Shadow Slave

Pursued by an army of dead giants, Sunny and Nightmare flew through the mist. The shambling corpses were tearing through the forest like an avalanche, uprooting countless ancient pines and turning them into splinters. The thunderous clamor of it all spread far and wide, making it seem as if the entire island was falling apart.

If that would not attract the attention of the Nightmare Creature hiding in the fog, Sunny did not know what would.

Almost there...

He was not just running blindly. Instead, Sunny was leading his skeletal followers along the southern edge of the island, aiming to pull them to Undying Slaughter's hunting grounds, or even further west. The map of the island was shimmering in his mind, with various Nightmare Creatures moving across it according to where they were supposed to be at the moment.

It would be good to attract as many abominations as possible - the chain reaction of them abandoning the usual routes and habits was going to clear the northern part of the island, where all of the cohort's goals were, to a large degree. But Sunny was going to be happy as long as the harrowing mist wraith got implicated by the appearance of the undead stampede.

These ancient skeletons he had risen were not truly alive, and thus possessed neither souls nor soul essence. They were the worst possible enemy Undying Slaughter could meet, considering that she would not be able to replenish whatever essence she spent to destroy the murderous corpses.

...It was a bit ironic, really.

"Above us!"

His heart skipped a beat.

The dead giants had obliterated a large swath of the misty forest already, which meant that nothing hid them from the merciless gaze of the sky anymore. As Sunny watched, unnerved, long tendrils descended from somewhere high above, stretching toward the rampaging bone golems.

later, the corpse of the Hollow Butterfly ascended into the sky, disappearing in the direction where the tendrils had

Sunny grinned darkly.

"Godspeed!"

back to life were powerful... but, of course, not nearly as powerful as when they had been alive. The corpse of the monstrous butterfly did not possess the terrifying might of the original Great Monster... that said, it

than a living Dark Butterfly would have been - the animated corpse was

be defeated, but it

he had to worry about

not the most agile of creatures. And yet, they were gaining on the galloping steed due to their sheer size. Sunny could dive into the shadows and escape at any moment, but that would defeat the purpose

claw fell on him from above, missing Nightmare's side by a mere meter. The black stallion almost lost his footing when the claw slammed into the ground, making it quake and throwing a

this is... just like that

Sunny. It did not matter if the thing that killed him was three times more powerful than him, or three hundred times more powerful. He would end up

shadow sense to evade the

was how Sunny managed

to dodge left. It was just in time - in the next moment, the familiar decaying shape of a giant leopard lunged forward from the fog, missing Sunny and colliding with one

bullets, and a gurgling roar sent Sunny into a momentary daze. Then, something boomed behind him, and he sensed several massive shadows converge on the terrifying shadow

later, the furious confrontation was far

it was

the swift rider, more and more Nightmare Creatures arrived, attracted by the deafening noise of the pursuit.

crawling leviathan with its tentacles, the black acidic

made the whole island shake by landing from a high jump, her fist turning one of the dead giants into a pile of broken bones. As it was completely