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 Mordret to show them the way to

Desert was vast, but with the Echo mounts, the band of survivors had been able to traverse a great deal of distance in the past day. Their luck was also not too bad - the area where the Call had pulled them was not that far

to make it most of the way

however, had to be traversed

to appear calm, but he could feel her fear... the Ascended had encountered the Skinwalker, too. In fact, the ones with him now were simply those who

on reaching the Black Skull, too. Where

lingered for a moment,

We're

forward, navigating between white dunes and

hours of suffocating heat, they finally saw the giant black skull appear in the

however, silently took

He shook his head.

people asked him where the Citadel was, and he led

they should have asked another

question was really

done with the corpses of

answer was that he had done

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

Shtad's headless corpse was also there,

the Skinwalker, but they had actually been

'Time to run.'

Mordret allowed his body to fall and roll

***

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

were too many powerful Nightmare Creatures around, and even though most of them were

the Great Rank. Each of the five Masters was immensely

it was a rough

exhausted, suffering from the inhuman conditions of the white desert, and under terrible mental strain because of the harrowing feeling

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

fought were

the five of them, Nephis seemed to be affected

flawlessly white expanse of white