Shadow Slave

Chapter 1897 Above and Below The top floors of the ancient castle had been destroyed, torn apart by the devastating explosion. The floors below were an inferno of raging flames and billowing smoke. Scorching heat permeated the suffocating darkness, and burning walls were crumbling as they fell down, into the surging waters of the distant lake.

In that hell, someone coughed hoarsely, and a pile of debris suddenly moved. A delicate woman threw aside a smoldering support beam that weighed several tons and slowly rose to her feet, her beautiful face smeared with ash.

At almost the same time, another figure rose from the floor, looking around with cold intensity. It was a young woman with silver hair, wearing a severely damaged suit of lustrous armor. In one hand, she was holding a silver sword. In the other, a broken black torch was dissolving into a whirlwind of white sparks.

Neph's ivory skin was just as pristine as it had been before. Moonveil's body, however, was covered in gruesome burns. She let out a pained hiss and staggered slightly, looking at Nephis with a tortured grimace.

Eventually, her lips parted.

"...You are a Shaper."

Moonveil's voice was full of barely contained shock. It was commendable that she knew about Shaping and managed to recognize it — after all, there were no true practitioners of that extinct sorcery left in modern day... at least none that Nephis knew of, apart from herself.

She took a step in Moonveil's direction, preparing to lunge into an all—out attack. "Barely."

Time was short.

Nephis had indeed invoked the True Name of Fire and woven it into a simple Phrase to cause the powerful explosion. Her own Aspect was suppressed, so she had used the black torch as the source flame.

The result had exceeded her expectations, but it was not nearly enough to win the battle.

Nephis had escaped the explosion mostly unscathed, since she was all but immune to all kinds of fire except for her own. The Reflections would be relatively fine, as well — they were far too powerful to be destroyed by a mere conflagration. So, she had only a few precious moments to deal with Moonveil. Moonveil, meanwhile, had suffered the most damage.

Not only because she was a mere Transcendent Beast, but also because Nephis was still burning her essence to channel the True Name of Destruction. Invoking it demanded a lot from the Shaper, but it was worth it for a killer like her. Calling upon Destruction did not summon a bolt of lightning from the heavens to smite her enemies, and it did not crush them like a shockwave, either.

Instead, the result of invoking that True N amc was insidious and subtle. Nephis had not been falsely modest when she answered Moonveil's question — her mastery of Shaping was indeed rudimentary and devoid of nuance. She had fathomed a fair deal of Names thanks to Ananke's lessons and her Aspect Legacy, but the ways she could channel them were crude, and her Phrases were primitive.

Still, even on her lips, the True Name of Destruction was a fearsome instrument. If she simply channeled it without much guidance, her attacks would become more destructive than they were supposed to be. If she connected it to an enemy's name — and more so their True Name —then the enemy would become cursed, as if a mystical hex had been placed on them.

Every cut they received would be deeper, and every blow they endured would bruise more. That was why Moonveil had suffered the most from the explosion. It was as if the world itself was being reshaped to destroy her.

Such was the power of Shaping — the power to bend the world to one's will. Perhaps it was because Nephis had been stripped of her Aspect, becoming powerless for the first time in many years, that she saw Shaping from a new perspective in that moment.

‘Will…’

force one's will upon the world? She was commanding the flames, and she had placed the spell of destruction on Moonveil. Both of those things were bending the world to fit her desires. Of course, she was not achieving that with

she had to tread

there was a booming crash, and one of the Reflections tore through a burning wall, its saber slicing

now. She was still channeling its True Name, so she exerted her will

chosen the most promising strategy — to disregard the Reflections and aim

of concentration

second

a skilled swordsman

steel bit deeply into Neph's side through the breach in her mangled armor, and

trained, seasoned warrior would have reacted, trying to save themselves or reeling back. At the very least, they would have

at all, as if pain did not matter to her. As if being cut by a sharp blade

her body just a moment before the saber slashed her flesh — not to avoid it, but to make sure that it struck her ribs instead of plunging into her

sword left a bloody mark on Moonveil's body, forcing the princess of Song to

the bloody wound on her side, Nephis continued her assault. Her face was impassive,

anymore. Even if being cut by a sharp blade was a mild and meager torment, this wound was only one of many she would have to receive in

with Moonveil, eerily indifferent to the excruciating agony and the harm being done to her body, the princess of

asked, a curious smile

kind of

down and said in her

"Monster?"

it flashed in the air,

into a perilous thrust in

a

****

let out a pained cry and rolled down the stone stairs, leaving a bloody trail in his wake. His Transcendent form had long crumbled, and

was breached in half a dozen places.

in a hurry to finish

"Curses..."