Shadow Slave

1415 Empty Shells

Sunny would have held his breath if he wasn't a shadow at the moment. Out there, in front of him, something massive was hiding in the fog. If not for the slight movement just now, he would have mistaken it for another pile of towering bones… that movement might have saved his life.

'Curse it…'

Because of the mist, he could only see a vague, dark shape. The details were obscured, and he could tell that the creature was enormous. It also instilled him with a deep, bestial feeling of dread.

A strange, sweet smell permeated the air.

Sunny froze, hiding in the skull of a dead leviathan. He did not know what to do — moving forward was out of the question. But moving back could potentially inform the enemy of his presence as well.

That only left Shadow Step.

However, before he tried to slip away, Sunny lingered for a few moments.

Something was gnawing at him. Why did this presence feel… familiar?

He had felt a strange familiarity ever since entering the monster graveyard. It was faint, but unmistakable.

'Why?'

Had he been to this part of the island already, in one of the revolutions that he did not remember? No, that did not make any sense. Before becoming aware of the loop, Sunny had to have repeated the same actions over and over — going forward alone to rescue Jet, and dying to Undying Slaughter's ghostly blade.

So how could anything on Wind Flower feel familiar?

At that moment, a strong gale blew from the direction of the vortex, and the mist receded.

The giant creature hiding in the fog was revealed in all its eerie, grotesque beauty.

Sunny shuddered.

The massive shape he had noticed… was a revolting butterfly.

seemingly fragile legs that ended in sharp points, and two enormous, faceted eyes that were like orbs of pure darkness. Between them was a disturbingly

about a hundred meters

battled the Serpent King for an entire

Butterfly? What is it doing

the past from the beginning of the Nightmare, and yet, this grotesque horror somehow ended catching up to him nevertheless. Had it been following him and Nephis

Sunny felt a hint of

abomination was almost exactly like the Great Monster he was familiar with, it was also subtly different. The pattern of bone-white scales on its belly was not the same. The jagged edges of its wings were not

original Dark Butterfly for an entire month, so he

tribe of Nightmare Creatures, but was a different abomination

not to say that it wasn't

'Damn it!'

be? And here he was, hoping that things

tried to fly away from the island and were caught by it in the air, there was no doubt what fate awaited

just gotten much

go around the monster graveyard, for

the eerie creature. Before it did, Sunny followed a whim and peered into the soul of

passed before a

'...What?'

carapace, where the tendrils of the revolting darkness were supposed to

there radiant suns of shining soul cores. Instead, the creature's

inside that monstrous body at

The Dark Butterfly was…

'It's Hollow?'

their souls in the Dream Realm, and were left as empty shells — living, but truly dead. However, he had never heard of anything similar

did not travel between the two worlds in their sleep? Their rotten souls were always safely anchored within their

an abomination's soul was somehow destroyed without damaging the body, there was a small chance that the body would continue to live on. Empty and void

a few moments, and then cautiously left the skull of a dead leviathan. Sliding

was empty, like the shadows of all inanimate

Butterfly that had frightened him so much… was it no

the bones with its wings laying listlessly on the ground. It seemed to be breathing, but other than that, it remained absolutely still. Its