Shadow Slave

A wide street was shrouded in darkness, framed by the burning buildings and billowing smoke. The ground was littered with rubble and broken vehicles. Here and there, human bodies lay in the pools of blood, covered with dust.

A woman with raven-black hair and icy blue eyes was standing in the middle of the ruined road, holding a black sickle sword.

In front of her, a towering figure was moving slowly across the rubble, each of its steps exerting an invisible pressure on the world. The creature was surrounded by a haze of swirling sand, with only a vague silhouette of a gaunt human visible behind its veil.

A thousand screaming souls shrouded the ancient devil like a mantle.

Jet looked at him coldly.

«I hear that you are called the Heart of Kanakht… nice to meet you. I am called Soul Reaper Jet.»

A dark smile appeared on her pale face.

«This is my city. So, prepare to die.»

The Great Devil halted, looking down at her through the veil of sand. The whirlwind of souls surrounding it parted, revealing two gaping pools of darkness, Ghostly flames ignited in their depths, piercing her with a gaze of indescribable malice.

And hunger.

Then, a rustle of a myriad of whispers rose like a tide, enveloping her in a cold embrace.

Jet did not know the words of the ancient language the fiend spoke, but understood them regardless with the help of the Spell:

«…Broken… thing… bow, submit, surrender. Succumb…»

She felt a powerful compulsion press her into the ground, as if a thousand invisible hands were pulling her soul down.

However…

The weight of her shattered soul was too great for them to move it even by a millimeter.

Jet's smile widened.

She raised her sword and took a step forward.

«…In your dreams.»

A split second later, her ghostly figure dashed toward the Devil.

an unusual soul. Her core was like a vast sphere of shattered crystal, countless shards pressed messily together to form a jagged sun. Her radiant essence constantly leaked through the gaps between the shards… but,

since that was the only

desolate soul. Not only that, but

might also translated to the dire power of her

her

hidden in the sand shifted, raising a hand to swat away her strike. At the same time, the sand rose like a giant palm, repeating

the mist blade was

sand and cut deeply into the

their left exploded into a cloud of dust, obliterated by the giant hand of

nothingness, receiving the cut on his behalf. The abomination sustained no damage at all. It was only affected a little by the lethargic power of the black khopesh, shrugging it off a

his towering figure, moving too fast to be dodged

damage, as well. She jumped back, knowing that this advantage of hers would not

the silhouette hiding inside the sand tilted its head slightly. Then, the sand settled back

forward like a

«Soul attack.»

Jet gritted her teeth.

was going to

the toppled building to evade the torrent of souls. In her perception, the jagged pieces of torn alloy and shattered concrete were floating down slowly, nearly static. The

burning street turned into a furious battlefield. Two wraiths- one made of mist, the other of sand — clashed in eerie silence, no

as it

a single particle of dust was disturbed by their battle. The pillars of smoke were not torn apart by the hurricane wind, the scorching flames were

so were her attacks. The harrowing storm of phantoms pursuing her was

had been happening

turning into a smoldering ruin… like many other districts

«Damn it…»

was the point? Her insidious power, which had served her splendidly across countless battlefields, was almost entirely useless against the vile power of the Heart

he had consumed. And they were indeed legion… there must have been millions

had Joined the whirlpool of souls,

damage to her own soul. It was

bastard have to

torrent of haze and slashed at it with

were not actual beings, but instead parts of the Great Devil — therefore, destroying them did not

fears… perhaps even her only true fear. For all other Awakened, losing all of their essence simply meant enduring a period of powerlessness and not feeling well. But to her, it meant death — true death, the final

few times she had come close to exhausting all her essence… well, she didn't really want to

limits to battle a Great Devil consumed an ocean of

were many times deeper than those of most other Saints. More than that, five powerful souls were bound to