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?'

would have. Instead, his body disappeared into the shadows and appeared a moment later behind the triumphant abomination.

to have passed through the ancient weapon unobstructed, then did the same with the abomination's armor, flesh, and bone. A moment later, a thin

to the Drowned, who had been

slain a Corrupted Demon, Drowned

the Spell. But he was

lines of his pale

that thing block my

the Corrupted abomination had failed to stop the cursed sword, but how had the Drowned managed

it had not been quite like

of the strike in his memory, Sunny realized that the Nightmare Creature had not possessed exalted battle skill or supernatural power of

like it had ended up lowering itself to avoid being

it really

Sunny suddenly felt cold.

it luck, or was it that out of all possible outcomes, those that benefited the Nightmare Creatures the most had suddenly become the most

influence on the future to

If so...

numerous shadows of the Drowned rushing to

'Curse it...'

was already deadly enough... but fighting against the future

settled. There was a mutilated corpse of one of these demons floating in the water right in front of him, 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

to kill the enemy, he was going to

the enemy, he was

wrong... but hadn't Sunny always lived by