Shadow Slave: Foreign shadow

Attribute: [Enthralled]

​Sunny stared at the runes of that nefarious attribute as if he were looking into the maw of an Eldritch horror.

​He knew exactly what it meant. Anyone familiar with the story knew what an Enthralling did. It was a mental assault—a subtle, imperceptible, and total brainwashing that slowly dissolved your ego until you were nothing more than a hollow puppet, a vessel void of will.

​”Boy, we had an agreement. Your answer?” Goliath pressed, his voice cutting through Sunny’s spiraling thoughts. Though eerily calm, the giant could no longer fully mask his rising impatience.

​Sunny looked at the Master before him with a fresh, visceral terror. He didn’t think. He didn’t strategize. He simply acted.

​Lunging forward, Sunny jammed both hands beneath the heavy wooden table, heaving it upward with every ounce of strength he possessed. Goliath, caught completely off guard by the sudden outburst, watched in disbelief as the entire spread of dinner and finery collapsed toward him. Fresh meat and dark wine cascaded over the Champion.

​Sunny didn’t stay to watch. He spun on his heel, bolting for the exit with a desperate, frantic energy.

​He was mere inches from the threshold when a massive hand clamped onto his crimson mantle.

With a violent jerk, Sunny was hauled back into the depths of the tent and flung through the air, his body slamming hard against the flat of the greatsword propped against the side.

​The massive blade fell over with a heavy, metallic thud; Sunny hit the ground a second later. Fortunately, the leather armor absorbed the brunt of the impact, saving his ribs.

He scrambled to find his footing, but before he could even draw a breath, a hand clamped around his throat, pinning him flat against the floor.

​Sunny clawed at the giant’s fingers, his legs thrashing in a vain attempt to break free. Looking up, he saw the Champion of War looming over him. Despite being drenched in spilled wine and scraps of food, Goliath remained unsettlingly, ethereally calm. His grip wasn’t tight enough to crush Sunny’s windpipe—he could still breathe—but it was an immovable iron shackle that allowed no escape.

​”You... liar! You bastard! You aren’t even from the Empire, are you? You’ve lied to me this whole time—you aren’t a Child of War, you’re of Heart!” Sunny spat, his voice a jagged snarl. He thrashed against the floor, accusing his captor of every false premise of friendship as he struggled to break the iron grip. The lingering fog of the Enthrallment had finally shattered.

​Goliath laughed—a deep, booming sound filled with genuine delight. ”Oh, boy,” he said, his composed mask finally beginning to hairline-fracture. ”I don’t believe you’re in any position to demand anything. But why not? I’m feeling generous today.”

​”You are right that I am not of War. However, you are dead wrong about the rest. I have not lied to you—not once.”

​Sunny stared at the Champion in utter disbelief. The Master’s gaze held no trace of deceit, yet every instinct Sunny possessed screamed at him to trust nothing.

​”I did not lie when I told you I buried your woman with her honor intact,” Goliath began, his voice steadying. ”A warrior’s dignity must never be stained, not even in death.

​Nor did I lie when I said I wished to thank you for solving that headache with the old slave. I must admit, your luck is otherworldly. Had you murdered anyone else, before or after him, I would have been forced to execute you on the spot.

​And I certainly wasn’t joking when I said I was waiting for your answer, boy. In fact, I truly hope it is what I think it is.” He concluded with a grin that revealed the raw, naked bloodlust befitting a General of War.

​Sunny listened, doubting every syllable. He could believe the part about Thene—he’d overheard guards whispering about it while drifting in and out of consciousness—but the rest felt like a masterfully woven tapestry of truths and half-lies. Even if the giant was being honest, Sunny couldn’t afford to believe it.

​Goliath wasn’t finished yet. ”Truth be told, if you hadn’t caught my interest the moment I saw you at the Shadow Temple, I wouldn’t have even bothered putting you in chains. I would have let you slip away with the other survivors. Even a man like me finds the Empire’s slave trade... repulsive. Believe me! That is why I always release the women, children, and the elderly. They only slow us down, and lust saps the strength of my soldiers—energy that belongs solely to the conflict.”

​As he spoke of slavery, Goliath’s voice shifted. The eerie calm evaporated, replaced by a low, vibrating rage.

​”And what exactly are you implying when you say I ’caught your interest’?” Sunny asked. He stopped struggling, though he didn’t lower his guard for a second.

​Goliath chuckled. ”In my clash with the Priestess of Shadows at the Temple, I used my Enthralling to put you to sleep, fearing you might interfere. But something was wrong. No matter how hard I pressed, I couldn’t break you. The best I could do was chain you with fear—a crushing sense of helplessness to keep you still.”

​Sunny froze. A white-hot fury bubbled up in his chest. He hadn’t been a coward; he had been made to believe he was one. Slowly, his hands went limp against the floor.

