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.

together to form a jagged sun. Her radiant

years, since

her core was massive like a giant star, burning furiously in the cold darkness of her desolate soul. Not only that, but her dead flesh could absorb much more

to the

the Great Devil and lashed out with her sword. All of it happened in an instant, too fast to

the sand shifted, raising a hand to swat away her strike. At the

blade was not

sand and

exploded into a cloud of dust, obliterated

nothingness, receiving the cut on his behalf. The abomination sustained no damage at all. It was only affected a little by

shot from his towering figure, moving too

She jumped back, knowing that this advantage of hers

indeed, the silhouette hiding inside the sand tilted its head slightly. Then, the sand settled back onto it, forming the shape of

souls flowed forward like a

«Soul attack.»

Jet gritted her teeth.

going to

off the ground, weaving between the falling pieces of the toppled building to evade the torrent of souls. In her perception, the jagged pieces of torn alloy and shattered concrete were

street turned into a furious battlefield. Two wraiths- one made of mist, the other of sand — clashed in

the sand rustled as

the devastating power unleashed by them, not even a single particle of dust was disturbed by their battle. The pillars of smoke were not torn apart by the hurricane wind, the scorching

attacks. The harrowing storm of phantoms

been happening on the material plane,

turning into a smoldering ruin…

«Damn it…»

She had delivered a rain of blows 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

cutting his soul, she was simply destroying the phantoms he had consumed. And they were indeed legion… there must have been millions of people living in the outskirts, where the Great Devil had been wandering before her arrival, and

victims had Joined the whirlpool of souls, Jet would have

own soul. It was vast and tenacious, true, but in this war of attrition, Jet was still doomed to

this bastard have to wield

and slashed at it with her sword, obliterating another

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

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 — true death, the final and irreversible obliteration of her

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…

pushing her the limits to battle a Great Devil consumed

than that, five powerful souls were bound to her mist blade — if push came to shove, she would consume them one after