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."

Valor had kept him

great deal of distance in the past day. Their

they managed to make it most of

however, had to be traversed on

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

depends on reaching the Black Skull, too. Where

for a

worry. We're

walked forward, navigating between

heat, they finally saw the giant black skull appear in the distance. The Masters froze for a moment,

however, silently took

He shook his head.

people asked him where the Citadel was,

should have asked another question as

question was

he done with the corpses of the Awakened

answer was that he had done

giant black skull.

Shtad's headless corpse was also there, walking at

the Skinwalker, but they had actually been marching

'Time to run.'

allowed his body to fall and roll down the slope

***

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

around, and even though most of them were mesmerized by

were of the Great Rank. Each

it was a

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

Xu was on their trail or not... but just the possibility of meeting the creature again was enough to fill them with a suffocating

they fought were all powerful

the five of them, Nephis seemed to be affected the least. However, she was struggling with

white expanse of white dunes, she shook her head and