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."

of Clan Valor had kept him alive - they wanted Mordret to

distance in the past day. Their luck was also not too bad - the area where the

help, they managed to make it

last stretch, however, had to

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

life depends on reaching the Black Skull,

lingered for a

worry. We're already

between white

appear in the distance. The

silently took a step

He shook his head.

Citadel

they should have asked another question as

was really

done with the corpses of the Awakened inside the Black Skull

answer was that he had

inside the giant

Shtad's headless corpse was also there, walking

escape the Skinwalker, but they had actually been marching

'Time to run.'

and roll down the slope of a tall

***

Together, they made their way through the desert, heading for

was not easy. There were too many powerful Nightmare Creatures around, and even though most of them were mesmerized by the call of the Seeds, some weren't, or at least not

of the abominations they had to fight were of the Great Rank. Each of the

it was

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

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

fought were all powerful and dreadful,

of them, Nephis seemed to be affected the least.

expanse of white dunes, she