Shadow Slave

As ash rained from the sky and the ground quaked, Sunny inhaled deeply and extended his shadow sense as far as he could. Soon, his mind was flooded with an avalanche of sensory data, almost making him dizzy.

He was still unaccustomed to how vast his sight was now. Of course, he didn't actually see anything... but after years of perceiving the shapes and movements of the shadows, it was not much different. Sunny had tested his limits while relying on his shadow sense to stay alive in the ocean, but the dark depths were different from land. They were unfathomable and empty, with nothing but the cold currents to see.

Here in the Antarctic Center, though, there was almost too much to sense.

Further, further, and further still... Sunny filtered out the useless data to keep his Transcendent mind from overloading and reached across many kilometers of cracking ice toward the approaching snowstorm.

Soon, he sensed the shadows trembling from the lethal cold. Even they were not spared from the cruel tyranny of the Winter Beast.

'Somewhere between forty and fifty kilometers.... this is as far as I can reach.’

His shadow sense reached further than his actual sight, which was limited due to the curvature of Earth. And yet, it wasn't enough to find the heart of the vast blizzard - at least not until it got closer and enveloped him.

'Still, it is already close enough for the initial greeting.’

Sunny extended a hand. A thin pillar of darkness rose from the ground, growing to stand at almost twice his height. Then, it solidified, turning into a inky-black javelin with a needle-sharp tip. He grasped and weighed it, looking at the towering wall of swirling snow with a cold expression.

He had created the javelin in the image of the Siege Souvenir - a similar weapon he had once fashioned to slay Goliath. The original Souvenir had been made from the quill of a Corrupted abomination, while this one was merely a manifested shadow. However, that shadow had been suffused with his Transcendent essence, and was thus equal to a Transcendent weapon.

A uniquely powerful one at that, due to the fact that his soul had been altered by Soul Weave.

real Siege Souvenir had possessed. Still... it

Using the full augmentation of his five shadows, he infused a torrent of essence into his muscles and tendons, pushed against the ground with his feet, and strained

it, the

exploded from under his feet, and a thunderous boom tore through the roaring of the eruption. There was an invisible shockwave that pushed the snow and the

was like a black comet as it shot across the lightless sky, Its speed

It actually took it an entire minute to reach the wall of snow and disappear into it. Twenty or so seconds later, Sunny felt his connection to the

and shatter into countless shards of

of his

‘...Not enough.’

racing to swallow him

about twenty-five times heavier than an average artillery shell, Still, I would need

grimaced with displeasure. All these mathematics... was not exactly what he had wanted. What he had wanted was to get up close and personal with the Winter Beast, and feel its blood flow

gotten exactly what he wanted. He had

Much more important was the fact that the javelin had been able to survive for

he still did not know how long his missiles would last in the

his head, let out a resentful sigh,

boring affair, isn't

raised its gargantuan head into the air and hissed, perhaps expressing

Sunny smiled.

it a