Shadow Slave

The monstrous Spire Messenger tore apart the gelid wind as it raced across the frigid vastness of the twilight sky. Behind it, a churning wall of dancing snow crawled slowly, devouring the world like a hungry beast.

There was a gaunt figure kneeling on the back of the flying monster, clutching at its black feathers with an onyx gauntlet.

Sunny did not look back, knowing that Serpent was much faster than the pursuing titan. In that, at least, they held an advantage.

'It will catch up soon enough, though.’

He was contemplating the results of sacrificing his swarm of thralls.

None of them had been able to withstand the lethal cold of the Winter Beast's domain for long, which meant that there was no type of resistance that could help Sunny survive there - at least none he could find in a short amount of time.

The thralls had perished swiftly, sapped of warmth of life. Their bodies fell into the snow, slowly turning into ice sculptures.

The conclusion, then... was that Sunny had to use something other than a living being to reach the heart of the snowstorm. That would suggest that an undead creature would fare better, but that was not true, There had been a few ghouls among the thralls, and they died just the same.

'But there is a much simpler solution.’

He didn't have to enter the heart of the sinister blizzard himself or send one of his Shadows. He could simply... use an Inanimate object.

A projectile.

the simplest solution was most often the correct one. The best way to kill the Winter Beast was to simply bring down a deluge of ranged attacks on its head... or

had not been able to do something like that in the past because there was no telling where the titan's actual manifestation hid within the vast snowstorm. Now, however... his shadow sense could extend across many kilometers. Even if he failed to find the Winter Beast's precise location, he could at least pinpoint the general

that thing even has a physical body. For all I know, it could

a ranged attack across such a vast distance. Not only was it physically hard, but the fatal cold and the hurricane wind raging within the snowstorm would become an obstacle... the closer one got

there was a will, there was a

will was killing intent..., someone was going to die by the end of their battle, one way

the frigid

***

onyx scales. That wall, of course, was Serpent's side - his Shadow's Soul Beast form

was still far from reaching Daeron's size, of course, but it was rather daunting nevertheless. Its

of the destroyed siege capital was buried under lava rock and snow, with only a few ravaged structures protruding

tall peak of Mount Erebus behind him. In front of him,

dropping by the minute, and the winds were growing

with a frozen expression. The deep darkness of his eyes was cold and placid... like the surface of an

finally arrived,

finally looked up, studying the distant snowstorm. Its approach was deceptively slow, but he knew

its voice

to start,

words hung in the frigid air for a moment and were swiftly swallowed by the howling of

split second

The world shook.