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."

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

Nightmare 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

Mordret's help, they managed to make it most

last stretch, however, had to be traversed

woman was trying 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 had survived the encounter. They knew that death - or something much worse - was relentlessly

on reaching the Black Skull, too. Where

a moment, then

We're

between white dunes and ancient

black skull appear in the

silently took a

He shook his head.

asked him where the Citadel

asked

was

done with the corpses of the

answer was that he had done

giant black skull. One, two, three... a dozen,

headless corpse was also there, walking at

but they had

'Time to run.'

allowed his body to fall and roll down the

***

Kai stayed with Sunny and the others. Together, they made their way through

Creatures around, and even though most of them were mesmerized by the call of the Seeds, some weren't, or at least not

to fight were of the Great Rank. Each

it was

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

but just the possibility of meeting the creature again was enough to fill them with

abominations they fought were all powerful

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

white dunes, she shook her head and