Shadow Slave

‘Kill, kill…’

Chanting the word over and over again in his head, Sunny struggled to stay alive as the Vile Thieving Bird assaulted him with a hurricane of devastating attacks. He was using that word to stay sane — or rather, to drive himself into the right kind of madness.

The battle madness that took over the minds of those who gave themselves completely to the stark world of combat, stepping into a state that went beyond the usual trance of clarity.

A state of mind so clear that it eradicated all things and concepts that did not have something to do with the singular purpose of killing the adversary.

The ghastly agony he was enduring was actually of help in that regard. It washed away most of what would have gotten in the way of combat, leaving behind only the primal, bestial determination to destroy its own source.

The Vile Thieving Bird.

Sunny could not help but let out a thunderous bellow when its talons tore open his side. He gritted his teeth when its beak destroyed a part of his shoulder. He groaned when its wing struck him in the chest, the black feathers cutting him like razor blades.

The Jade Mantle was being shredded like paper…

His soul was being shredded, as well.

It had already sustained plenty of damage — but, luckily, it could sustain numerous times more.

Sunny was slowly realizing that luck was actually on his side in this harrowing battle. He knew it because the Vile Thieving Bird was only using its beak, talons, and boundless madness in its attempts to destroy it — even though it was capable of much more.

It was capable of stealing his Aspect, for example. It could steal his resolve or his reason. It could steal something bizarre, like his ability to know the difference between right and left, or his memory of having learned swordsmanship.

It could even steal his skill as a warrior and use it in his stead.

However, it didn’t.

Not because Sunny was powerful enough to resist it, but simply because…

‘I can’t even believe it.’

Simply because the Vile Thieving Bird liked shiny things, and nothing about Sunny was shiny. In fact, everything about him was the opposite of shiny — dark, lightless, and dreary — and so, the Thieving Bird had no interest whatsoever in taking any part of him. The thought simply never crossed its demented mind.

So, in a sense, Sunny was the worst possible opponent for the loathsome Terror to fight. That was the reason he had managed to stay alive for so long while enduring the fury of the Cursed Terror.

He wasn’t going to stay alive indefinitely, though, and Nephis was not dealing enough damage to the Vile Thieving Bird to kill it before Sunny was completely destroyed. Which meant that Sunny was going to have to abandon his elusive dance and go on the offensive soon.

And Nephis was going to have to get serious about delivering as much punishment to the Cursed Terror as possible, throwing everything she had into the fight without looking back.

For now — for a few moments more — they were testing the limits of the Vile Thieving’s Bird Will and vitality, searching for a way to make their final assault count. Waiting for the right moment.

And soon, that moment finally presented itself…

Or rather, there was a moment that, as both of them felt, was as good as it was going to get.

As Sunny’s soul received another harrowing wound, a monstrous form fell from the sky and scurried in a crescent around the Cursed Terror, lashing out at him with a thousand scythe-like legs.

That was Serpent, wounded and bleeding, having assumed the form of the Ember Queen — the Great Tyrant who had ruled the Black Millipedes once.

The Ember Queen was not the most lethal form among those Serpent could assume, but she was the most elusive, existing in the moment between the present and the future. And since Serpent was already severely wounded and faced an adversary that could easily destroy it, defense meant more for it at the moment than raw offensive power.

Serpent wasn’t the only one who joined the fight against the Vile Thieving Bird, though. Sunny had bought enough time for Ananke to finish wiping out the stolen shades.

So, first, a black arrow suddenly pierced the fabric of the world and buried itself in one of the Thieving Bird’s eye, the force of the impact making its head sway. That was Slayer releasing the string of her bow.

At the same time, a towering knight whose armor seemed to be forged from black jade slammed into the side of the Cursed Terror, her shield producing a devastating shockwave.

A vast web of silver silk fell from above, entangling the terrifying Nightmare Creature, each thread biting into its hide like razor-wire. The Thieving Bird halted for a split second… And as it slowed down, momentarily rattled by the assault of three Supreme beings, an avalanche of shades threw themselves at it, flooding it from all sides.

It was as if a wave of darkness collided with the Thieving Bird, threatening to bury it under the crushing mass of silent warriors. The shades were far too weak to survive in a battle with a Cursed Terror, so they were staging this suicide attack to deal as much damage as possible in the short time before all of them were vanquished by the Thieving Bird.

But in the few moments before that happened…

The loathsome Terror was at its weakest. Its Will was not focused anymore, spreading thin to press all its enemies — the three Supremes, Saint and Slayer, and an army of shades — into the ground.

That was the moment Nephis chose to deliver its most devastating attack, as well as the point of no return for all of them. High in the sky, the radiant figure of Changing Star, the Star of Ruin, suddenly blazed with a blinding radiance…

That was Nephis detonating all of her remaining soul cores, bar one.

She called upon the True Names of Fire and Destruction, as well as whispered the True Names that Sunny did not know — was forbidden from knowing — to eradicate the fallen deity below her. To cleanse its traumatic Corruption from the world.

The Estuary Lake was momentarily drowned in blinding white light, turning into a boundless white abyss.

Then, a colossal pillar of white flame fell from the depths of that abyss, swallowing the Thieving Bird whole.

Sunny’s shades — those who had not been vanquished by the loathsome Terror yet — were obliterated.

The web Ananke had woven turned to ash. Saint hid behind her shield, its tenebrous surface igniting with an angry white glow. Sunny covered his face, sensing waves of immolating slamming into his tattered form like a flood.

He was blinded for a few moments, and when he could see once more…

He saw the Vile Thieving Bird wreathed in flames, its feathers burning like dry grass. The fire was burning its skin and flesh, making it open its beak and cry in pain.

‘My turn.’

Sunny prepared to throw himself into one final, devastating blow.

However, before he could deliver it, the Vile Thieving Bird cawed loudly, and soared into the sky.

The movements of its burning wings raised a hurricane, sending Saint and Ananke tumbling to the ground. Sunny was left on the ground, while the loathsome terror shot toward where Nephis hovered in the air, her radiant wings shining brighter than the stolen suns.

The Thieving Bird rose higher and higher, as if aiming to swallow Nephis whole. Before it could, however, Nephis dismissed the limits of her partial Transformation, and assumed he true form — that of vast, ferocious mass of white flames.

She descended upon the Thieving Bird like calamity, surrounding its body in a shroud of annihilating white fire.

The Theving Bird shrieked once more… And folded its wings, plummeting toward the Estuary Lake like a dreadful comet. Sunny’s eyes narrowed.

‘Water.’

He understood what the Thieving Bird was trying to do — it was trying to dive into the water to extinguish the flames burning it to a crisp.

He growled and lunged forward.

‘Oh no, you don’t!’

That odious thing was not going to escape from him.

Just a split second before the Vile Thieving Bird and Nephis collided with the surface of the lake, Sunny threw himself forward and grabbed the avian horror by the neck. Then, all three of them pierced the thick layer of manifested obsidian and plunged into the lake… the Estuary Lake.

The great lake of time.

And as two Supreme Titans and a Cursed Terror fought each other in its depths, the time shattered.

It shattered, and the Vile Thieving Bird — as well as Sunny and Nephis — were suddenly lost among the fragments.

Falling through time like a dark comet.