Shadow Slave

1510 King's Resentment

Sunny could not even turn his head to take a better look at the humans that had appeared above the ruined throne room, standing on the edge of the collapsed sections of the dome.

At least he knew now that the army of Twilight was not gone. It was still out there, beyond the walls of the palace, fighting against the invading abominations.

Fighting against the Dread Lord and Soul Stealer.

'Thank the dead gods…'

He had no hope that these few warriors would be able to defeat the dreadful dragon — if they had the ability, there would have been no need to plunge Twilight into the eternal trap of frozen time, to begin with.

But they could at least distract the Dread Lord for a few moments, which would give him an opportunity to somehow rid himself of the command… perhaps. Once Sunny was free and reunited with the other members of the cohort, they would join the defenders of the city and help them slay the Defiled Saints.

He was already planning his next actions when something strange happened.

The people who had climbed the dome of the palace jumped down into the throne room without hesitation. Which wasn't that strange in and of itself… except for the fact that not all of them were equally powerful.

The few Masters among them landed easily, ready to attack the next moment. The Awakened warriors were less graceful, crashing heavily on the marble floor.

Most frightening of all was that there were mundane humans among them, as well. The height of the dome was too great for them to survive the fall. They hit the floor with repulsive sounds, painting it with their blood. Dying senselessly.

'What… what are they doing?'

Witnessing the dreadful scene, Sunny felt horrified.

Dozens of people were emotionlessly jumping to their deaths, not even hesitating before taking the fatal plunge. It was so appalling, so meaningless…

So inhuman.

His eyes widened as a terrible suspicion surfaced in his mind.

As those of the warriors who were strong enough to survive the jump dashed forward to attack their enemy, the harrowing dragon simply swiped his tail, pulverizing their bodies into puddles of blood. A crimson haze spread through the dim twilight of the great hall.

Sunny was suddenly nauseated.

those people… were

cohort entered Twilight… the eerily emotionless faces of

that Nephis had experienced moments before flooded Sunny's mind, forcing him to shudder —

'Impossible, impossible…'

millions of people in Twilight. How could Soul Stealer have possessed them all? What kind of monster could do that? What kind of conscience

ghastly being they had seen in the mirror version

— the reflection of Soul Stealer's own twisted soul — had looked like a repulsive amalgamation of countless humans and Nightmare Creatures,

monster

felt utter despair, but also a strong desire to

he's on

a bad omen? Whenever the Prince of Nothing appeared,

'Calm down.'

devoured all of Twilight, or why he and the Dread

going to help

doomed? The plan had been

can still win,

to be a

his stomach and frightened for Nephis and the rest of his companions, who were lost somewhere out there, on the streets of Twilight, surrounded by the numerous bodies of Soul Stealer. Especially Effie, who was much more vulnerable to the insidious powers of the mirror wraith

do anything about that,

Sunny had his own

a foe far more dreadful than words could describe. And dealing with him… was now up

matter what else happened, the tyrant of Verge had to

fiend… I have to kill

him into the

companions would not be destroyed in the process… in fact, now that they

authority to turn them into deadly weapons

'Damn it all.'

Kai's Ascended Ability. And Kai's Ascended Ability was

possessed a very high resistance to mental attacks, but that resistance was relative. It was enough, for example, to shrug off an order given to him by Kai

complete immunity to mental attacks, however, was much less relative. In fact, it was

Memory that could grant them just that… albeit at a

used the Shroud of Dusk to send Kai a

to me