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

over the years, since that was the

that, but her

to

out with her sword. All of it happened

at all mundane. The figure hidden in the sand shifted, raising a hand to swat away her strike. At the same time, the sand rose like a giant

blade was not swept

it passed through the sand and cut

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

sustained no damage at all. It was only affected a little

of sand shot from his towering figure, moving too fast to be dodged at such a close

She jumped back, knowing that this advantage of hers would not last

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

flowed forward like a raging river, threatening

«Soul attack.»

Jet gritted her teeth.

was going

torrent of souls. In her perception, the jagged pieces of torn alloy and shattered concrete were

into a furious battlefield. Two wraiths- one made of

rustled as it

The pillars of smoke were not torn apart by the hurricane wind, the scorching flames were not extinguished. The ground did not quake, and the sky did not

intangible, and so were her attacks. The harrowing storm of phantoms pursuing her

had been happening on

might have already been flattened, turning into a smoldering ruin… like many

«Damn it…»

to the ancient fiend… but what 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 of

simply destroying the phantoms he had consumed. And they were indeed legion… there must have been millions of people living in

one percent of the victims had Joined the whirlpool of souls,

the attacks she failed to evade, however, dealt direct damage to her own soul. It was vast and tenacious, true, but in this war of attrition, Jet was

this bastard have

a rustling torrent of haze and slashed at it with

but instead parts of the Great Devil — therefore, destroying them

was one of Jet's 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

wasn't sure that she would be able to control herself when facing this slow and excruciating dissolution. The few times she had come close to exhausting all her essence…

limits to battle a Great Devil

other Saints. More than that, five powerful souls were bound to her mist blade — if push came to