​”When I discovered that [the Heart] flowed through your veins despite you being a creature of Shadow, I grew curious. So, I looked into the depths of your soul while you held your dying woman—when you were at your most vulnerable. What I saw then nearly blinded me: a shadow so vast it could swallow the sun and the stars themselves.”

’​[Shadow Weave],’ Sunny thought instinctively.

​”So, as I asked you then, I ask you now: ’What do you intend to do?’ And by the Gods, I hope your answer is to kill me. Because one day, I wish to face that shadow in a duel to the death—and I intend to savor every single second of the slaughter.” Goliath’s crimson eyes flared with a manic, intense light.

​Sunny shivered. Only now did the sheer scale of the man’s madness become clear. Goliath wasn’t just a battle-hardened fanatic; he was a maniac of War to his very marrow.

He didn’t just seek targets; he cultivated his own executioners.

​If he released slaves, if he kept Sunny alive, it wasn’t out of honor or mercy. Goliath was gambling on the chance that they would grow strong, fueled by hate, and return for vengeance—all just to feed his hunger for the ecstasy of slaughter. His war had no end, no higher purpose, and no desire for Life.

’​But why? Why would a Child of Heart—people known for peace and cultivation—crave this hell?’ The questions swirled in Sunny’s mind, but he knew no answer was coming.

​Goliath was a Child of Heart, baptized in the blood of War. An anomaly among his people, and a traitor to everything they represented.

​A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the room. Neither of them moved.

​Slowly, Goliath released his hold on the boy’s throat, leaving no marks behind. The giant straightened up, standing before Sunny with his usual stoic calm—the image of a benevolent commander once more.

​Sunny rose slowly, his gaze fixed on the floor as he found his footing. His expression was as unreadable as it was vacant. For a moment, they simply stood there, face to face. Both wore the same leather armor and the same crimson mantle, yet the alloys of their mail differed, and their capes billowed with distinct, clashing intensities.

​”My turn,” Goliath said finally, watching the boy stand tall. ”Well then... your answer?”

​Sunny didn’t make him wait. He quietly lifted his head. Their eyes met—the Champion of War, a flickering, evanescent crimson; the Shadow, an unfathomable abyss.

​”You disgust me,” Sunny said.

​Goliath blinked. He was genuinely taken aback. Then, he let out a rich, hearty laugh. ”Ah! I disgust you? You have spine, boy. No one has ever dared to spit such foul words at me.”

He spoke with a cheerful, almost playful tone, but his grin remained wicked.

​”You know,” Sunny added, his voice cold and steady, ”when I first walked into this tent, a part of me thought: this man possesses a mythical, magnetic strength. He radiates a stoic presence. Only now do I realize I was blinded by a delusion.” There was no fear left in his eyes. No respect. No awe. Sunny was looking at the Master before him the way one observes a parasitic tick.

​This time, the words began to pierce the Champion’s armor of pride.

​”I thought you were imposing, but you’re just... petulant. Worse, you’re rotten to the core. There is no limit to your greed; you are a black hole devouring everything until you collapse under your own mass. A selfish wretch who thinks only of his own satisfaction.”

​Goliath laughed louder, more amused than ever. ”Selfish?” He gestured to himself with his lone hand. ”You honor me, boy. Don’t you know that the greatest men were, first and foremost, great egoists?”

​”That would be two questions in a row,” Sunny noted sharply. ”But let’s not belabor the obvious. Yes, they were egoists. But their selfishness served a goal at the end of their path. You? You have no destination. You spin around a center of gravity you built out of a spiral of murder and carnage—no peace, no end. You prate about honor and values, but it’s a pathetic, ridiculous facade. You have no honor. You have no purpose. You are as hollow and unsustainable as the iron of your greatsword. Incapable of finding peace, incapable of living outside your own circle of blood.”

​”You want me to kill you? So be it, Goliath—Champion of War, Child of Heart.” Sunny spat the titles with blatant mockery. ”But know this. There will be no epic battle. No honor. No joy. There will only be you, begging me, pleading for an end to your agony. You will spend your final moments repenting for every sin, thinking of your creators in the afterlife—who will look down upon you with nothing but overflowing disappointment. This is not a promise, Goliath. It’s simply your unavoidable solace.”

​The silence returned, but this time it was different. The Champion of War did not retort; his mask of calm finally shattered. Sunny’s words had bruised him deeper than any blade could.

​Wounded in his pride, Goliath unleashed his Enthralling once more, intending to crush the boy under a weight of visceral terror and excruciating pain.

​It had no effect.

​Now that Sunny saw his enemy for what he truly was, the man could no longer inspire fear. His lineages—[Shadow Weave] and [the Heart]—clashed against the mental assault, blocking it entirely. It was an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object. An unyielding wall of shadows that blotted out the sun. A force that had long ago lost its luster.

​To an outside observer, it looked as though the world was about to end. Who would move first?

Neither.

​In the very next instant, a massive seismic jolt rocked the earth, sending them both staggering to the ground as the world began to scream.