Shadow Slave

The ancient temple was quaking from the furious clash between the monstrous dweller of the depths and Nephis. Flashes of blinding white light and waves of incinerating heat tore the darkness apart, sending the deep shadows drowning the dark expanse of the flooded hall into a demented dance.

Sunny danced with the shadows like a specter of death. Wreathed in a billowing black mantle, his figure had turned vague and elusive. He moved across the restless surface of the black water with stunning speed, no different from how he would have moved on solid ground. Sunny's attacks were lethal, unpredictable, and almost impossible to trace - it was as if he was nowhere and everywhere at once.

Due to his speed and the ability to step through shadows, it seemed that the dark figure wearing the fearsome black mask was in several places at the same time. So was the merciless blade of his jade longsword - hissing furiously as it cut everything in its path, the cursed jian cruelly reaped the lives of the Drowned.

Still... Sunny was struggling.

He was struggling enough to not want to admit it. Beneath the polished black wood of his mask, beads of sweat were rolling down his pale face. The Drowned were both powerful and dreadful adversaries... each of them was a Nightmare Creature strong enough to threaten the life of a Saint, let alone of a Master like him.

Their black tentacles allowed them to move at a speed that was no less stunning than his, and made their movements hard to predict. More than that, the tentacles were both supremely flexible and mighty enough to crush enchanted stone with ease. Being caught in their vile embrace meant certain death.

The creatures possessed a pair of human hands, as well. They were insidiously cunning and wielded their weapons with devious skill... worse than that, the Drowned feared neither pain nor death. They knew only a dark and cold resolve to see the enemy fall.

A foe like that was the worst nightmare of an Awakened, especially when there were so many of them.

And that was without even considering the eerie power of the sybil who was twisting the future in favor of the abominations. It was because of her influence that Sunny felt like he was not even one mistake away from dying, but rather one step behind staying alive.

'D-damnation.'

for a fact that he was just as skilled as he had been before venturing into the flooded temple, but at the same time, it

of control and clear understanding he had become accustomed to were gone, replaced by uncertainty. His attacks routinely missed the intended

by expecting failure and imbuing his battle style with as much fault tolerance as he could. Several of the Drowned were

...Luckily, Sunny wasn't alone.

to rely on,

into the water, which reached up to her waist, she slammed her round shield into an

a tall wave rising behind her. Augmented by one of Sunny's shadows and the Stifled Scream, Saint seemed more than capable of fighting in the water. Moving with the calm precision of a flawless battle machine, she descended on the Drowned like a

ruby eyes blazed with

Unlike the taciturn knight, who could not be augmented by the flame because of her affinity to true darkness, the gluttonous Shadow seemed to benefit

glow of his fierce eyes and terrifying maw, which was usually red, had turned pure white. It was as though an incandescent star

not wasted, either. His movements were not quite like those of a seasoned battle master, but still showed a chilling level

gave up on trying and chose

pulled under the

Shadows, Nightmare received the help of a shadow as well. The tenebrous stallion leaped high into the air and landed in the midst of the Drowned, using his fangs, horns, and hooves to crush and savage

the fear of his enemies, and the army of nightmares residing in the lightless abyss that served him as a soul,