Shadow Slave

The Chalice Knight resembled a human wearing a tattered suit of ancient armor that had turned green from rust. He towered at around two and a half meters of height, but seemed even taller because of the deer antlers attached to his closed helmet. The rusty helmet itself was fashioned to resemble the snout of a snarling beast, with deep darkness nestling in the crack of its visor.

There was moss growing here and there on the battered armor, and a ragged cloak, too weathered to retain any color, hanging from his shoulders like a torn banner.

The creature was holding a frightening battleaxe in his hand, its blade large and heavy enough to easily split a human in two.

The Huntsman... was like a dead knight that had crawled from under the roots of the forest that had claimed an ancient battlefield, ghastly and imposing enough to make Rain shudder.

Worse than that, the dark crack of his visor was already staring directly at her.

Her souls seemed to squirm under that gaze.

'Crap.'

Rain nocked another arrow on the string and prepared to draw her bow...

But before she could, the Huntsman had already reached the base of the tree that served as her sniper nest.

His dreadful battleaxe rose and fell. That dreadful strike was enough to make the mighty trunk of the ancient tree explode into a hurricane of splinters, obliterating a whole swath of it.

But, a moment later...

A sharp arrow fell from above and lodged itself into his knee. It struck precisely at the narrow gap between the bottom of the abominations's cuisse and the top of his poleyn — which were the armor elements responsible for protecting one's thigh and knee, respectively.

A pretty decent shot, considering the situation.

But Rain did not have any time to celebrate, because the tree was already toppling... and she was falling with it.

After a moment of weightlessness, the rope tied around her chest drew taut, and she found herself flying through the air.

a path of retreat. Rain had never considered that climbing a

rope and flying between the trunks of terribly tall trees at

whistled in her ears,

is going to

shock of colliding with another tree at great speed. The other end of the rope was tied around one of its highest branches, which allowed her to swing like a pendulum... well, a badly designed

crack her skull, which was a relief, but her feet were in agony. Ignoring it, Rain immediately cut the

things

grabbed the arrow and spun around, already drawing the

was barreling toward her, so fast that it

wasn't faster

her mind clear, she could sense the movements of her enemy. So, she did not aim at where the abomination was, but at where it

air, striking at his other

arrowhead struck the edge of

an Awakened Demon, while the arrowheads of Rain's arrows

of the same Rank... but she herself was not. Strangely

to do with essence, laws governing the world, and will. Rain wasn't entirely clear on the details, but what it meant in practice was that she had to strike at the cracks of the abomination's armor...

waste

the javelin, Rain...

fast as she

bravery? What courage? There was no such thing on the battlefield, only strength and weakness, life and

Demon would have been impossible, but there was currently an arrowhead lodged in one of his knees. It didn't matter that such a small wound was not at all dangerous for a creature

to take a sizable chunk of flesh out with them. So even if

would have been much better if both of

Because, now...

really did not know if she would be able to

'Run... run!'

loss — not because he was afraid to lose it, but because the quiver of arrows she