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."

that was the only reason that the stragglers of Clan Valor had kept him alive - they wanted Mordret to show them the way to the

a great deal of distance in the past day. Their luck was also not too bad - the area where the Call

to make it most

last stretch, however, had to be traversed

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 -

life depends on reaching the

a

worry. We're

between

hours of suffocating heat, they finally saw the giant black skull appear in the distance. The Masters froze for

however, silently took

He shook his head.

Citadel was, and

they should have asked

was

corpses of

answer was that

figures suddenly started emerging from inside the giant black skull.

was also there,

survivors wanted to escape the Skinwalker, but they

'Time to run.'

around, Mordret allowed his body to fall and roll down the slope of a

***

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

most of them were mesmerized by the call of the Seeds, some weren't, or at

to fight were of the Great

was a rough

exhausted, suffering from the inhuman conditions of the white desert, and

just the possibility of meeting the creature again was enough to fill them with a suffocating sense

were all powerful

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

white expanse of white dunes, she shook her head and