Shadow Slave

The Sin of Solace flashed through the air, moving with stunning speed. Considering how insidiously sharp the cursed blade was, there was no way for the Drowned to survive the strike... Sunny was so confident that he would see the abomination's head flying away in a rain of blood that he did not even slow down to consider other possibilities.

And yet, something entirely different happened.

He missed.

At the last moment, the Nightmare Creature lowered itself deeper into the water, and the jade sword whistled safely above its head.

'What...'

It had been a very long time since Sunny made such an egregious mistake. His swordsmanship was not flawless, since nothing really was. He was a lesser swordsman than Nephis was, true... but who wasn't? Compared to almost every other living human, Sunny was an absolute master. A seasoned warrior with enough talent, skill, and experience to be considered an actual sword saint.

He could accept that an enemy was more powerful than him. He could even accept that an enemy was more skilled than him - although exceedingly rare, there were a few of those.

What Sunny could not accept, however, was the fact that he missed a simple killing blow.

Something did not add up...

Before he could even try to understand what had happened, the Drowned was already near. Saved from assured decapitation, the creature pushed with its tentacles and flew forward as if shot from a cannon. The dark spear struck Sunny's unprotected chest and tossed him backward.

"Argh!"

The blow was powerful enough to send a blinding flash of pain through his body. However, the spear of the Drowned Demon failed to pierce the black silk of his tunic or rip his marble skin.

'How did I miss?'

fell into the water - or rather, he would have. Instead, his body disappeared into the shadows and appeared a moment later

then did the same with the abomination's armor, flesh, and bone. A moment later,

same happened to the Drowned, who had

have slain a Corrupted Demon, Drowned Warrior.][Your shadow grows

the whispers of the

a dark expression distorted the lines of his pale face for

thing block

of the Corrupted abomination had failed to stop the cursed sword, but how had the Drowned managed to predict and block his sneak attack, in

not

the moment of the strike in his memory, Sunny realized that the Nightmare Creature had not possessed exalted battle skill or supernatural power of premonition. Instead, it had ended up in a perfect position to react

up lowering itself to avoid being decapitated by

really

Sunny suddenly felt cold.

of all possible outcomes, those that benefited the Nightmare Creatures the most had suddenly become the most probable

the damned sybil exerting its influence on the future to support her minions and

If so...

numerous shadows of the Drowned rushing to rip him

'Curse it...'

swarm of Corrupted Demons was already deadly enough... but fighting against the future

after all. He had defeated that one abomination... so, he was going to slaughter the rest in the same way. It was just going to

kill the enemy, he was going to

failed to kill the enemy, he was going

go wrong...