Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

Constance seemed positively speechless, her pleasant smile seemingly about to collapse. Even Kurt, who was in the midst of figuring out how he could get out of this alive, sent Sunny an astonished look, half-impressed, half-horrified.

”It was a joke.”

Sunny made sure to not sound too hasty. Otherwise, Constance might have thought that he was trying to find a way to escape from his supposed failed proposal.

”You decide my reward. I will not complain.”

If she gave him some garbage, then he will have some choice words! Not that he would say them aloud.

With a scowl, Sunny tightened his grip on Kurt’s wrist, forcing him to drop his knife in a hiss of pain. He pushed the man, releasing him while pointing towards the arena.

”Get in the ring. I’ve grown tired of your face.”

Sunny hadn’t even been staring at it, so that wasn’t really possible. Kurt had a distressed look on his face as he reluctantly walked past Constance, carefully eyeing her as he leaped towards the other end of the arena. Sunny followed soon after, making sure to keep a small distance from the alluring lady as he tried not to bother her.

As he passed by, she whispered:

”Good luck. Though, I doubt you need it.”

Without pausing in his steps, Sunny returned a stoic nod. Walking over to the fence that separated the audience from the battles below, he jumped, landing with ease and effortless grace as his last shadow — the Happy shadow — returned to his feet.

But, before he could have the time to summon a Memory or even get into a fighting stance, Kurt moved with terrible speed, covering the distance between the both ends of the arena in a split second.

Just from the way he moved, it was easy to tell that his Soul Core had been fully saturated a long time ago. He was indeed a powerful Awakened.

Luckily, Sunny had no plans of summoning a Memory. He had told Constance that he would kill Kurt with his bare hands — although they were armored. He didn’t want to underestimate Kurt, but he was put in quite a difficult position.

All because he wanted to keep the cool persona of Mongrel intact!

One of Kurt’s hands shot forward, a knife forged out of a strange lusterless alloy appearing in it as if out of nowhere. The was no magic involved in its sudden appearance, though. The knife had just been hidden in a secret sheath on his forearm.

Of course, Sunny was much faster. He blocked the strike with the onyx carapace of the Mantle before it could ever reach his flesh... at the last moment, however, Kurt twisted his wrist and let go of the handle, sending the knife flying past him.

A fraction of a second too late, Sunny realized that the knife was not aimed at his body.

It was aimed at his shadow.

And since he had wasted precious time being mistaken about the killer’s intentions, it was too late to move his body away to make the shadow shift out of harm’s way.

Luckily, Sunny’s shadow could move on its own.

It suddenly went out of sync with his movements and jumped away, letting the knife bury itself in the stone floor and send a net of cracks through the earth.

Shaken, Sunny resisted the urge to jump back. Balancing his survival instincts while keeping up his identity was going to be a hassle.

’What is this...’

Any other Awakened would have been killed by that devious attack, most likely. To Kurt’s misfortune, though, he had met a fighter well-versed in all things shadow.

Sunny was already turning his block into an attack. His fist seemed to teleport forward, tearing through the air so fast that it sent a small shockwave rolling through the underground arena.

Kurt had long disengaged, though. As soon as he threw the knife, he saturated his body with Essence and lunged back, soaring through the air and momentarily appearing a dozen meters away. As soon as his feet touched the ground, he was already moving again, dashing sideways.

At the same time, two more knives flew at terrible speed toward Sunny. Their purpose was not to kill or wound him, but just to slow him down.

One was meant for Sunny, and the other was for his shadow.

Sunny dodged the knife and summoned the shadow to wrap itself around his body, feeling his strength and speed become even more enhanced. He dashed forward, preparing to bash the psycho’s head in.

Before he could try to do so, though, a dark smile appeared on Kurt’s face.

In the next moment, something massive burrowed out of the ground and struck him... or at least tried to.

Sunny easily sidestepped the attack and jumped back, then suddenly twisted, allowing a fourth knife that appeared out of nowhere to harmlessly skid across the Mantle of the Underworld.

Kurt clicked his tongue.

”...So annoying.”

Sunny, meanwhile, was staring at the thing that crawled from under the floor.

It looked like a mound of worn rags, with two long arms that had one too many joints growing out of it, each ending in three terrifying curved claws. The towering thing was vaguely humanoid in shape, with broad shoulders and a small head covered by a tattered hood.

