Shadow Slave

On the other side of the Hunger Domain, Jet watched as Kai leaned on a wall, breathing heavily. They were in one of the endless corridors of the Jade Palace, hidden in an alcove. Some distance away, the sound of footsteps could be heard, moving further away.

They had just made it out of the runic cell where Kai had been left when Seishan and her sisters departed to fight Asterion’s war. Someone had appeared at the end of the corridor as soon as they did, so they had to hide.

Jet had a feeling that the day would end in bloodshed, but she wasn’t ready to clash with the thralls of the Dreamspawn just yet. Not before figuring out her next steps, at least.

She leaned out of the alcove carefully and looked around, making sure that there was no one else around.

The situation was… complicated.

The world seemed to be coming to an end. The Longing Domain had fallen, and Asterion was apparently on the verge of wiping out Mordret — the last obstacle standing between him and a harrowing feast of human souls — on the Chained Isles. Nephis and the Lord of Shadows were nowhere to be found, while Cassie had disappeared without a trace…

She was either dead or hiding somewhere. Jet doubted that Cassie had become enthralled, because if she had, things would have been far more dire for everyone still resisting Asterion’s control. After all, what was worse than a Supreme capable of brainwashing people?

A Supreme capable of brainwashing people getting his hands on a Saint who could whisper into your ear from any distance, serving as a conduit of his vile power — that was worse.

As for Jet’s own situation… she had found Kai, but he was in a bad state. Not only was he missing his tongue, rendering his most fearsome Ability useless, but he was also extremely weak. It looked like he was suffering from severe blood loss, even though there were no visible wounds on his body. His essence was almost entirely depleted, as well, and only starting to be replenished.

“What do you think we should do?”

She glanced at Kai’s pale face. He met her gaze, remained motionless for a few seconds, and then pointed in the direction of where the heart of the Jade Palace lay. Jet smiled darkly.

“An insurgency, huh? Take the Jade Palace while the Dreamspawn is away… well, I suppose it’s an option. We are one and a half Saint strong, after all — and let’s not forget the little gremlin. I’d say it’s more than enough to defeat whatever guards that man left behind.”

The little devil hiding in the alcove with them stuck out his chest proudly. Jet glanced at him, the corner of her mouth rising faintly.

Then, her expression turned grim.

“However, what then?”

Nephis and Sunny were bound to return one day, but there was no telling when that would be. Until then… Jet’s mind raced, trying to come up with an actionable strategy.

Eventually, she said:

“We might as well escape into the waking world instead, make our way to Antarctica, and use one of the Category Four gates there to challenge the Fourth Nightmare. Naturally, chances that just the two of us can conquer one of those are slim, but… it’s better than simply hoping that we’ll be saved by some miracle.”

Kai looked at her for a long while, a slight frown creasing his brow. In the end, he simply pointed into the depths of the Jade Palace once more.

Jet studied him, then looked in the direction where he was pointing coldly.

A few seconds passed in tense silence.

In the end, she chuckled.

“Well… who says that we can’t do both? Let’s take this Citadel first, and run away to the waking world later. No matter how strong the Dreamspawn is, losing a Great Citadel is bound to mess with his power at least a little. And a little mess can go a long way in the middle of a fierce battle.”

Extending a hand, she summoned the Mist Blade and gave Kai a somber look.

“I must warn you, though. If you are hoping that I will take Ravenheart like you did, Nightingale — without spilling a single drop of blood — I will have to disappoint you. That is not my style.”

She paused for a moment and then added in a dark tone:

“There might not be a single drop of blood, but there will be a lot of corpses.”

Seeing his frown deepen, Jet pursed her lips.

‘Curse that face…’

She looked away and added with a sigh:

“Alright… the best I can promise is to make sure that there are as few corpses as possible.”

Her specialty was destroying souls. That was how she defeated her enemies, and that was how she ensured her own survival as well. Jet was quite a fearsome presence on the battlefield, but one thing she wasn’t really good at was achieving victory through non-lethal means.

The people Asterion had left behind to guard one of his most important strongholds were innocent, though. In fact, they were probably someone Jet knew and had been on friendly terms with during her stint as the government envoy to the Song Domain.

So it wasn’t like she wanted to kill them, either. The Awakened and the Ascended would be easy enough to keep alive, but the Saints — there had to be at least a few guarding the Jade Palace — were a different matter. Depending on who it was, Jet could not promise that she would be able to defeat them cleanly.

And there was no telling what other things the Dreamspawn had left behind. He was more than capable of enthralling Nightmare Creatures as well, after all. So, Jet had a feeling that gaining control of the Great Citadel was not going to be as easy as she had made it sound.

She remained silent for a second, then looked at the Ravenous Fiend.

“I’ll make sure to kill as few people as possible. You make sure that the Jade Palace does not burn to the ground. Alright?”

The infernal thing just stared at her with its glowing, fiery eyes, and then shrugged.

His meaning was quite clear…

“No promises.”