Shadow Slave

1522 Break of Dawn

Driven to madness by wrath, Sunny was forcing his mangled body to move. His mind was muddled by fury and pain, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stand up, for some reason.

An inferno of dark, malignant rage was consuming his aching heart.

'No, no, no!'

The dragon… the hateful worm… was laying dead on the wet stones, stolen from him. Silver blood was pouring from his opened maw and obliterated eye, slowly spreading across the ruined courtyard. If only there had been more time... if only no one had interfered in their fight... Sunny would have been able to slay the Dread Lord himself. He knew he would.

But the dragon was gone.

And now that he was gone, Sunny's suffocating fury needed a new target.

'Kill, kill them… kill them all… I'll kill them…'

He could sense several shapes through the shadows. The loathsome fly that had stolen his prey, the crippled fiend who had come from the water, and a macabre abomination that had been spawned by a tainted shard of the fiend's soul.

And the most odious of them all… a pale young man wearing a nebulous black mantle, who was looking at him mockingly with a derisive smile.

"Look at you, fool. Mad as a hatter. How pathetic… how familiar… how distasteful..."

Sunny growled.

The abomination was staggering toward him, piercing him with the demented gaze of its rotten eyes. Glass claws were growing from its stump, and twisted fangs were growing from its bloodied maw.

He grinned.

'Good, good…'

He couldn't stand up, for the moment, so the creature was graciously delivering itself to him. Sunny was going to enjoy tearing it apart.

But before he could, a slender rapier pierced the abomination's chest, and a radiant hand grasped its head. The creature glowed with incandescent light, being incinerated from within, and then shattered like a broken mirror.

He howled, his hoarse voice full of indescribable rage.

'No, no!'

stole another from him! Thieves,

them, rip them, savage them,

growled and tried to push his mangled body up, someone approached and halted a mere step away. He looked up and saw a breathtaking young woman looking at him

"I'll… destroy you…"

body apart, but his muddled mind failed to contain the intricate patterns of the manifested forms. The vicious shadow hands crumbled and

kneeled

touch made Sunny

to…

abomination's burned eyes flashed in his mind and

than to see the young woman die,

was then that she spoke, her voice

"Sunny…"

gathered his strength, preparing to lunge at

"Dismiss your crown."

but when he heard those words, his entire being ignited with a harrowing fury. The thought of surrendering his crown filled Sunny with a boundless ocean of frenzied wrath, deep and dark

toward the odious dragon, and vaster than even the hatred he felt

However…

contained in the voice of the young woman was

of the dragon, which had been oppressive and domineering to

a boundless abyss between nearly and

soul respond to the young woman's order, following it obediently, as if he had no will of his own. He

that, though, he still could not even attempt

'She… she ordered me.'

Crown of Twilight dissolved into a whirlwind

with it, Sunny's frenzied

Leaving behind only horror.

Confusion, too… and pain.

ignoring caught up with

was consumed by

with a soft glow, and its comforting warmth chased the pain away. A wave of cleansing white flame spread through his

sense of relief it

only added

the [King's Resentment] enchantment of the Crown of Twilight was like a blur, but the memory of it

'...What happened?'

tired, but he forced

was kneeling in front of him… wearing the Starlight Legion Armor, for some reason. Her striking grey eyes were calm and