Shadow Slave

Sunny dove into the shining depths of the Great River. His serpentine body was like a spear carved from black onyx, cutting through the radiant water with stunning, terrible speed. It was made to rule the sea, so no ship or vessel could compete with him in the deep.

A Great Monster, though...

Even though the Dark Butterfly was an aerial abomination, it had shown a dreadful ability to fight the Azure Serpent underwater with strange ease. They needed to escape being noticed by it... and so, Sunny swam down.

Nephis had the Essence Pearl, so he was not afraid of pulling her so deep that she would drown. That said... he was afraid of the depths.

There was no telling what was hiding at the bottom of the Great River. What kind of horrors lived there? Did time exist there, and if so, what was its flow? Sunny did not know, and he wasn't ready to find out.

The plan they had concocted was to dive deep enough to avoid the notice of the Dark Butterfly and then travel downstream, gradually returning to the surface. He saw no reason to change it.

As the onyx serpent moved down into the flowing abyss with a fragile human figure clutching to his horns, the dark island slowly disappeared in the distance. Its ominous silhouette was consumed by the radiance of the water, and soon, there was nothing around them but shining emptiness.

Sunny felt a strange melancholy brush against his heart and steeled himself.

They had finally escaped from the shell of the Black Turtle. That place... it had given him the peace and comfort he so desperately needed after the disastrous resolution of the dreadful and bitterly long Southern Campaign. For a while, it was like a paradise.

But that paradise was a dark one. In the end, it had turned into a death trap - and now, they were leaving both the paradise and the trap behind.

'Don't look back.'

lot of much more harrowing obstacles waiting for them ahead. And, hopefully, at

find a new paradise

water grew brighter, its flow more tumultuous, and

was enough, anyway... if the Dark Butterfly was going to pursue them, it would have already plunged into

sense of relief flooded

'Thank the gods...'

survived a battle with a Great Beast, and that was mostly due to the fact that the Azure Serpent had already been wounded, exhausted, and close to death. Fighting a Great Monster immediately after that battle

descent, and then pushed forward. His already tremendous speed increased even more when he started to move with the current. It was to such a degree that Nephis

was

that they had escaped the dark island and the monstrous butterfly, another challenge lay in front of them,

was the expanse of

was a slow, agonizing death. There were harrowing abominations of all kinds dwelling both in the water and in the boundless sky. Without anywhere to find shelter, doom was all but guaranteed - they might escape it once or twice,

exhaustion would overwhelm them, and their luck would run out. Then, the

clear goal in mind. They had to travel downstream, as far into the past as they could, and discover the ancient people who had entered the Tomb of Ariel thousands

encased in the shell of the onyx serpent. He could cover a great distance in a short amount of time, traveling much further than the carcass of the Black Turtle had been

The problem was essence.

of the river serpent was consuming it as well. He had already spent a lot of essence fighting the mad leviathan, and although Neph's flame was

he was a Tyrant, they were not at all adequate

He had to squeeze all the speed he could muster from his serpentine