Shadow Slave

That night, the island was quaking without pause. Sunny and Nephis hid in their fissure, not daring to close their eyes - even though a mass of impregnable black rock separated them from the flesh of the Black Turtle, it was unnerving to know that thousands of Corrupted Beasts were currently slithering somewhere below them, shredding the meat of the Great Monster with their terrible glass-like teeth.

The Azure Serpent was also there, hunting down the invaders. Although they couldn't hear its roars, the violent vibrations spreading through the island told them what was going on.

Sunny looked away from the shimmering runes, somewhat startled at how easily he had earned a large amount of shadow fragments. After another violent tremor had shaken the island, he finally closed his eyes.

However, it was not to sleep.

Instead, Sunny tried to imagine... tried to convince himself that he was the Azure Serpent. He was crawling through the grotesque tunnel of bleeding flesh, which he himself had created to kill the hateful carapace monster, furiously hunting the vile creatures who dared to steal his trophy. His long, mighty body was burning from pain, but Sunny did not care.

All he cared about was slaughter, blood, and retribution.

Noticing a tiny warm gnawing on the wall of the tunnel, he let out a terrifying growl and shot forward, destroying the vermin and tearing a large chunk of meat out of the wall with his powerful jaws.

But, behind it, more vermin were revealed, stolen meat digesting in their transparent stomachs.

With madness painting the cloudy world red, Sunny roared and slammed into them with obliterating fury.

'Is this the feeling? Am I on the right path?'

Opening his eyes, he stared into the darkness with an absent expression. Then, he looked at Nephis.

Some time later, Sunny said:

"I feel like our chances of making it off this island alive are dwindling."

silent for a

what if they

ignited in her eyes, illuminating them with a pale

it been any different

Hearing that, Sunny chuckled.

never had

then turned to look at the Sin of Solace and

have died a thousand

and looked at him,

the worst case, we'll just die once. That's nothing,

shook and quaked

play! Gods, anyone can do it. You're right,

the Sin of Solace smiled,

was bright and full of

***

the skies again. And two days after that, another flying abomination appeared silently

nor Nephis saw it, but in the morning, the surface of the island was awash with black, fetid blood. It seemed that it was the butterfly that had battled the late contender this time, ripping it to shreds before it had the chance to approach the remains of

the Azure Serpent received more days than usual to recover

as they drifted further downstream, a second krill swarm attacked, this one even larger than the first. The battle between the mad leviathan and the vast River Locust swarm lasted for an entire day, and its result was pretty

- a vile creature made of numerous tentacles and spongy pale flesh - that had snuck to feast on the insides of the turtle while the

how it looked because the Azure Serpent brought its revolting body outside and rose high above the water before swallowing the corpse whole. That was how they learned why a powerful earthquake had suddenly thrown the world

discovered a deep crack snaking its way through the surface of the Black Turtle's shell. It was not too large, but the fact that the stone carapace of the dead monster had been

Sunny, as they

carcass of the Black Turtle... was higher than it had been before. The parts of it that had been hidden underwater were