Shadow Slave

Sunny had to spend a few moments calming down his wildly beating heart. Then, he looked around once again. The situation... was much better than he had expected it to be. He really had not considered that the grotesque tunnel left behind by the Azure Serpent would be only partially drowned. Slicing through the flesh of a Great Monster was no easy task, and doing so underwater would have been even harder. More than that, he was less restricted in the use of Shadow Step now.

But, most importantly, he could summon the Covetous Coffer. Opening the alloy chest underwater would have just resulted in the spatial storage being instantly filled with water. Now that they stood on a solid surface, things were different... of course, the tunnel could be flooded at any moment, so they had to hurry.

Sunny looked at Nephis and flashed her a smile."Let's be quick!"

The sparks of light swirled around them, manifesting into Memories. Neph's flame was replaced by a luminous paper lantern, and a sizable alloy chest appeared on the porous pink surface of the Great Monster's bone.

A moment later, their weapons manifested, t...

"Am I reduced to a mere butcher's cleaver? Ah... such humiliation..."

Sunny almost yelped when a familiar figure emerged from the darkness. The Sin of Solace looked somberly at his disheveled appearance, then shook his head. He was still clad in the Shroud of Graceless Dusk, not to mention perfectly dry.

"Damn fool."

Sunny whispered a stifled curse and commanded the shadows to wrap themselves around the jade blade of the cursed sword, which had manifested itself a split second before. Then, he hissed:

"Gods, you almost gave me a heart attack."

Nephis froze for a moment and looked at him with a slightly startled expression.

"Oh... did I? Sorry..."

Sunny's eyes widened.

you! I wasn't

observed him with a

Harvesting monster meat from inside the monster... I hope you won't force the poor girl to

lid of the Covetous Coffer open and then moved closer to the wall of

so strange. The taste of the Black Turtle's meat was truly sublime. But the source of it... was so...

'Damn it.'

of that. And yet, cutting into the flesh

turtle's meat would not be easy, just from the fact that chewing it was a tough task. However, the actual difficulty of trying to slice off a sizable chunk of the abomination's flesh was even greater than he had expected. Its

how am I going to

as he put all his strength into it, and the jade blade cut deeper with excruciating slowness. Nephis was just as strained, using a sharp dagger instead of her longsword.

tunnel roll and slosh. Carving the meat was hard, and doing it while struggling to keep balance was

taking too

hoped to fill the Covetous Coffer to the brim, but now he realized how unrealistic his lofty desires were. At this rate, it would be good if they managed to harvest enough to feed them for a few days. Of course, as long as the battle between the Azure Serpent and the eerie

as he threw the first chunk of meat into the maw of the alloy chest, the carcass of the Black Turtle quaked again. This time, however, there was something different about the tremor - instead of being pushed to the

abruptly stopped, looking at each

below us

on the fact that the massive bulk of the Black Turtle would protect them from the

moving in the direction of

darkness as they reflected the glow of her scorching dagger. She lingered

do you want

paused for a bit, then

that it was all for nothing. We'll have to wait for a chance to do it all over again, and even if such a chance presents itself, we'll be much weaker by then. So... let's continue. I can pull us back through the shadows,

nodded in agreement, prompting them to return to the arduous task of carving the turtle's flesh. Both of them were much more tense

meat fell into the Covetous Coffer, and at the same time, the shockwaves traveling through the island showed that the battling abominations were