Shadow Slave

There was a black dot in the sky, far in the distance, slowly moving in the direction of the dark island. At first, Sunny felt a glimmer of hope ignite in his heart as he remembered a similar situation from the past.

That time, it had turned out to be Kai.

But, this time...

This time, his intuition was ringing alarm bells, and a cold feeling of dread crept from somewhere to grip him with icy claws.

Sitting on the Shadow Chair with his legs crossed, Sunny leaned back and sighed.

"...Crap."

With that, he exploded with a flurry of activity.

First, Sunny dismissed his precious chair and dashed toward the middle of the island. At the same time, he sent a mental command to Saint.

Nephis and she were currently engaged in a furious sword fight. Light and darkness were intertwined in a shimmering whirlpool of sharp steel, and the graceful knight's onyx figure was starkly contrasted against the rippling white tunic and alabaster skin of her slender opponent.

Following Sunny's order, Saint froze. The tip of Neph's sword stopped a split second later, hovering millimeters away from the slit of her visor.

Nephis frowned, then retracted her sword and looked around.

There was a shadow on a rock outcropping that protruded from the ground a few meters away. It seemed to belong to a young man, and was currently waving its arms in the air while pointing at the sky.

She swiftly turned around and looked up, then dashed away a moment later.

'That's done...'

half-eaten fragment of tarnished silver. The scrawny figure of Imp could be seen nearby, laying on the ground with a blissful smile on his fiendish face. His hands were rubbing his ballooning belly with

"Stand up, buddy!"

tried to rise to his

we don't have time for

down, grabbed the weakly struggling fiend, and hoisted him on

'What... the hell...'

much had the little bastard swallowed

of an Ascended Tyrant, Sunny was struggling to carry Imp. His veins swelled, and a befuddled expression appeared on his face. Commanding the

the edge of the familiar fissure and unceremoniously tossed the little fiend down. Then, he threw one more look at

and he were side by side, pressing themselves into the weathered slope of the fissure as they desperately tried to calm down their breathing. Saint and Fiend were nearby, the former

within the deep darkness enveloping the bottom of the gorge in his shadow

beautiful amphora of white clay was standing on the ground in front of them, its surface decorated with mesmerizing patterns. It was another one of

amphora

Sunny's five shadows, one had to volunteer to leave its area of

"volunteer" was the

had performed a few dangerous tasks recently, and the happy fool was not someone Sunny would ever entrust an important matter to, the next

of Solace was keeping it company with a bored expression on

swirling around Sunny's hand formed into an emerald flute, and he covered them with a dome of silence. Then,

"I... I see it."

him intently, then asked

"What is it?"

for a

expression turned

"It's a... butterfly."

toward the island. From afar, it seemed like an ethereal and beautiful creature. But as it

color of white bone. It had six long, seemingly fragile legs that ended in sharp points, and two enormous, faceted eyes that were like orbs of pure darkness. Between them was a disturbingly long, oily-black beak, which was

from that, the butterfly was at least