Shadow Slave

"You are wasting your time."

"You will definitely fail."

"Just give up. You know you're not smart enough to accomplish anything worthwhile."

"Do you really want to make the woman holding your leash stronger? How foul."

"Your collection of failures just keeps growing, huh?"

Ignoring the Sin of Solace, Sunny leaned against Ananke's ketch as he studied the Dawn Shard. His shadow hands continued to weave strings of essence. His concentration remained unbroken.

He even welcomed the derisive comments. The more the hateful wraith berated him, the more Sunny felt like he was on the right track. The Sin of Solace would not have bothered to interfere if there was no chance of success, after all - it was not in his nature to bet against Sunny when there were no stakes.

"What, you are ignoring me now? Or have you forgotten how to speak?"

Sunny threw a calm glance at the apparition, then turned back to the Crown of Dawn.

"We'll speak when you tell me how you knew about the Mad Prince."

The Sin of Solace scoffed.

"Gods. Why do I even bother? I am sick of this tired routine!"

He laughed bitterly, then added in a resigned tone:

"But there's nothing else to do. How boring."

The Chain Breaker was swaying gently underneath them. Saint was standing guard at the bow, Fiend and Nightmare were guarding the sacred tree, and Nephis was at the stern, steering the ship.

The seven suns had already descended into the depths of the Great River, and the deck was illuminated by a scattering of lanterns. The water glowed softly, diluting the impenetrable darkness of the night with ghostly opalescence.

Sunny smiled faintly.

"...Find a hobby."

of Solace stared at him, unamused. Then, he

"At least there's spectacle."

paid it no

"Uh-huh..."

the Dawn Shard and jumped

'Crap!'

felt the Chain Breaker shudder as a violent wave

are under

and restless. A

...

I'll handle things

Sunny ran

railing without ever slowing down. A moment later, he plunged into the cold water, rushing to meet

massive shape that stretched its giant tentacles toward the moving vessel. Enormous, ancient, and harrowing... Sunny

'A Tyrant?'

grew indistinct,

the maw of a furious sea serpent emerged from the darkness, bellowing in rage as

The Great River stirred.

the Chain Breaker and huffed, red drops falling from his hair. He was drenched

That sack was actually Ananke's Mantle - which was resistant

the improvised sack, two sizable Transcendent soul shards glimmered softly in

on them, then looked

even wash it? I mean... why did I even have Fiend

a weird mix between humans and sea creatures. They had humanoid torsos with pale skin, while their legs were replaced by long, powerful black tentacles. Their bodies were emaciated, with ghastly

both

and Nightmare earned me a few shadow fragments. Even better, there are plenty of soul shards to be

end. It was just a huge, nasty Corrupted Monster... it seemed that these Drowned Outcasts were not its minions. Instead, the smaller creatures appeared to have herded the enormous monstrosity, using it to attack larger

'Waste of essence.'

would have used the Nimble Catch and the Sin

for a moment, suddenly stunned by how odd the