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.

sphere of shattered crystal, countless shards pressed messily together to form a jagged sun. Her radiant essence constantly leaked

beings over the years, since that

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 who was truly

might also translated to

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

the sand shifted, raising a hand to swat away her strike. At the same time, the sand rose like a

the mist blade was not

and cut deeply into the ancient fiend's

exploded into a cloud of dust, obliterated by the giant

Kanakht dissolved into nothingness, receiving the cut on his behalf. The abomination sustained no damage

thousand spears of sand shot from his towering figure, moving

ghostly figure without doing any damage, as well. She jumped back, knowing that this advantage of

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

of screaming souls flowed forward like a raging river, threatening to tear

«Soul attack.»

Jet gritted her teeth.

was going

her perception, the jagged pieces of torn alloy and shattered concrete were floating down slowly, nearly static.

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

as it brushed

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 flames were not extinguished. The ground did not quake, and the sky

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

had been happening on the material plane,

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

«Damn it…»

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

of 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 very few had

percent of the victims had Joined the whirlpool of souls, Jet would have to

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

did this bastard have

rustling torrent of haze and slashed

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

of their essence simply meant enduring a period of powerlessness and

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… well, she didn't really want to remember them. She had done a few

the limits to battle a

reserves were many times deeper than those of most other Saints. More than that, five powerful souls were bound to her mist blade — if push came to