Shadow Slave

The Great River was foaming and seething, gargantuan waves rising from its softly glowing expanse to crash into the weathered slopes of the crumbling island. Two dark silhouettes — one colossal, the other merely giant — were moving through the raging water, intertwined in a murderous battle.

Sunny had been driven mad by pain and bloodlust. He lost count of the number of blows his obsidian, serpentine body had endured. He also did not know how many times he retaliated, biting the flesh and breaking the scales of the Azure Serpent.

His Mantle was in shambles, the [Living Stone] failing miserably to keep up with the barrage of devastating attacks he had to endure. The fearsome onyx armor was cracked and shattered, revealing the glossy black scales beneath. Many of its segments were entirely destroyed.

The Shadow Shell that it was encasing had been shredded and ravaged, as well. Giant wounds were gaping on it, bleeding shadows. He had been able to repair some of the damage at first, but having the means to do something like that… it seemed so distant now…

There was one thing that filled Sunny with dark glee, though.

It was that the Azure Serpent looked no better than him.

The body of the Great Beast had already been grotesquely mangled before their battle, and now, it was in an even worse state.

The wounds that had closed were reopened. The wounds that had been opened were now wider and more harrowing, with crimson blood flowing out of them into the radiant water. Dozens of arrows were sticking out of the abomination's scarlet flesh. Some of them weighed it down, some sent a deadly toxin circulating through its bloodstream.

But the Azure Serpent's eyes still burned with the same madness.

'Good… ah… good… don't you give up on me, old snake!'

Sunny wanted to kill the hateful beast, but he didn't want that death to be swift. No, he wanted his enemy's agony to last forever. He wanted to tear its flesh with his fangs forever, feel the shudders of pain pulsing through its body forever, hear its pained cries forever…

'Control yourself!'

Snapping out of the consuming madness, he reminded himself of his goal. He needed to kill the Azure Serpent as fast as possible — not only because his essence was not limitless, but also because the chances of him being killed by the Great Beast were much higher than the other way around.

the smallest chance, he

there were no chances.

as if obediently following the ancient serpent's commands. Even with its body looking like that of a battered corpse and its mind flooded with pain,

But Sunny…

his mind growing muddled, and his reason

I can't go

realization that defeat was possible entered his consciousness. The thought was so

on to his maddening fury

Such a thing did not

lose… he would

last thought was slightly strange, as if it was not his

side of the twisting leviathan. He knew that the battle had already

But what?

it burned with the mad desire to destroy

have that the Great

already half-dead. He had to kill the enemy…

So, then…

were not necessarily mutually exclusive. Being killed did not directly stand in the way of achieving his goal. It was only the timing of his death that was the

was filled with an indescribable, furious determination to slay the Azure Serpent. Nothing mattered in front of this hatred and this consuming need… least of all death. It would be all worth it if he could just feel the life

'Mutual destruction…'

he

it a

the advantage he so

Great Beast must have been growing weaker, as well… his attacks and the arrows of his companions were slowly grinding down its boundless endurance. The abomination had been a split second too late and failed to evade being rammed by Sunny's serpentine