Shadow Slave

Suddenly, the darkness retreated, and a titanic, billowing pillar of roaring white flame escaped into the vastness of the sky, washing over it like an immolating flood. The fire churned, and if one glanced closely, they could glimpse a vague, flowing silhouette of something colossal being drawn by the moving flames, appearing and disappearing in the dance of fire — before they were blinded by its pure radiance, of course.

As if the flame was a living thing that moved with purpose and otherworldly intent… Right now, its intent was to devour the Deathless.

The boundless ocean of flame descended upon Ariel’s Hell like a white inferno, swallowing a vast swath of the undead horde in front of the advancing army. The desert was drowned by the sea of fire, which stretched all the way to the horizon.

Countless Deathless were trapped in the inferno, burning in it… being gnawed on and shattered by it.

Their figures were like black candlesticks melting in the light.

The visage of Changing Star, unleashed, was both radiant and terrifying,

Sadly, even her true shape was not powerful and devastating enough to wipe out the prisoners of Hell, especially now that her Domain had been broken, and her Will had lost the weight of billions of souls that used to empower it.

The weaker of the Deathless were destroyed, and those of them on whom Nephis focused her incinerating will were being slowly turned to ash. But most of them, while damaged and burned by the flame, continued to move.

Some, those who were powerful enough, fought against the living flame, dealing it invisible wounds — Nephis healed those wounds and endured the agony, scorching them in turn.

The rest waded through the ocean of flame, blinded, still overcome by the desire to obliterate the invaders who had dared to enter Ariel’s Hell.

Their black bones slowly ignited like embers and then turned incandescent, shining with an angry red glow in the sea of fire.

It was then that Saint, whose fearsome armor and jade body were all but impervious to elemental attacks, emerged from the flame and slashed the nearest Deathless with her black blade.

The adamantine bones, which had been nearly indestructible before, parted in front of the dark sword like butter. That was because even if they were not destroyed by the soul flame, they were rendered softer and far more fragile in their incandescent state.

Saint did not stop even for a split second, instantly dismantling the Deathless warrior before moving on to the next one with measured, indomitable steps.

Behind her, the figure of Azarax emerged from the flame, as well. The ancient tyrant laughed, his glass armor shining like a terrifying beacon, His axe fell, splitting a Deathless beast in half, and his boots stomped the fallen creature into dust, a swarm of red embers shooting to swirl in the overheated air.

Luckily, neither the undead vassals of the ancient conqueror nor the shades needed to breathe. Otherwise, their lungs would have turned to ash already.

The rest of the invading army moved behind its champions. The white flames flowed, opening a path to them — a few seconds later, the two forces clashed, and this time, the Deathless fell far more easily under the blades, claws, and fangs of the invaders.

The Shadow Legion marched on through the white flame, which parted in front of it like an immolating sea.

It seemed to be working, for now..

But even in the depths of her agony, Nephis knew that she would not be able to maintain that fearsome assault for long. That was because she had lost most of her Domain, and therefore, the vast torrent of spirit essence that used to flow into her soul was replaced by a thin stream. She was burning more essence than she was receiving, and even with the [Fire] empowering her soul, she would exhaust her reserves of it soon.

Before that happened…

They needed to leave the Deathless Spirit and the vast expanse of his insurmountable Will behind.

Far away, engaged in a ferocious battle with the Deathless Spirit, Sunny could only vaguely see Nephis and the Shadow Legion advancing in the distance. The Nightmare Desert was illuminated by her radiant flames, and dark figures clashed in the sea of white radiance, indistinguishable from each other.

His shadow sense was going haywire from all the chaos and mayhem of the cataclysmic battle, so he was having trouble determining which figures were friends, and which ones were foes. Their army was advancing at a good rate, though, so it seemed that Nephis and Azarax had a handle on the situation for now, at least.

At first, the Shadow Legion was behind him. Then, it was far to the side, circling around the area where Sunny and the Archon fought. And then, it was finally ahead of them, slowly making its way closer to the looming shape of the Tomb of Ariel.

There was not enough distance between the Shadow Legion and the Deathless Spirit yet, though, and there wouldn’t be for a long time. So, Sunny had to continue fighting.

It was tough.

The Archon was a terrifying enemy — an enemy that Sunny had no business fighting, really — and even if the Wolf was cunning and elusive, attacking from the darkness only to retreat moments later, aided in its predatory dance by Sunny carrying its weight through the shadows, the damage they had received was slowly accumulating.

