Shadow Slave

1413 Falling Trees

The Quiet Dancer zipped through the air and hit the base of the Great Beast's revolting tail. However, the sharp tip of the temperamental Echo bounced off the tough hide of the creature without leaving even a scratch on it.

At the same time, Fiend growled and put himself in the path of the creature's crushing paw. The towering ogre was barely able to grasp it — the decaying claws of the abomination struck him on the chest, leaving deep grooves in the black silver. The ground under the gluttonous Shadow caved in, but he remained standing.

For a moment.

Then, the horrid beast pushed Fiend down and covered him with its massive paw. At the same time, Saint dodged the snapping jaws and lashed out with her sword, leaving a thin crack on the creature's skeletal snout.

The dead sybil and the clockwork swordsmen attacked the enemy from behind. Nightmare rammed into it, lowering his head to gore the abominations with his horns.

Then, all of them were flung aside. The steel mannequin dissolved into a rain of sparks, destroyed. The sybil collided with a trunk of an ancient pine, shattered it into splinters, and fell to the ground, unmoving. Nightmare barely managed to dissolve into the shadows in time, but still lost a large chunk of flesh. Saint blocked the blow with her shield and slid a dozen meters back.

The Shadows and the Echoes only lasted a second against the Great Beast's fury.

But that second gave Sunny time to call upon the shadows and manifest them into the Shadowspawn Shell. He wished he could assume the form of the Onyx Serpent, but it was poorly suited for battles on land.

A tide of darkness flowed from the open gate of the Shadow Lantern, rising to form into countless chains. They bound the ghastly creature like ropes, but were torn apart a moment later.

Sunny, Nephis, and Jet launched their attack.

Neph's silvery longsword ignited with blinding radiance as she dove under the abomination's jaws and thrust her weapon into its neck. Sunny delivered a devastating blow to the monstrous leopard's snout — empowered by the Crown of Dawn, the Sin of Solace sent a few small fragments of bone flying. Jet lunged at the Great Beast from the side, aiming to plunge her glaive into its very soul.

But before she could, the long, flexible tail of the horrid creature whipped around. Jet barely managed to avoid it by dashing back, while Sunny was not so lucky. His movements were suppressed by the need to keep himself away from the harrowing jaws, and so, the circular maw at the end of the segmented tail greedily closed on the side of the shadowspawn.

The right shoulder and side of his shell were entirely destroyed. Sunny instantly lost two of his four arms — one simply disappeared, the other fell apart, revealing shredded human flesh beneath.

Neph's sword pierced the Great Beast's neck, but before she could deal significant damage, a lightning-fast strike of a mighty paw destroyed the radiant blade and sent her rolling away.

Sunny stumbled back, desperately trying to prevent his shell from crumbling and using the shadows of the misty forest to try and hastily repair the damage.

They had managed to make the Great Beast bleed… or rather, delivered it a wound. The decaying creature did not seem like something that had blood running through its veins. However…

'Does it even mean anything?'

Just in a few seconds, one of Cassie's Echoes had been destroyed, while the other one was heavily damaged. Nightmare was already wounded. Fiend had escaped from beneath the creature's paw, and Saint seemed unharmed as well… but Sunny himself was already injured. His arm was a mess of torn flesh, and although he would not suffer from blood loss, it was in a bad state.

Would they be able to kill the ghastly abomination?

For a split second, the violence subsided.

regained her balance. Sunny switched to a one-hand grip and prepared both of his

Guiding

skeletal maw

Sunny heard it,

'A mental attack?'

the enormous Great Beast was already close to impossible… if the

was then that another

if a

leopard suddenly

ground. The segmented tail rose

'What… what is this?'

if the Great Beast

rushed away, disappearing into the mist. The wind risen by its departure threw

by what had just happened. Keeping their weapons

is

sounded

and the cold ground under their feet. The ghastly

another loud crack resounded somewhere in the forest, followed by a muffled rustling. Sunny spun, trying to pinpoint where the

mist, it was hard to tell where the trees were

'Damn it!'

the disparate cracks grew into a cacophony of noise,

suddenly grew

stared

Following her motion, Sunny saw something dark flying at them from the mist.

the Sin of Solace… and

His eyes widened.

him, laying on the ground,

Its head.

shattered, and the gaping hollows where the abomination's eyes should have been were dark and empty. There was nothing below the creature's mangled neck, but it did not seem as if it had been severed. Instead,

Beast was

couldn't help but

hell? What could have

himself to look away from the

'Where is it… where…'

anything. He couldn't

his teeth and forced himself to calm

Cassie.

Cassie would. She could see a few seconds into the future, after all —