Shadow Slave

At some point, Sunny had to admit that he was not going to break the Scavenger’s armor, but he still continued to deliver a barrage of vicious blows to the hateful creature — he refused to believe that the fiend was as tough on the inside. No matter how hard the shell was, enough force was bound to turn everything protected by it into bloody mush. He suffered from the same weakness himself, after all…

But no matter how much he struck the damned ogre, the Scavenger did not seem too bothered by it.

’Goddammit!’

Desperate and enraged, Sunny grabbed the creature’s jaw with one hand, and used the other to constrict the abomination’s arm. Then, he opened his mouth…

And bit into the Scavenger’s flesh himself.

Maybe Sunny was lucky, or maybe the bone armor in that spot had actually been weakened by his previous strikes… regardless, he finally felt something give, and then tasted a despicably foul taste on his tongue. It was the Scavenger’s blood.

…Sunny had never tasted anything sweeter in his entire life.

Feeling the creature shudder and frantically try to push him away, he pressed his teeth deeper with wicked glee, and then tore a chunk of flesh away. Sunny spat it out and grinned, then instantly regretted it when a massive fist flashed forward and hit him in the face with horrid strength.

’Ah…’

Sunny was thrown back.

And at the same time, the black sphere finally broke.

All three layers of protective shadows had been thoroughly damaged, and now reached their limit. A net of cracks spread through the egg, and then it collapsed into numerous shards, exposing both Sunny and the Scavenger to terrible heat and blinding light.

’Crap…’

The world shuddered one last time.

The world…

Was hot.

But at least it finally stopped spinning.

Sunny found himself staring into a glowing orange fog.

The fog was pretty, and smelled of fire.

’...I think I’m on fire.’

He raised his head, and noticed flames licking his legs. Luckily, his elemental resistance was high enough to resist them. The Graceless Dusk, too, was not affected by them at all. The black silk was pleasantly cool.

’Right…’

The orange fog was just dust illuminated by a sea of flames. Sunny was laying on the ground, surrounded by rubble and debris. Some of it was incandescent, and there were puddles of melted metal here and there. It looked like a scene from a fiery hell.

He was hurting all over, and breathing was strangely hard… but he was alive.

With a groan, Sunny slowly sat up, and then stood up with a stagger. He did not feel well. He was dreadfully exhausted, heavily wounded, and poisoned on top of that. As for the Scavenger…

Sunny looked around and gritted his teeth.

’Don’t tell me that the bastard escaped again!’

He allowed his shadow sense to spread outward, then smiled.

Limping away, he circled a pile of burning debris and stopped near the edge of a deep impression in the ground.

The impression was about three meters deep, and had almost vertical slopes. On its bottom, the Scavenger was trapped under a giant piece of broken alloy. The creature seemed to be slightly dazed, but otherwise unscathed. In fact, the abomination was already trying to lift the alloy, which was groaning under the strain.

He couldn’t escape into the shadows, because everything around them was brightly illuminated by the flames and the glowing fog. There was no shadow large enough for the fiend to dive into.

For the moment, the creature was defenseless.

…The problem was that Sunny had no strength left to fight. Even when he had been able to, all his efforts failed to break through the Scavenger’s impregnable armor. All he managed to do was make the creature bleed a little by biting it.

And he had only a few drops of essence left.

Soon, the damned wretch was going to free himself and flee… or maybe even attack Sunny, who was barely able to stand, and finish him off.

Sunny was in a real stalemate.

He rubbed his face, stared at the struggling Scavenger for a few long moments, and then used the last drops of his essence to summon a get free. With the power of a Corrupted Devil, getting rid of a piece of 08:20

alloy, no matter how heavy, should not have been a problem… but the Memory.

The creature glanced at Sunny with hatred, then redoubled his efforts to get free. With the power of a Corrupted Devil, getting rid of a piece of alloy, no matter how heavy, should not have been a problem… but the Scavenger was dazed and tired, too. On top of that, he was severely weakened by having his soul ripped by Sunny’s claws. It was going to take him a dozen or so seconds to escape, at least.

The fiend appeared to relax a little, though, when he noticed that the Memory his enemy summoned was not a sword or a bow… instead, it was a seemingly inconspicuous alloy chest.

Sunny sighed, then smiled coldly.

”...Here, bastard. Eat this.”

With that, he opened the lid of the Covetous Coffer and kicked it, throwing the chest on its side.

A flood of small, black beetles poured into the deep pit from the bottomless black square of the Coffer’s maw.

They landed on the Scavenger, instantly biting into the bone armor. Where Sunny’s weapons failed, the sharp mandibles of the dark vermin were similarly ineffective… however, there were countless thousands of them, and not all of the abomination’s towering body was covered by armor. There were cracks… there were gaps…  there were ways to get inside.

The fiend frantically tried to escape, but it was already too late. His figure became covered by a crawling carpet of beetles, and then he was buried under their mass entirely. More and more vermin poured from the Covetous Coffer, until the pit was filled almost to the brim. No trace of the Scavenger remained under the seething mass of tiny creatures.

Sunny took a step back, and then drew in a deep breath.

Then, he let out a strange, shaky laugh.

’I did it!’

08:21

Sunny’s laugh turned louder.

’What is it with me and shadow creatures… every time I fight one, I’m driven to the very edge of madness… and then a little bit past that…’

As he was laughing, the Spell suddenly whispered into his ear:

[You have slain a Corrupted Devil…]

He was so startled that he even missed the later half.

’What?’

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

Instantly, Sunny felt a flood of shadow fragments pour into his soul… tens, or even hundreds of times more than what he was supposed to receive for killing a Corrupted Devil.

As his eyes widened, the Spell spoke once more:

[...You have received an Echo.]

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