Shadow Slave

1512 Chaos and Mayhem

Somewhere far away, Mordret was in a similar situation. Of course, he did not possess the physical strength, speed, and resilience of Changing Star of the Immortal Flame clan… however, he did possess his own arsenal of tricks.

'I wonder…'

He had escaped into a section of the city where the ground had been broken by some titanic blow. Shallow water covered the cracked cobblestones, with ruined buildings rising from it like islands. The twilight sky reflected in the water, turning it into a beautiful painting of soft colors.

Mordret was using the reflections to stay ahead of his pursuers.

Countless human figures were surrounding him, their weapons hungry for his blood.

'If I try to possess one of them, what would happen?'

Usually, he would have to bet his life against the soul of his victim, armed only with their reflected power. But these warriors had no souls — they had long been destroyed by Soul Stealer… that impostor. So, would Mordret have to battle against the soul of the Defiled Saint? Or the reflection of the dead victim's soul? Whose power would he be able to reflect?

He was both curious and reluctant to find out.

'Not just yet, at least.'

Dodging a swift sword, Mordret pierced the attacker's throat, dodged another strike, and jumped back. A subtle frown appeared on his face.

'Inconvenient…'

The worst part about slaughtering these hollow vessels was that they were just that — vessels. There were no souls inside the bodies of the taken warriors, and so, he was not growing stronger from killing them. Otherwise, Mordret would have been able to slowly restore his Monster Core… maybe even the Demon Core, if he was diligent and lucky.

With those, he could create a new Reflection or two. Without them, things were proving difficult.

He would have preferred slaughtering actual people, instead.

'What was it that Sunless likes to say?'

He emotionlessly cut down a young woman wearing an archaic garment and sighed.

'Damnation?'

the reflected sky, he appeared a few hundred meters away, in the

impostor has a

hadn't Soul Stealer taken these abominations, as

a lumbering monstrosity. Finally, he

the souls of those already taken by the Defilement was harder? No, it wouldn't be… Mordret had slain plenty of Nightmare Creatures that

Why?

He lingered suddenly.

'Don't tell me…'

be infected by the Defilement during the soul battle, all but dooming

Defiled? Mordret wanted none of that. Because it ran contrary to his goals, of course, but mostly because the impostor…

level of power that

his cunning,

and abominations alike — had rotted Soul Stealer's mind, turning him into

penetrate the carapace of another Nightmare Creature. He had killed a few already, using the rest to stall the Soul Stealer's

'Ah…'

he pulled

next moment, Mordret's eyes grew empty, while the warrior's eyes ignited with sinister intelligence. A moment after that, Mordret's own body plunged into the

Warren, and wielding his Aspect, he dove under the

more… and

was okay if Warren's body was destroyed — he had plenty more to choose from, some of which he had hidden from Changing Star and her

what was

Mordret continued to coldly kill the Defiled,

killed them? So what if he regained a few soul

For once, he saw no way to survive, let alone win. Even his usual path of escape was cut off, since Soul Stealer was perfectly capable of haunting the reflections, as

to die here, in this

too ironic? Poetic, even. To die by his

Mordret's spirit up, though. It was that girl, Cassia… Song of the

blind witch was not as simple as she looked. Someone like her had to have something planned, without

Soul Stealer had gone through the same ritual as Mordret. Neither of them was easy to perceive through divination… how else would that monster have escaped Torment's gaze and rebelled against the

'Ah… I don't know.'