The giant figure of the Wolf was frayed now, surrounded by a billowing cloud of grey smoke. Sunny, meanwhile, was in the throes of agony, several of his soul cores already covered in cracks.

Every time the Wolf was a little bit too slow to evade the Archon’s attack, his entire being shook and quaked, barely surviving the terrifying tyranny of the fallen deity’s unfathomable killing intent.

Sunny could endure a lot of punishment, but there was a limit even to his endurance. For now, Soul Weave was preventing his wounded soul from collapsing and his cores from crumbling, but if the battle continued in the same manner, he would suffer a loss or even be outright destroyed. Unfortunately…

The battle had to go on.

He had occupied the Deathless Spirit for some time now — minutes, perhaps even dozens of minutes — but dawn was still hours away. Which meant that Sunny had to continue fighting against an undying god of Hell for hours more… and he was not sure that he could manage that.

‘Think, think, think…’

The Wolf clawed at the looming figure of the Archon, adding more rifts to his tattered robe. It bit onto the white staff of the Deathless Spirit, leaving deep grooves in it and ripping one of the golden ornaments free. It leaped into the air and sank its fangs into the giant skeletons jaw, dislodging it from the joints.

Now, the Archon’s jaw hung crookedly, which only made him look more terrifying. The eerie glow emanating from behind the golden coins covering his eyes grew more intense, and Sunny felt something cold grasp his heart.

The Archon twisted space and time, answering to the ferocious attack. Sunny felt a ghastly pain first, and only then felt the Deathless Spirit’s bony fingers rending through the Wolve’s hide, leaving a ghastly wound on its side..

And on Sunny’s soul, as well.

‘I… don’t think I am going to survive until dawn.’

Even if he used the [Chain] enchantment of the Curse, it would only buy him a little bit more time.

His mind spun furiously, trying to come up with something — some trick, some devious scheme, or even some bold gamble — to turn the tide of this brutal battle. Was there some application of his Aspect Abilities that he could use, some revelation he was failing to grasp, some Memory he could summon to turn the tables?

‘Memories…’

He remembered every Memory in his soul arsenal, and every enchantment those Memories possessed. He also remembered every instance of using those enchantments and what the results were.

Sunny had created most of those Memories himself, so he knew what they were capable of very well.

That was why he knew that there was no Memory that could truly help him defeat a Sacred being — not really.

That was because Memories did not usually possess a Will of their own, and were therefore only as powerful as the Will of their masters. In the battles between beings of lesser Ranks, that did not matter that much… but when one fought against a deity, any Memory could be easily rendered ineffectual simply by being denied the power to reshape the world in accordance with its design.

So, even if Sunny had forged a Sacred Memory for himself, it would still be fueled by his Supreme Will. Unless there was an adversarial Will opposing him, it could still work just fine — if it was designed well enough to push against the universal laws of existence — but if Sunny had to fight someone like the Wandering Archon, even his most powerful Memories would probably prove to be unreliable.

‘Forged myself… a Sacred memory…’

The Wolf received another blow and was thrown into the air, collapsing on the sand with a terrifying impact moments later. Sunny let out an anguished groan and focused on the Deathless Spirit.

Suddenly…

A completely mad idea found its way into his mind.

Sunny had been known to entertain an outlandish idea or two, but this one was really, truly mad — even by his standards.

‘But is there a reason why it shouldn’t work?’

Actually, there were a million reasons, but Sunny did not need those. He only needed one reason why it could work — his Will would do the rest and make the remotely possible become inevitable.

Hopefully.

In any case, he knew that he was not going to last long against the Archon, and this was the only plausible — albeit deeply mad — idea he had been able to come up with.

‘Let’s try it, then. What’s the worst… no, I’m not finishing that sentence…’

As the Wolf staggered to its feet and glared at the Deathless Spirit, baring its fangs, Sunny secretly allowed one of his incarnations to separate itself from the Sacred shade.

He hid in the darkness, watching intently, and when the Wolf lunged forward to attack the Archon again, quietly assumed a human form once more.

Looking around in hesitation, Sunny took a deep breath and reached into his Soul Sea. He needed to retrieve something from there, as well as summon a particular Memory.

The shadows flowed up his body and extended from his torso, turning into two additional pairs of hands.

‘If brute force doesn’t work, try sorcery.’

He summoned Weaver’s Needle.