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.

messily together to form a jagged sun. Her radiant essence constantly leaked through the gaps between the shards… but, in return, the more living beings she

beings over the years, since that was the

now, 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 essence than that of someone

enough, that physical might also translated to the dire power

Devil and lashed out with her sword. All of it happened

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 palm, repeating

the mist blade was not

passed through the sand and cut deeply into

to their left exploded into a cloud of dust, obliterated

behalf. The abomination sustained no damage at all. It was only

figure, moving too fast to

damage, as well. She jumped back, knowing that this advantage of hers would

its head slightly. Then, the sand settled

the haze of screaming souls flowed forward like a

«Soul attack.»

Jet gritted her teeth.

was going

In her perception, the jagged pieces of torn alloy and shattered concrete were floating down slowly, nearly static. The Great Devil's attack, however, was almost too fast to

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

the sand rustled as it brushed against

single particle of dust was disturbed by their battle. The pillars of smoke were not torn apart by the

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

been happening on the material plane,

into a smoldering ruin… like many other districts of the city

«Damn it…»

the point? Her

been millions of people living in the

Joined the whirlpool of souls, Jet would have to land thousands of strikes to destroy them

to evade, however, dealt direct damage to her own soul. It was vast and tenacious, true, but in this war

did this bastard have

rustling torrent of haze and slashed

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

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 —

few times she

the limits to battle a Great Devil consumed an ocean of soul

wasn't panicked yet, because her reserves were many times deeper than those of most other Saints. More than that, five powerful souls were bound