Shadow Slave

Wrapped in the protective shell of shadows and the onyx carapace of the Mantle, Sunny breathed with the help of the Essence Pearl and fell into the murky depths. He had swum away from the shore and then manipulated his weight to plunge down like a rock. The water pressing down on him was crimson and dark.

It was also poisoned and teeming with myriads of invisible, gluttonous horrors.

'Ah...'

He didn't like it at all.

The poison of the Bitter Cusp had spread far by now, and it should have killed numerous microscopic creatures that permeated the bloody water. The rest should have been weakened, as well. But was it enough to save him? Sunny was going to find out soon.

'I haven't received any fragments, either... what a scam...'

His Shadow Shell was like a diving suit, with no gaps or seams that could allow the terrifying tiny creatures to reach his flesh. The Mantle covering the Shell was like a layer of armor, reinforced five times over by his shadows. In a sense, Sunny was like a miniature submarine... his task, accordingly, was to explore the bottom of the lake without being crushed and swallowed by its depths.

However...

He could already feel myriads of tiny teeth - or whatever it was that the invisible horrors had instead of teeth - gnawing at his black carapace. The Mantle was holding, at least for now, but the Shell was sustaining damage. It was as if its outer surface was slowly dissolving and being washed away by the crimson water.

'That's... pretty bad.'

Feeling the lake starting to devour and digest his shell, Sunny felt cold horror wash over him. However, he managed to maintain his composure. In fact, the situation was better than he had expected. Sure, his improvised diving suit was being devoured... but at a much slower rate than usual.

The poison of the Bitter Cusp was doing its job.

As long as the Mantle held and the exposed surface of the Shadow Shell was limited, he could repair it faster than the lake was destroying it. Even if his onyx armor started to crack and disintegrate, he would be able to keep up with the relentless attrition for a while.

Summoning more shadows from the Lantern, Sunny went about mending the dissolving form of the Shadowspawn. At the same time, his feet touched the bottom of the lake. Pushing himself through the water, he walked forward.

Surrounded by the crimson gloom - and an incalculable amount of abominable microscopic killers - he advanced deeper into the blood lake. Its bottom was strangely smooth and regular, hinting at its artificial origin. Well, the whole island was artificial, so Sunny should not have been surprised that this lake, too, had been created by Aletheia of the Nine instead of appearing naturally.

He... was starting to feel nervous.

Wind Flower had described what he had to find and what he needed to do, but she did not know the precise location of their goal. So, Sunny had to search for it himself. Depending on his luck, the search could take a relatively small amount of time, or last very long... the former was fine, but the latter meant certain death.

essence left to maintain the Shadow

'Damn it...'

was still smooth, angled down at a shallow angle, but there were more

had thought that the bone orchard was the only monster graveyard on the island, but he was wrong. It seemed that the blood lake was the place that Aletheia had used to dispose of the

over or walk around had all belonged to Nightmare Creatures that were not made of flesh and bone. Instead, these had been abominations whose monstrous bodies had been

'What a treasury...'

signs of corrosion appearing on the onyx plates of the Mantle, Sunny tried to distract himself from fear by

his armor was in no way inferior to Sunny's Mantle, Fiend was a living being - the invisible killers living in the

tough for the lake to digest... then just

this harrowing place been created by Aletheia of the

thought seemed

not to

By now, the speed of its destruction was only barely slower than the speed with which Sunny was repairing it. The Mantle was on the verge of crumbling, as well. When

Sunny would be devoured by the

is it... where is

the lake was almost flat now, showing that he was close to its center. That was the place where what

almost ready to drown in despair when

steel, a dozen meters in diameter. There were no runes engraved into the ancient

'Finally!'

circle hidden at the bottom of the lake and stopped near it. The metal ring was raised above the surface of the rock by about half a meter. It was hard to see any details in the crimson darkness, so Sunny simply felt its shape with shadow

a few moments, then

thin, almost invisible seam between the outer metal ring and the steel circle encompassed by it. Sunny cautiously inserted the jade jian into that seam and remained motionless

shadows back from the surface of the Mantle and wrapped them around his body. Feeling his strength soar, Sunny ignored the net of cracks that

circle

all his power, pulling

devoured by the tiny horrors of

a dire

circle did not

'Argh!'

muscles were about to explode, but then, finally, he felt the ancient steel give. The heavy circle rose above the metal ring by a centimeter, then a few centimeters more. Without wasting any time, Sunny plunged the Sin of Solace deeper, changed its

was suddenly in