Shadow Slave

Cassie and Nightwalker faced each other on the emerald grass of the Ivory Island, no more than a dozen metres between them. The air around them was suffused with volatile energy, the space itself bending and twisting like a sheet of fabric fluttering in the violent wind. Despite the utter chaos and the devastation ravaging the meadow around them, neither of them moved.

And yet, a transcendent battle was raging in the crackling air between them, hidden from sight.

Nightwalker was commanding space to rend Cassie apart, while she was wielding the power left behind by the Demon of Desire to thwart him. Her body kept breaking and being mended by the white radiance spilling from beneath her skin, and her golden hair danced in the raging wind.

In her mind’s eye, the future and the present fused into a blood-soaked kaleidoscope of torment and death, countless possibilities blooming like a vast web of silk threads. All of them inevitably converged into a single outcome, though — her defeat.

Cassie could withstand Nightwalker, for a time… but she could not overcome him. Her mind was slowly buckling under the pressure of wielding the Crushing with an increasingly sophisticated measure of precision, while a small and meticulous part of it was coldly contemplating how to cut the ruthless adversary down — sadly, Cassie was coming up empty.

If she were to have any hope of defeating Nightwalker, she had to get close to him first. The distance between them was small — especially so in a battle between Saints. Usually, she would have been able to close it in the blink of an eye, but her adversary made that impossible.

Every time Cassie tried to get in melee range with Nightwalker, he simply expanded the space between them, stretching it so that she had to traverse a vast distance simply to take a single step — there might as well have been many kilometers separating them. She could not make use of her dagger or force him to look her in the eye, kept at bay by his power.

And every time she tried to retreat, he twisted space so that she ended up exactly where she had started, as if to tell her that there was no escape from him.

All she could do was make sure that none of the ghastly ways in which her body was being broken was instantly fatal. Even that was only possible because of her Supreme charm.

Consumed by pain, Cassie gritted her teeth.

‘What a devious Aspect.’

There had to be some drawback to Nightwalker’s powers… an Aspect as potent as that had to have equally grave limitations. However, there was more to the martial prowess of an Awakened than the power of their Aspect — learning how to wield it more effectively and efficiently was just as important, if not more so.

Nightwalker had already been a legendary figure before his disappearance, and then spent decades in an endless, relentless battle against beings who were vastly more powerful than him on top of that. Even if there were grave limitations to his Aspect, his mastery was most likely unmatched, and therefore, these limitations had little influence on how deadly he was.

If Cassie were to wager a guess, she would say that commanding space in such a forceful manner was quickly depleting his reserves of essence. But even then, time was not on her side — there were five more Saints and an entire army of Awakened behind Nightwalker, after all, and by the time his essence ran out, they would be here.

Rain was going to open the pathway soon — if Cassie was not near the arch when that happened, all hope would be lost.

So, then…

‘Think.’

If she could neither win nor retreat… then she had to make Nightwalker give up on the battle.

Cassie’s tunic had turned entirely red from the blood she had lost.

She inhaled deeply and then spoke in a strained, hoarse voice:

“Say… why is your master trying to kill me all of a sudden? He used to go out of his way to keep as many Saints as possible alive. Doesn’t he want to gobble me up anymore?”

Asterion was dreaming of Apotheosis, so each Saint he could devour to fuel his ascension to godhood was more precious to him than gold.

Nightwalker smiled and shrugged slightly.

“How should I know what is going on in his head? Still, in my opinion… it is simply a question of value.”

Cassie raised an eyebrow.

“Value?”

Unleashing another cruel attack upon her, Nightwalker seemed to nod.

“This is the last stand of the Longing Domain, after all. He has driven you into a corner… and do you know what is more perilous than a cornered rat?”

His voice was bitter and joyless.

“It’s a cornered rat that controls a Great Citadel and can flatten the entire Bastion with a thought, killing everyone who lives there in an instant. People do all kinds of things when they’re desperate, after all… so, he must have judged that your personal value is inferior to the losses he would incur if you decide to do something stupid out of spite.”

Cassie’s wrist snapped, and her dagger fell to the ground. Hearing her quiet groan, Nightwalker sighed.

“You can’t win, Song of the Fallen. Why are you insisting on tormenting yourself so much? I am not enjoying this either, so please, give it up and surrender already.”

Some distance away, hidden from sight, Rain was already channelling the Names to summon divine flame.

Cassie forced out a smile.

“Should I?”

With that, she willed the Ivory Island to move.

The seven heavenly chains rattled as it did, sailing across the sky. It moved slowly at first, but its speed was increasing swiftly, raising turbulent winds.

‘This reminds me of the good old days.’

As her broken wrist ignited with white radiance and white splinters of bone retreated back under the shredded skin, she did something else.

She reached toward the tether connecting her to the Ivory Tower…

And cut it.