Shadow Slave

A Cursed Tyrant…

Nephis felt an unfamiliar emotion that she couldn't quite describe. Awe, perhaps? Or maybe hatred.

The pure flames of her soul roared, surging restlessly in the presence of the harrowing adversary.

Cursed Nightmare Creatures were… the epitome of terror. Each of them was equal to what a Sacred being would have been — not that there were any of those around. Nevertheless, Sacred beings held a special meaning for humanity.

That was because of what the steps of the Path of Ascension meant, at least as far as humans theorized.

If the Path of Ascension was the road to divinity, then each step brought those treading it closer to godhood. Transcendence was the step of breaking away from the limits of the mundane. Supremacy was the act of asserting one's power over the world, thus establishing the foundation of their future apotheosis.

But it was the next step, which no Awakened of their world had taken before, that signified truly attaining the qualities of the divine. A Sacred being was already a deity, albeit a lesser one.

The same could be said about a Cursed being. The Cursed Tyrant, Condemnation, could very well be called a deity, A profane deity of abyssal Corruption.

And so, in a sense…

Today was the first time Nephis would face a god In battle.

But not the last.

—— —— ——

Time seemed to slow down as Condemnation rose from beneath the ruins. The gargantuan shape of the ancient fiend was still hidden behind the layers of collapsing soil and crumbling buildings, but it was already like a towering mountain. The quaking earth, the scale of it all… seemed more like a natural process than the movements of a living being.

Or rather, unnatural.

might of its defenders. The warriors that wielded the dreadful power of the sorcerous exosuits and the sublime diamond weapons,

save this land, which was now a forgotten

caliber of enemies the civilization of Godgrave had faced

certainly made

awalted the civilization of

to the Dream Realm now… but what would happen if a Cursed Tyrant was attracted by the smell of human souls and

the Dream

Safety… was an illusion.

was a death trap as well. Of that, Nephis

was why the Sovereigns had

had killed her father. Not because they had sent assassins after her and turned her childhood into a cruel nightmare. Not because they had brought the Immortal Flame clan to ruin… although Nephis would lie if she said

even because of the countless

to the task. They were incompetent, strangling humanity's power in pursuit of misguided reasons. Ki Song, Anvil, Asterion — none

thought that their cynical tyranny was for the greater good. But they

chance to defeat them and

had to survive the meeting with this Corrupted

She gritted her teeth.

«There is no escape…»

upon the world. The ruins of this ancient city were Condemnation's territory, and so, its will here was like a

leave. Nephis and

option was

fight. But defeating a Corrupted Tyrant in battle was not something either of them was capable of… even surviving a

was

at the Lord of Shadows and asked, her clear

Ability of yours…