Shadow Slave

The moment Slayer’s first arrow struck the Millipede Queen, Sunny saw the Great Tyrant clearly for the first time.

She was truly immense, her swollen body encased in gleaming black chitin and adorned with stunning patterns of orange and red, as though her shell had been inlaid with glowing embers. The first segment of her carapace flared behind her head, making her appear as though she wore a crown of charred flame.

She had no eyes, so the front of her armored head was perfectly smooth, ending in a monstrous and eerily human-like mouth.

That mouth was open now, the final scream lost in its depths.

The Millipede Queen stretched well over a hundred meters in length. Her body was relatively slender for such a massive creature, and she had moved across the twisted surface of the Burned Forest like a river of glistening black. Her countless legs had torn the dead wood beneath her into splinters as she passed. But now, the colossal being had come to a sudden stop, collapsing into a writhing heap of towering coils.

Her severed head had not even touched the ground when Sunny heard a whisper in his ear:

[You have slain an enemy.]

He sighed, slightly disappointed.

Sunny had always missed the old announcements from the Nightmare Spell. Unlike the Spell, his Handy Bracelet was not all-knowing. It didn’t know the names of the creatures he killed, depriving him of the juicy tidbits of hidden information they often revealed.

He sometimes half-joked to himself that it was a pity he couldn’t just kidnap Cassie and have her whisper the names of every abomination he killed directly into his ear.

Even worse, the Handy Bracelet could no longer determine the Rank or Class of slain Nightmare Creatures. That was because Sunny had designed this part of the enchantment around a simple concept. The bracelet sensed how many shadow fragments he gained from a kill and figured out the creature’s nature based on that.

But this time, he had received no shadow fragments.

Not because Slayer had delivered the killing blow, but because all seven of his cores were already completely saturated. If he summoned his runes now, he would see:

Shadow Fragments: [7000/7000]

He had reached that limit fairly quickly once the Shadow Legion had been unleashed upon the world. Every creature slain by one of his shades was counted as his own prey.

Add to that his hunts in the Shadow Realm, and the saturation had been inevitable.

Sunny was now as powerful as he could possibly become. Further kills no longer empowered him. They strengthened his Legion instead.

I should probably rework the Handy Bracelet.

There had to be a way to enchant it to draw information from the incoming shades themselves, instead of relying on fragment counts. Who knew, perhaps it could even provide deeper insights about them.

But now was not the time for magical theory.

The Millipede Queen’s head crashed to the ground with a torrent of blood and shattered chitin. Thousands of lesser abominations momentarily lost their form, then burst into a frenzy.

The other Great Tyrants had noticed the fall of their sister and rival.

More importantly, Slayer had revealed herself to the swarm.

Now, she and Sunny were alone behind enemy lines, staring down a frenzied wave of monstrous millipedes.

Still, he was content.

More than content.

I won.

His victory over the Black Millipede tribe would take time to solidify — several months, perhaps — but the decisive moment had already passed. The death of the monstrous Queen meant that her shade now rested in his Soul Sea. With her under his command, the strength of the Shadow Legion would surge and continue to grow rapidly as more of the Black Millipedes fell and joined the ranks of his silent army. ŗＡ𐌽ŏ𝔟Ę𝓢

The nests of their loathsome tribe would soon fall. He briefly considered summoning the Ember Queen — the name he had chosen for the fallen Tyrant, inspired by the fiery patterns decorating her obsidian carapace. But he quickly changed his mind.

After all, the shades of the lesser millipedes had already been destroyed. They would not return for several days. Her presence would not shift the tide of today’s battle.

Sunny watched the tide of powerful Nightmare Creatures rushing toward Slayer like a vengeful storm.

I think they might be angry.

Internally, he grinned, satisfied with his harvest. After all this time, one of the Millipede Queens was finally his.

Slayer lowered her bow, letting it unravel into a thin black chain that wrapped itself around her wrist like a delicate vambrace. She then drew her short swords and turned to face the enraged swarm with calm, merciless resolve.

As though fighting thousands of Corrupted and Great Nightmare Creatures was beneath her concern.

“You can retreat now.”

The objective had been achieved. Letting his Shadows suffer needless losses was pointless.

Slayer lingered a moment longer. Her lips were hidden beneath her veil, but he could sense her smile — not one of joy, but a faint curl of cold, cruel contempt.

After a final glance at the incoming millipedes, she sheathed her blades and turned, her movements fluid as a dancer’s. The hem of her light armor fluttered behind her, and then she vanished, summoned back to her cell in the dark replica of the Nameless Temple.

Sunny himself stepped through the shadows and appeared beside Saint, cloaking her in his presence and granting her more strength. As the battle continued to rage, its outcome was already sealed.

Saint and Nightmare cut down several champions of the Millipede Tribe, while Fiend gleefully lifted armfuls of writhing enemies and hurled them into his blazing maw. The voracious giant appeared deeply pleased.

His most powerful shades distinguished themselves in the slaughter as well.

But none were as lethal as Sunny.

Within the towering Shell, he battled several of the Great Devils — beings even larger than the Tyrants they served. He had to kill a few. His new Millipede Queen would need strong guardians, after all.

He succeeded in eliminating two of them before the situation worsened.

One Devil opened its gaping mouth and unleashed a stream of molten orange-red fluid. It struck Sunny’s jade breastplate like a river of living magma. To his surprise, the Jade Mantle actually began to melt, corroded as though by acid.

Another exhaled a plume of ash that enveloped him, then transformed into a swarm of spectral worms. They slithered into the armor’s seams, boring through the Shadow Shell to attack the essence of Sunny’s own shadow hidden deep inside.

A third Devil emerged from the underbrush, coiling its revolting body around his legs. Its thousand blade-like limbs scraped into the armor with relentless, shrieking force.

Even lesser millipedes were burrowing into the Shell now, exploiting the cracks opened by the Devils.

With a twinge of frustration, Sunny abandoned the collapsing Shell and continued the battle as himself.

Soon after, the fighting came to an end.

The Shadow Legion had been all but obliterated. Those champions who remained were on the brink of being overwhelmed. No matter how powerful Sunny was, or how devastating his shades had become, the endless flood of the Black Millipede tribe was simply too vast to resist.

Unwilling to wait weeks for his strongest shades to recover, Sunny recalled them to his Soul Sea, dismissed the rest of his Shadows, and escaped using Shadow Step.

Damn it. All those soul shards…

If he had one regret, it was that he wouldn’t be able to harvest the precious carapaces or soul shards of the slain millipedes. Instead, the surviving abominations would feast on their fallen kin, growing stronger and giving the remaining Queens more fuel to birth new monsters.

Still, it would all belong to him in the end.

At the edge of the Burned Forest, both of Sunny’s incarnations stepped from the shadows.

Despite the bitter retreat, they smiled. Satisfied.