Shadow Slave

As Sunny ran across the surface of the obsidian bridge, his figure turning into a dark blur, Kai and Slayer drew their bows. A moment later, black arrows streaked across the sea of clouds and fell, piercing the Snow Worm’s pale flesh.

Out there on the slopes of the volcano, they were still within the bounds of the Ash Domain. Therefore, they could exert their full power - granted, their power was not great enough to seriously wound a Cursed Beast.

The Snow Worm was so enormous that it was difficult to miss it. At the same time, its body was so vast that their arrows were no different from tiny needles, dealing almost no harm to the Nightmare Creature.

But that was alright, because Sunny did not need them to harm the Cursed Beast. Instead, they had to play a different, vitally important role in the opening act of the battle - instead of quality, it was the quantity of their attacks that mattered.

They had to sink as numerous arrows as they could into the Snow Worm, and do it as rapidly as possible.

That was because the arrows they were shooting were quite special - Sunny had crafted them himself, after all.

In the past few days, he had been observing the Snow Worm carefully. He still did not know a lot about the Cursed Beast, but he was certain that it wielded the concept of infinity as a weapon.

Its pale body could grow endlessly, devouring as much space as the Snow Worm wanted. It could become dozens of kilometers long, or shrink to merely a few hundred meters. Naturally, that also made the Snow Worm nearly indestructible - after all, no matter how much of its huge body Sunny destroyed, the Beast could simply produce more….

And more, and more, and more, until the entire mountain was buried under its pale flesh.

So, there were two ways to kill the bizarre godbeast. One way was to destroy its rotten soul, which Sunny could achieve by focusing on attacking its shadow. The other was to suppress its power, somehow… but naturally, Sunny did not have to pick just one strategy.

He could very well implement both, and the arrows were meant to accomplish the latter.

He had been crafting the arrows to subdue the Snow Worm for the last two days, and had made quite a few of them. The enchantment woven into the jagged crystal arrowheads was based on one of the Memories he had crafted for Rain in Godgrave - [In Case of Emergency].

The purpose of that enchantment was to lock something in space, which was supposed to save her in case the veil of clouds above Godgrave unexpectedly broke. Now, Sunny was not too knowledgeable about these matters, but he was pretty sure that the concept of infinity was innately connected to the concept of space.

At least it was in the context of the Snow Storm, which existed as a living being that could potentially occupy an infinite amount of space.

So, if its body was pinned to space by the enchanted arrows Sunny created, its ability to grow endlessly was going to be compromised - either suppressed or at least interfered with.

That was the plan, at least.

Kai and Slayer did not have to aim that hard to hit the huge Cursed Beast, but there was another challenge facing them. They had to fire off all the Finality Arrows Sunny had provided them rapidly, which put great strain on their bodies - the draw weights of their bows were nothing short of startling, after all.

Sunny would have loved to stay and enjoy the awesome display of extreme athleticism, but he had his own task to accomplish.

While the role of his companions was to debilitate the adversary, he had to actually kill it.

…While not getting killed, naturally.

Fighting a Cursed Beast while only having access to one seventh of his power felt like a bad idea. But, at the same time…

It was just a Cursed Beast.

It was just an Nightmare Creature one Rank above him. So what was there to feel worried about?

As the arrows pierced the Snow Worm’s flesh, the Nightmare Creature moved. The coils of pale flesh that enveloped the mountain shifted, and its enormous head rose above the peak, opening a gigantic maw to let out a low, eerie, horrifying wail.

Sunny could not describe it with words, really - it did not resemble any sound that a living being was supposed to be able to produce at all. Rather, it seemed like something that an elemental force would sound like, sending shivers running down his spine.

Before the obliterating wave of sound could fully hit him, tearing his flesh apart, Sunny dove into the shadows and hid in their depths, allowing for the worm’s wail to pass above him. But even in the dark embrace of shadows, he felt his very essence tremble, almost coming undone.

’Been a while… since I got hit by a sonic attack… I think…’

His shadow continued to glide across the glistening bridge at great speed.

And just before he reached the snowy mountain, winged figures burst from it in a veil of ash, spreading like an obsidian swarm.

They were the shades of the Crystal Wasps he and Slayer had slain - almost a hundred of them.

Two more arrows pierced the Snow Worm’s flesh, making it convulse and shrink a little.

Sunny rose out of the shadows, and the shadows rose with him, turning into a towering figure encased in a carapace of gorgeous black jade. Standing a hundred meters tall, the Shadow Colossus pulled a hundred - meter - long odachi out of the darkness and glanced up, at the huge head of the Cursed Beast looming high above him. ĚＳ

The Snow Worm actually dwarfed Sunny and his titanic Shell. The creature’s circular maw could swallow him whole.

As the swarm of Obsidian Wasps surrounded the peak of the mountain, Sunny raised his gigantic odachi and pointed it at the Cursed Beast.

’I am going to kill you today, vermin.’

The Snow Worm seemed to stare at him for a moment, even if it had no eyes.

And then, its maw plummeted down, obscuring the heavens.

The mountain shuddered.