Shadow Slave

"Move, monster!"

An Ascended of Clan Valor had fear in his eyes as he pushed Mordret in the back with the butt of his spear. Mordret had already been walking as fast as he could, so the forceful push made him stumble and fall.

The blistering white sand burned his mangled face.

He sighed, then struggled to stand up.

One of his eyes was gone, and he had only one hand left. His Reflections had all been destroyed. His body was in a sorry state...

Even though Mordret had managed to escape the rampage of the Great being, his luck in the Nightmare Desert was awful. Soon after entering it, he stumbled on the pursuing Gate Guardian, and after barely surviving that unfortunate encounter, a band of surviving Masters of Clan Valor ambushed and overpowered him.

He had failed to finish off his sister, too.

'A pity.'

Now, his arms were bound behind his back with enchanted shackles. Even if he wanted to abandon his original body, he was temporarily trapped within it... the heavy chains were probably not the tool Morgan had planned to imprison him with, but they too were forged by his father.

Getting out of the shackles was going to be troublesome. If anything, though, having only one hand left could help with that.

"Stand up!"

Mordret sighed in exasperation.

"I'm trying... really now, is this how you treat a prince of Valor?"

Instead of the answer, the Master angrily hit him in the ribs.

Mordret plopped back into the scorching sand.

Another voice resounded from somewhere above:

"Stop it! You're only slowing us down... the Skinwalker has to be drawing close. If we want to survive, we need to reach the Citadel as soon as possible."

the only reason that the stragglers of Clan Valor had kept him alive - they wanted

in the

Mordret's help, they managed to make it most of the way

last stretch, however, had to be traversed on

he could feel her fear... the Ascended had encountered the Skinwalker, too. In fact, the ones with him now were simply those who had survived the encounter. They knew that death - or something much

depends on reaching the Black Skull,

a moment,

worry. We're

forward, navigating between white dunes and ancient

skull appear in the distance. The Masters froze for a moment, excitement burning in

silently took a step

He shook his head.

him where the Citadel was, and he

asked

question was really

done with the corpses of the Awakened inside the Black Skull

that

suddenly started emerging from inside the giant black skull. One, two,

headless corpse was also there, walking at the

wanted to escape the Skinwalker, but they had actually been marching toward their deaths

'Time to run.'

allowed his body to fall and roll down the slope of a tall

***

Together, they made their way through the desert, heading for the spot where he had left the

not easy. There were too many powerful Nightmare Creatures around, and even though most

none of the abominations they had to fight were of the Great Rank. Each

it was

them were utterly exhausted, suffering from the inhuman conditions of the white desert, and under terrible mental strain

corpse of Master Xu was on their trail or not... but just the possibility of meeting the creature

were all powerful and dreadful,

affected the least. However, she was struggling with her

flawlessly white expanse of white dunes, she shook her head and sighed