Shadow Slave

The Vile Thieving Bird tilted its head and then pecked at the skeletal hand. When its beak collided with the black bone, a deafening thunderclap resounded above the Estuary Lake, and Sunny was thrown to the ground by the shockwave.

“Argh…”

There was blood on his tongue, filling his mouth with the taste of iron.

Facing a Cursed Terror in battle was not something one could hope to escape unscathed — in fact, simply surviving was already a tall task, even for a Supreme Titan like him.

So, Sunny had called on a different fallen deity to help him even the odds.

Out there in front of them, the Wandering Archon was rising from the shadows in all his eldritch glory, the golden bands encasing his skeletal form glistening in the sun. His gigantic form was being woven out of torrents of darkness, a sea of essence draining from Sunny’s soul to give him form.

Having carried the Memory of the Deathless Spirit within himself for a long time, Sunny was finally summoning him back into existence. Of course, the Archon was not going to become their ally — he was just as likely to attack the three Supremes as he was bound to clash with the Vile Thieving Bird.

So, it was quite possible that Sunny was simply adding an undying Sacred to an already harrowing list of enemies he had to defeat.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. The enemy of his enemy… was still his enemy, but at least there was a possibility that his enemies would begin fighting each other, allowing him to attack one or both of them while they were distracted.

‘Damn it all’

Gritting his teeth, Sunny pushed himself off the ground.

Out there in front of him, the Vile Thieving Bird did not seem to have liked the result of pecking at the black bone. It hopped back, observing the rise of the Wandering Archon with a predatory madness burning in its harrowing eyes.

The Archon, meanwhile, had fully manifested on the surface of the Estuary Lake. He towered above it like a mountain of black bones, his tattered ivory mantle fluttering in the wind like a burial shroud. The spikes of his crown shone with a blinding golden radiance in the light of the six stolen suns, resembling radiant beacons.

The Thieving Bird seemed mesmerized. There was a moment of dead silence and ominous stillness…

Then, the Archon glanced down, his empty eye sockets peering at the spot where the Thieving Bird’s beak had left a crack on the surface of his black hand.

Something moved in the emptiness that nestled in his skull, and then, the Deathless Spirit shifted his crushing gaze at the avian horror in front of him.

The Vile Thieving Bird opened its beak and let out a chilling, harrowing shriek — the sound of it made Sunny, Nephis, and Ananke groan, grabbing their ears.

The Archon moved then, lunging forward to grab it by the neck.

Sunny cursed.

“Brace yourselves!”

In the next moment, the world quaked, a hurricane of black feathers and bone shards obscuring the entrance to the burial chamber of the Demon of Oblivion, seething water rising through the cracks in the obsidian. The momentary quiet was torn apart and vanquished by the indescribable cacophony, and in the mayhem of the deific clash…

The stolen shades lunged forward, colliding with the remains of the Shadow Legion in a chilling bacchanalia of violence.

Sunny steeled his Will against the coming shockwave, increasing his weight to withstand it. To his left, Ananke raised a rampart of manifested essence in front of her, while to his right, Nephis simply allowed herself to be mangled by the impact and then mended herself in the healing crucible of her flames.

All three of them moved forward after that, coming together while the Vile Thieving Bird and the Wandering Archon battled in front of them. The heart of the Stone Titan shook from the calamitous violence of the divine clash, as if beating anew.

Despite the harrowing forces unleashed by the battle of two deities, however, the Thieving Bird did not seem to be taking its enemy seriously — it wasn’t trying to take to the sky and utilize its main advantage, at least, choosing to fight the Deathless Spirit on the surface of the lake.

It shrieked and cawed, avoiding the devastating attacks of the gigantic black skeleton in a whirlwind of black feathers. The Archon, meanwhile, was on the offensive, pursuing it like an incarnation of death… which he himself had been deprived of.

The Vile Thieving Bird was stronger than the Deathless Spirit — it had to be, considering their difference in Class, as well as the fact that the Deathless had long lost the most important parts of themselves. However, somehow, it seemed like it could do nothing but retreat from the undying horror, its demented eyes burning with a peculiar, feverish madness.

Sunny, Nephis, and Ananke finally met amidst the carnage of clashing shades. Nephis put her hands on both of her companions, healing them — healing them as much as she could in the short span of time they had, at least.

Ananke’s wounds were relatively light, considering that she had only suffered her life force being stolen by the Vile Spawn. Sunny, however, was wounded quite severely despite having used the [Chain] — in fact, he would have been already on death’s door, or at least forced to abandon his corporeal form, if not for the tenacious nature of the Weave.

“What do we do now?”

Neph’s voice was barely audible in the thunderous clamor of the profane battle. She glanced at the hurricane of black and gold that raged in front of them and shook her head.

“We can’t take both of them on. We can’t even take one of them on, really… not unless something changes.”

Ananke glanced at the two fighting deities, as well, her face pale.

“I don’t… I don’t know where that second creature came from, but it looks awfully strong.”

The second creature, of course, had come from within Sunny’s soul. But that was not important right now.

The important part was that Nephis was right — and things were even worse than she had described. That was because the remains of the Shadow Legion were losing to the shades of the Vile Spawn, which meant that there would be an army of deadly shades fighting against the three Supremes soon.

As if an undying Spirit and a Cursed Terror were not enough.

The problem was that the Vile Spawn had obliterated some of the strongest shades Sunny commanded in that first explosion of black flame, and then stole the Wolf on top of that. Sunny had yet to summon a second Sacred shade to replace the primordial beast, so his shades, despite having a numerical advantage, were slowly losing.

In fact, they were only losing slowly, as opposed to rapidly, because Saint and Slayer were among them, serving as a bulwark protecting the Shadow Legion and a sharp blade that cut its enemies down.

Sunny hesitated for a moment, considering whether summoning Abundance, Puppeteer, or the Rat King would be wise.

In the end, he simply glanced at Nephis and Ananke.

“Ananke… you will have to destroy the shades that vile little wretch stole. You will also have to try to weaken the Thieving Bird as much as you can. Nephis and I will take on that loathsome thing once it destroys the Archon.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Nephis asked, straining her voice to be heard in the deafening cacophony:

“Are you sure that the Archon will be destroyed?”

Sunny lingered for a second, then nodded.

“I am.”

His somber voice was confident.

That was because he had noticed something while observing the two deities clash.

The Deathless Spirit seemed to have pushed the Vile Thieving Bird on the defensive… but actually, with each blow he delivered, something about the undying god of the Nightmare Desert changed.

It was the bands of gold decorating the ancient bones of the gargantuan skeleton. Each time the Thieving Bird seemed to barely avoid his obliterating attacks, more and more of those bands disappeared without a trace.

His staff was already missing its crystal, and one of his eye sockets had lost its golden frame.

…The damn thing was not retreating from the Deathless Spirit. It was simply more focused on stealing the shiny gold off his black bones than on taking him apart bone by bone.

Sunny had no doubt that once the Thieving Bird satiated its avarice, the Wandering Archon wasn’t going to last long after that. Nephis simply nodded, trusting his words. She had another question, however:

“How are we going to hurt the Thieving Bird, then? You saw it already. It easily shrugged off both your killing Will and my flames.”

She smiled faintly.

“Of course, neither of us has gone all out yet. Even if the quality of our Wills seems insufficient to slay this Terror, quantity might do the job.”

Sunny looked at her intently, remained silent for a short while, and then said quietly:

“This time, our attacks are going to hurt it — because you will weaken its Will. All you have to do is speak to it. You must say…”

He paused for a moment, and then added in an even tone:

“…Lost from Light, I command you to die.”