Shadow Slave

Their clash had been swift, but violent.

However, it was also… a bit one-sided, which left Sunny wanting more.

Well, there was no helping it. As much as he would have wanted to break the King of Swords slowly, now that he was a Supreme, the imbalance of power between them was simply too great.

It was not only because Sunny was a Supreme Titan while Anvil was a Supreme Beast, or because of the fact that Sunny wielded a Divine Aspect — it was also due to the fact that Anvil’s powers were both undermined and severely suppressed.

His Aspect was one of a craftsman and enchanter, as well, only loosely tied to combat. Anvil’s armour and sword had flared with various potent enchantments while they fought, but Sunny was powerful and resilient enough to shrug the effects off.

It was almost like Anvil’s own strategy during the war...

Nothing was of use in the face of overwhelming strength.

And there were six incarnations of Sunny, while Anvil was alone.

So, the King of Swords looked quite battered by now.

Many of the runes glowing on his armour had been destroyed, and the armor itself was slow to repair itself after enduring numerous blows. His face was bloodied, and his hair was wet with sweat despite the chilling cold. Even his Sacred sword was nicked, its blade damaged in several places.

Nevertheless, Anvil did not seem disturbed.

Instead, creepily enough, his smile seemed genuine when he looked up at Sunny.

’...What is this bastard smiling about?’

Anvil remained silent for a few moments, then spoke in a hoarse voice:

”You can mock me all you want, Lord of Shadows. But… look… isn’t my masterpiece beautiful?”

With that, he turned his head and looked into the distance, where the towering figure of the Queen was staggering after enduring the annihilating shockwave of a awful explosion.

As Sunny’s face contorted in a wrathful grimace, he added:

”She has surprised me once more. She... is complete.”

***

Far away,Nephis had descended from the godless sky like a falling star. The darkness welcomed her with a soothing cold, and a split second later, she collided with the colossal vessel of the Queen, her flames blossoming into a terrifying explosion. ʀАℕ∅ΒĚȘ

This time, the titanic creature actually staggered. More importantly, the burns on its flesh did not disappear immediately.

In that short moment when Ki Song was reeling, Nephis looked to the spot where Sunny had been kneeling, on the verge of being killed by Anvil.

Her radiant figure suddenly shone even brighter.

’He’s alive…’

A sense of profound relief washed over her.

Nephis had been scared that she would be late, but the Lord of Shadows did not need her help. Not only had he survived, but he had also achieved the same feat as her — he had broken the barrier preventing them from attaining Supremacy and became a Sovereign.

The Sovereign of Light, the Sovereign of Shadows…

With the two of them becoming Supreme against all odds, victory was all but assured.

’We’ve… won?’

She allowed herself to bask in that startling realization for a moment, then strangled it ruthlessly.

Arrogance was a deadly poison. Sure, it seemed like Anvil and Ki Song, who had been weakened by their nefarious plot and by battling each other, were at a dire disadvantage against the usurpers… but it was in these last moments when victory seemed so near that one could touch it when countless warriors had perished, lulled into complacency by the illusion of safety.

Nephis was not going to make the same mistake.

Some distance away, the two great armies were shining with the radiance of her newly established Domain. The darkness stirred, and countless shadows rose from its depths, descending upon their enemies… Nephis thought that she saw a few familiar figures among the dark legion, but her mind soon wandered back to her enemy.

The Queen had regained her balance in mere moments and froze,studying her with the eerily empty canvas of the golem’s featureless face.

”...Supremacy?”

Instead of answering, Nephis raised the Blessing and delivered an annihilating strike.

She had nothing to say.

Her soul had been destroyed and then rebuilt countless times, and the cores she had sacrificed were now whole again. So, in the end, she did not have to use the [Ruin] trait of the Blessing — at least for now. She was not that desperate yet.

But there was still a problem…

Even now that the Blessing had become a Supreme blade, channeling Supreme soul flame, the damage it dealt was not significant enough to seriously harm the colossal flesh golem. What’s more, the Queen could transfer all harm to her countless puppets, and although they were being destroyed by the legion of shadows, they had not been destroyed yet.

Nephis needed a different way to attack the Queen… a more monstrous attack, and one that could be sustained instead of being momentary.

Landing on the ground, Nephis looked up at the harrowing creature that she needed to destroy… she could not even see all of it from that angle because of how immensely tall the titanic flesh golem was.

She was like a speck of dust in front of a mountain, full of resolve to bring the mountain down.

Lowering her head, Nephis took a deep breath — or went through the motions of doing so, rather, since her current form neither had lungs nor needed to breathe.

She was still in the form of the spirit of light. Her radiant figure was like a vessel that struggled to contain an ocean of furious flame…

And as the Queen leaned down to crush that vessel, Nephis looked up with cold contempt, unleashing the flame.

Allowing the thin barrier of the human-like form to dissolve into pure radiance, thus assuming her true Transcendent form.

An unimaginable, roaring mass of white flame escaped from her disappearing figure, rising to meet the Queen. The flames moved with purpose and intent, like a living creature,the billowing cloud of them constantly shifting and dancing in the vast darkness of the fractured battlefield.

The darkness reeled back in fear.

The vessel of the Queen was more than a kilometer tall… and so, the mass of white flames rose to be more than a kilometer tall.

It fell upon the titanic creature, burning it.

And then enveloped it whole.