin. The location of the nearest structures was burned into his memory, but once they entered the battlefield, Sunny realized that it was of no use - the white dunes

the moment the three of them escaped the ruin, they were

a skeleton in rusted armor slammed its war hammer into the shield of a six-armed demon, and Nightmare almost stumbled. Baring its fangs, the black steed soared into a high jump, landed on the spine of a lumbering monster, galloped across it and landed on the other side, faster

held on for dear

shadows and rolled on the sand, then jumped to the side, barely avoiding

sent him stumbling

into the shadows and flew toward

hide... we need

a flash of light somewhere far

but from the purity of the light, he knew that it had to be

distance away, obscured by countless fighting skeletons, a white