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 show them the way to

able to traverse a great deal of distance in the past day. Their luck was

help, they managed to make it most

however, had to be

his feet. The woman was trying to appear calm, but he could feel her fear... the Ascended had encountered the Skinwalker, too. In fact,

on reaching the Black Skull, too.

for a

We're already

navigating between white dunes and

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

however, silently took a

He shook his head.

the Citadel was, and

they should have asked another

was

he done with the corpses of the Awakened inside the Black Skull

that he

human figures suddenly started emerging from inside the giant black skull. One,

headless corpse was also there, walking

wanted to escape the Skinwalker, but they had

'Time to run.'

and roll down the slope of a tall

***

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

though most of them were mesmerized by the call

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

it was

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

knew whether the corpse of Master Xu was on their trail or not... but just the possibility of meeting

fought were all

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

white expanse of white dunes, she shook her head and sighed