Shadow Slave

Chapter 1918 Growing Strength The souls shards were some of those that the engineers had time to scavenge from the corpses of the Nightmare Creatures in the recent battle. That task was important enough that it had to be completed even in the middle of the most terrifying clashes... after all, with every soldier that managed to fully saturate their soul core, the strength of the Song Army grew.

Tamar had long saturated hers, so the share of their cohort was divided three ways between Rain, Fleur, and Ray.

Today, that meant that Rain received about a dozen shards. The rewards were distributed according to the contribution of a cohort, and theirs always performed exemplary... granted, in a chaotic situation like this one, no one was actually keeping score — usually, the centurions would make reports to legion command after the battle, and the allocation of spoils would be decided later on. But their centurion was dead, and the battle was not even over yet. So... Rain felt lucky to even receive anything.

All of these shards were of a higher Rank than Rain herself was, as well. It was a sizeable boon.

Forgetting her worries for a few minutes, she concentrated on shattering the shimmering crystals in her fist.

And look at that! She did not even need to use the pommel of her knife to break them. Just her Awakened strength was enough.

'I'll never grow used to it...'

A stray grin somehow found its way onto Rain's face.

She had not been Awakened for long, so the novelty of possessing superhuman strength was yet to lose its luster. She loved the feeling of being strong, of being powerful... after all, it was the feeling of powerlessness that had instilled into her the desire to step on the path of Ascension all those years ago, to begin with. Rain still remembered the day when a Nightmare Gate opened near her school clearly. The panic, the dazed faces of the students, the teachers who tried to look calm in front of the children, but still couldn't hide their fear.

She was supposed to die on that day, most likely. But through a twist of fate, somehow, she survived. An Awakened warrior appeared out of nowhere at the last moment, shielding Rain from the lunging abomination and slaying it with a single slash of her sword.

Rain's memories of that Awakened were strangely blurry... well, it wasn't that surprising, considering her mental stare at that moment. She vaguely remembered a graceful black armor, a feminine silhouette, and a cold indifference with which the unknown woman cut down one Nightmare Creature after another, not letting a single one pass.

had survived, as well. And Rain... Rain had come to know that she never wanted to feel that weak again. For her parents,

antics and unreasonable demands, wondering why she was putting herself through all that grief... but she had never once regretted her decision to strive for strength, and had

die feeling gratified for having chosen strength over weakness. Strength... was a bit intoxicating, like a sweet

with each soul shard she absorbed, Rain

Godgrave was of a higher Rank than Rain, her core was supposed to be getting close to

unclear on how to Ascend without the help of the Spell, but

that stupid

Rain glanced at Ray and winked

to be an archer. How is the frontline duty treating you,

teeth and hissed

a low

She simply laughed.

not laughed for long when a

formation!

but not very surprised by the sudden command — no one had expected to get a good rest in the Hollows. But why

enough, they

"By the dead gods..."

all the way to the surface, flowing down their twisting Width like a tide. The engineers, who had been desperately trying to

a good decision — just a handful of seconds later, the first Nightmare Creature fell from above, its