Shadow Slave

Azarax was too strong and too devious to be killed. There were only two things preventing him from carving a bloody path to the palace of the Mason King with his own two hands. One of them was his own arrogance...

The other was Jet.

No matter how strong and skilled Azarax was, he couldn’t defend himself against her soul-rending attacks. That was because her weapons bypassed all forms of physical protection and struck directly at one’s soul — Azarax could only block them by using the Will, and his Will was suppressed in the shadow of the city walls.

He could overwhelm the Mason King’s Will or decimate the Soul Reaper, but he couldn’t accomplish both feats at the same time. Therefore, Jet could hurt him. She was strong and swift enough to actually pose a threat to the undefeated King of Kings, as well.

The problem was that Azarax was aware of that fact, too. As a result, it had become increasingly difficult for Jet to get near him, let alone land a blow — after a few successful confrontations in the early days of the siege, she had never managed to wound Azarax again.

That was why, today, Jet and Effie had employed a new kind of tactic. Earlier during the battle, while taking cover behind the wall in her titanic form, Effie inhaled deeply, allowing Jet in her mist form to settle in her lungs. After that, she held her breath and waited until Azarax was too close to evade the ambush, then unleashed the torrent of chilling mist from her mouth. The mist swiftly enveloped the battlefield around them, and before Azarax could react, Jet’s blade pierced his chest... once, twice... it was only after two successive blows that he managed to disengage, growling as the blinding agony of soul damage permeated his senses.

Of course, two blows were woefully not enough to destroy a soul as vast and fearsome as the soul of the King of Kings. But the damage was not insignificant, either — in fact, it was more damage than they had ever dealt to Azarax before.

Effie and Jet were not done, either.

Even as he dodged the third slash of the Mist Blade, Jet flourished it, unleashing a powerful hex. Instantly, the temperature on the battlefield dropped, and the blood-soaked soil beneath their feet froze, turning into a frigid expanse of crimson ice. Warmth drained from the indestructible body of the King of Kings, weakening it and making his movements seem sluggish.

At the same time, Effie tore through the mist like a lightning bolt, her entire body resonating with devastating strength to deliver one crushing blow.

Her spear had been destroyed, and there was no time to summon another Memory. However, her shield was a weapon in and of itself — especially in her hands. Its rim carried enough force to behead a Great Demon, so the neck of a Supreme Beast was not going to survive its edge either. However, before she could transfer all that force into a deadly impact, Azarax shifted slightly and blocked the obliterating blow with his forearm.

There was a deafening thunderclap, and a powerful shockwave rattled the world, the vast expanse of crimson ice shattering in a violent explosion.

At the epicenter of the devastating calamity, Azarax stood, immovable like a mountain. Effie’s shield had been stopped dead by his forearm — the blow tore his vambrace and broke the skin, a trickle of blood flowing down to his elbow. But other than that, the damage was minor.

Still... this was the first time Effie — or anyone else in the past year — had managed to make Azarax bleed. That was something, at least.

Azarax glanced at the drops of blood falling to the frozen ground. His gaze was dark and tempestuous, but his voice was mocking:

”Is this all the strength granted you by War? What a miserly god...”

Instead of answering, Effie pulled her shield back, spun on one leg, and delivered a devastating side kick to his abdomen. Her long leg whipped forward like a siege ram, crashing into his solar plexus with obliterating force. There was another shockwave, and Azarax staggered two steps back, his breastplate exploding into a hail of steel shrapnel.

A split second later, before he could regain his balance, Jet was already upon him in her ghostly form, moving faster than sound, and yet surrounded by absolute silence.

That was how their deadly dance began.

Jet and Effie attacked Azarax from opposite directions, cooperating seamlessly to weave an inescapable net around him. Effie was the ram, while Jet was the sharp blade — one pushed the enemy, the other cut him. In terms of pure physical power and speed, there was hardly any Saint in existence who could compare to them... and yet, they were still struggling to contend against the terrifying might of the King of Kings. Fighting alone and suppressed by the authority of a foreign Domain, facing Jet’s devious Aspect, Azarax was still strong and skilled enough to fight them both. Not only that, but his oppressive power remained a stark and dire peril. Jet and Effie were pushing themselves to the very limit of their abilities — and past it — but every moment of this devastating confrontation still felt like it could be their last.

‘Why... won’t you... die?!’

Effie was breathing heavily, bloody foam bubbling on her lips. Jet looked more ethereal than ever, two ferocious blue flames burning in the depths of the pale, dissipating mist.

Beyond the devastating maelstrom of their dire clash, the battle for the city continued to boil and writhe.

Atop the impregnable wall, Kai and the defending soldiers were drowning in the flood of enemy warriors who were ascending the siege towers. Two of the towers had already been destroyed, but two still remained, bridging the gap between the corpse-filled moat and the bloody battlements.

In the empty riverbed, a harrowing scene of murderous carnage was unfurling under the indifferent heavens. Blood flowed like a river, mixing with mud... the mud itself was long hidden under a thick carpet of corpses, which had become a foothold for the endless waves of the Steel Horde.

The battle formation of the defenders had long descended into utter chaos, with two disorganized masses of berserk humans fused together in a morbid pact, the blood flowing between them cementing its horrid hold on their minds.

And just a little distance away, Morgan and Nightwalker were still entangled in a battle against the strongest Saints of the Steel Horde, doggedly holding them back.

A ghastly stalemate held the battlefield in bloodied claws, each second of it costing countless lives.

That stalemate continued for some time, with neither side managing to push the other to the gates of Hell...

Until a hunched, staggering figure made its way to the top of the wall above the blood-soaked riverbed.