Shadow Slave

1497 Chain Barrier

The Chain Breaker rose higher, eventually cresting the wall of the floating stronghold and coming to a stop above the ramparts. From there, they could see a bit further into the haze.

Far away to their left, another floating fortress could barely be seen in the dim twilight, just as battered and forlorn as this one. There was one more to their right. All three had been connected by thick chains once, but those had long been torn.

Sunny remained motionless for a moment.

'...It's a barrier to block the Great River.'

There must have been a ring of these fortresses built around Twilight once, with massive chains strung between them both above and beneath the water. That way, the Defiled would have had to break through the chain barrier before reaching the city.

The other choice would have been to dive much deeper and bypass the fearsome barricade of floating fortresses altogether. But that would have left their backs wide open to retaliation by the garrisons of the vanguard strongholds… in any case, it was easy to see that the Defiled had chosen to assault the chain barrier directly.

The fighting seemed to have been especially harrowing in the vicinity of the fallen fortresses. And beyond them…

Sunny shivered.

On the other side of the breached stronghold, there were so many floating corpses that he could barely see the water. It was to such a degree that one could probably walk from here to Twilight without getting their boots wet once.

Frowning, he placed his hand on the railing.

Before he did, however, Sunny hesitated for a moment and looked at his companions.

Mordret…

or at least, he was supposed to be. In truth, it was hard to predict what the devious

the Kingdom of Hope, all in pursuit of power. So, he was not someone who was going to have a problem with destroying the remains of the River Civilization

with the Six Plagues if he thought

was pretty sure that the Plagues needed to either kill or Defile every human in the Tomb of Ariel to win. And, no matter how odious, Mordret was still a human. Unless the Prince of

person who could teach them about Soul Stealer's Flaw, or at least use his knowledge of it to slay

Still…

— if Mordret tried to possess her, he would be incinerated in a radiant inferno

his son

given that Mordret would be able to defeat Effie in a soul battle. But Sunny did not

a moment, he

stay and guard the

frowned a little, but then nodded and forced

guys go and

took a step

The two of them appeared on the battlements below a moment later, while Jet simply jumped down. Cassie glided down with the help of the

and which had been mundane humans — the former were covered only by rotten fabric, their Memory armor long gone. The

looking for was nearby, resting against

man carefully. Soon, Sunny could see the four of them reflected in the polished breastplate of the dead man… a white

hiding in the reflection, but, to his surprise, there

what is that bastard

had anything to do with

Then, however…

from his own reflection. He stared at it, feeling strangely drawn to the polished breastplate… as if an invisible force of attraction