Shadow Slave

As the battle reached a state of deceptive equilibrium, Sunny observed his silent soldiers.

The Shadow Legion was holding its ground, while the Deathless refused to be pushed back. At first glance, the two opposing forces were at a stalemate — but looks could be deceiving. In truth, the weaker shades were being quickly destroyed at an alarming rate, and this kind of attrition was woefully unsustainable.

Not to mention that Sunny’s goal was to advance forward, not stay in place.

For a moment, he considered whether waging this battle was even worth it. He could just take a leap of faith and advance forward alone by jumping between shadows… he could even take Nephis and the Shadow Legion with him, if need be. However, there was a reason why they had dismissed this idea. As a Supreme, Sunny possessed an almost inexhaustible supply of essence — but that was not because his reserves of it were boundless. Rather, it was because a potent torrent of spirit essence continuously flowed into his soul, replenishing whatever essence he had spent.

If his expenditure outpaced the influx of spirit essence, though, he would find himself without any to empower his Aspect sooner rather than later. The Nightmare Desert was both vast and strange, denying the familiar laws of space and distance, especially so at night.

So, it would take innumerable jumps to reach the Tomb of Ariel, and his essence would be drained not even halfway to it — far less if he were to pull the weight of Nephis and her Longing Domain with him.

He could very well end up stranded in the sea of Deathless without any essence to fight them, which was not something Sunny was willing to risk.

‘Slow and steady wins the race.’

Snarling, he stepped into the shadows and returned to where Chain Breaker was anchored, hovering a couple of meters above the sand.

A few moments later, Nephis landed near him, a scattering of ghastly wounds dissolving into the white radiance emanating from her graceful body.

She regarded the battlefield silently, then asked in a neutral tone:

“What do you think?”

Sunny hesitated for a short while, then assumed his human form and nodded.

“It’s doable. But we will need to change tactics.”

She inhaled slowly.

“That is my conclusion, as well.”

Neither of them had gone all out yet, wanting to test the waters first. Now that they had witnessed what the Deathless were capable of, there was little point in being conservative in their application of power.

It was just that this battle was most likely the easiest they would experience in the Nightmare Desert. So, it was not a true indicator of the harrowing perils to come. Sunny sighed.

“I will begin, then.”

Nephis nodded.

“Give me a moment.”

With that, she turned her back to the battlefield, approached the Chain Breaker, and put her hand on its hull.

A moment later, the flying vessel shimmered and disappeared in a flash of blinding radiance.

It looked as if the Chain Breaker was a Memory, and Nephis had dismissed it — of course, that wasn’t the case. She had simply drawn it into her Soul Sea, storing it there for safety.

Nephis glanced at Sunny and smiled faintly. “Shall we proceed?”

Sunny gave her a polite bow.

“After you, my lady.”

She glanced ahead and then soared into the sky once more.

Sunny began to move, as well.

‘The Deathless are surprisingly adept at strategy and tactics. If I summon the Puppeteer, I can assume a more direct control of the Shadow Legion and contend against their insidious mastery of the battlefield far better… but in the end, that will only delay the inevitable.’

There was a certain lesson that a commander had to learn if they were to lead an army and engage in war: despite what common logic dictated, striving to achieve the best result was not always a good strategy. In fact, excess ambition was at times detrimental, and more often than not deadly.

For Sunny, the best result was keeping as many of his shades as possible in the fight. But trying to preserve too many would only result in the decimation of the whole legion. Sometimes — oftentimes — sacrifices had to be made… so, he had to give up on a vast number of his shades in order to achieve his goal.

That was why it did not matter how finely he controlled the Shadow Legion at the moment. The role of the shades that would have been saved by his direct control was not to stay in the fight — it was to be destroyed in a way that would allow the stronger shades to advance forward.

So, Sunny gave the Shadow Legion a command to regroup.

Instead of a wide phalanx that met the Deathless like a dark wall, his soldiers fell into a tree-pronged formation, with the left and right wings shielding the core contingent. Usually, he would have assigned his strongest champions to command the wings, but this time, Sunny simply concentrated all of his best warriors in the center.

Then, he dismissed the Wolf.

The ferocious shadow had a devastating presence on the battlefield, rallying the lesser shades while simultaneously instilling fear and weakness in the Deathless. The ancient undead must have long forgotten what fear felt like, but even they could not help but be shaken in the face of the Wolf — of a primordial spirit that personified predation and chose them as its prey. However, neither the Wolf nor the Puppeteer was the Sacred shade that Sunny needed right now.

Instead, he called upon the Abundance.

The gigantic maw of the titanic worm exploded from the darkness in front of the central prong of the Shadow Legion, toppling the sand dunes around it. The Deathless who had been assaulting the core attempted to retreat to ascertain the new threat and come up with countermeasures, but it was already too late.

The giant worm moved forward, swallowing the unfortunate undead who got in its way. Those Deathless had not been shattered and rendered harmless like the Wolf’s prey… but that did not matter.

Because once they were swallowed by Abundance, they could not attack the Shadow Legion anymore.

‘Go, carve us a path forward.’

The giant worm crawled across the white sand, devouring the Deathless instead of fighting them. The wings of the Shadow Legion formation protected it from being attacked from the flanks…

And those shades who were arrayed behind it simply followed, their advance uncontested.