Shadow Slave

By dawn, Sunny’s bones had mended, and his arm was not at risk of dropping off anymore. That said, he could not really use it yet, so it just dangled weakly at his side.

There was also the issue of the missing fingers. Unlike the arm itself, he had never located them — so, the fingers would have to develop on their own, which was not going to be a quick or comfortable process.

Of course, if Sunny managed to escape from Ariel’s Game early, Nephis would cure him in no time…

The issue was that he had a far greater chance of never exiting this odd place at all.

As the sun revealed itself from beyond the skyline, three new Snow figures did, indeed, move to fill the surrounding peaks.

Both Sunny and Kai felt nervous about scouting their enemies, considering what had occurred the last time they tried, but they had little option — going into combat blindly was a far worse possibility.

So, Sunny gathered his courage and asked Kai to take a peek.

This time, his friend stayed quiet for far longer than usual. When he finally turned to Sunny, there was a very odd expression on his face.

Sunny scowled, not liking it one bit.

”What?”

Kai paused for a few moments.

”Listen, Sunny… before I say anything… I feel that I need to mention that I have nothing…”

Sunny pressed his lips.

Kai cleared his throat, then gestured at the northern peak.

Kai nodded.

”Yeah… it’s a white dragon. It’s very gorgeous, actually.”

Sunny stared at him some more.

”Are you mocking me?”

Sunny raised a shaking hand and tugged on his hair.

”No, seriously? What the hell is this… how come… listen here, you!”

”Let me tell you, I’ve been around the Dream Realm and back! And never — not once! — have I encountered a dragon without you around. What are you, a dragon magnet? How the hell are you drawing all these dragons, bastard?!” Ṛάℕ𝖔ᛒЕ𝙎

”Calm down, please. Well… true, people call me the Dragonslayer, and I have an Attribute of that name. But if you think about it, technically, I only ever met one dragon.

It couldn’t be a coincidence, could it? Every time there was a dragon, Kai was somewhere nearby.

’Damn Dragonslayer…’

Sunny let out a long breath, then winced and decided to let it go.

Kai gestured to the eastern peak.

”That peak… seems to be overrun with rats. I can’t count how many of them are there, because there are too many.

The whole mountain is crawling with them, and they seem to be… devouring the mountain.”

”How in the world… actually, never mind. And the last one?”

A Cursed Devil to the north, a Cursed Devil to the south, and a Cursed Beast to the east. Things looked quite grim.

He was barely in a condition to fight, and most of his shades could not be summoned yet. Slayer was in a rough state, too… her situation was worse than his, really.

Just like Sunny, she could not move one of her arms, which meant that she could not draw her bow.

There was a day left before the three Cursed nightmare creatures descended upon the Shrine of Truth. The odds would not be any better tomorrow, either.

”How are we going to repel this assault?”

”Well, the answer is simple.”

He looked at Kai and shrugged, wincing from the pain of his damaged arm moving up and down.

As Kai looked at him silently, Sunny shook his head.

He had come to the Shrine of Truth to make his warriors stronger. And he accomplished just that — with the jade figures in his possession, Slayer and Kai would receive the third ash enhancement.

As long as his Will empowered them, that would make them as deadly as any Great Nightmare Creature.

More than that, his army — as long as it was given time to repair itself — now consisted of two Sacred shades and two groups of Great Shades.

The Snow Tyrant, meanwhile, only had two Devils and one Beast left. It was actually at a disadvantage in terms of pure numbers.

What a shocking reversal it was, considering its overwhelming numerical advantage at the start.

More importantly, the Snow Tyrant had to send all of the figures that had been protecting it into battle. Which meant that it was almost defenseless.

So, there was no point in staying in the Shrine of Truth anymore. Sunny had the enemy where he wanted.

Breathing deeply, he summoned the few Obsidian Wasps that had already repaired themselves and sent them off to dig out soul shards from the remains of the dead Cursed Monster.

...He would finally have something to eat.