An awkward grin appeared behind Weaver’s Mask.

’What does he expect me to do with this? This is a death match, not a ’call all your friends to join in on the fun’ match!’

If he had to guess, he would be willing to bet that the creature was at least of the Ascended Rank, and had at least three Soul Cores hiding in its raggedy carcass. Maybe more...

As a vicious-looking curved sword appeared in Kurt’s hands, Sunny rolled his eyes.

Three more Nightmare Creatures suddenly appeared out of the shadows. These seemed not to be Ascended, at least. He wasn’t sure if they were Beasts or Monsters, though... just that they looked rather menacing. One was covered in black chitin and had a long tail that ended in a jagged blade, drops of poison falling from it and leaving smoldering holes on the floor; the other was like a repulsive mix of a human and a pale centipede, its limbs numerous and thin as bone needles; the last one resembled a marionette with sharp knives sewn to its wrists.

As the Nightmare Creatures attacked, Kurt surrounded himself with dancing shadows and dashed forward... while Sunny simply took a step back, and suddenly appeared in his way.

The more shadows the bastard used, the easier it was for Sunny to get to him, after all.

The Echoes missed their mark, seeing as he disappeared from his previous position. As they tried to lunge towards Kurt to protect him, the air suddenly grew much hotter. The Nightmare Creatures convulsed,blue light glowing through their skin...

Then, suddenly, they exploded in a performance of beautiful azure flames.

As Sunny confronted Kurt, he could vaguely hear a familiar voice speaking through a microphone.

”Starting the fight on your own accord, I will ignore. Summoning Echoes for your own battle, however, is not something I take kindly to.”

Mentally thanking Constance for destroying Kurt’s Echoes as she continued to speak to the audience about something he wasn’t paying attention to, Sunny sent an onyx fist flying for his skull, planning to splatter his brain matter against the arena walls.

Somehow, Kurt managed to dodge the blow and swiped at Sunny with his curved sword. Although he was incredibly fast, Sunny was much, much faster. He grabbed the blade, crushing it in his stone grasp. At the same time, he prepared to unleash another strike.

A triumphant spark appeared in Kurt’s eyes. At the same time, his shadow suddenly moved. Even though the curved sword was already blocked, it’s black reflection held in the shadow’s hand continued to swiftly approach Sunny’s flesh.

’Huh. Neat trick.’

Before it could cut him down, though, Sunny lightened himself to the weight of a feather, leaped into the air with the curved sword still in his grasp. It was wrenched from Kurt’s grip as Sunny avoided the attacking shadow, before being promptly dismissed as the man tried to keep a proper weapon out of Sunny’s hand.

Unfortunately for him, Sunny was the weapon.

With a flexible twist of the hip, Sunny’s foot slammed into the back of Kurt’s head, resounding with a sickening crunch. His eyes turned bloodshot as he became disoriented, his brain rattling as it crashed against his cracked skull.

The attack with Kurt’s shadow may have caught him off guard if he was anyone else, but Sunny’s Shadow Sense had been fully focused on the man’s shadow along with the ones in the arena. He had already noticed a few strange movements from it, as if it was manually controlled. So he was already prepared to avoid it if necessary.

Sunny clawed Kurt’s head in his onyx grip. He sighed, knowing that he couldn’t end this painlessly without a weapon on hand. Apologizing to the man, Sunny dragged him over to the wall of the arena, lifted him up by the cranium... then smashed his face into the wall.

Kurt roared in pain, teeth blown out, nose crushed, countless bones fracturing... but Sunny wasn’t done. He kept slamming Kurt into the wall, hoping the man could die faster — if only to ease his suffering. A crater formed in the wall, deepening and expanding with each strike.

Thankfully it didn’t take long. By the time that Kurt’s face was no more, simply a mangled mess of flesh, bone, and blood, the Spell finally deigned to announce the kill.

[...You have slain an Awakened human, Kurt.]

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

’Not even worth the Shadow Fragments... was Shadow Blade not his True Name? A nickname? Guess I overestimated him.’

The Spell would have called him by his True Name if he had one. If one were to kill Sunny, then it would say that they have slain Lost From Light.

The Spell wasn’t done talking:

[You have received an Echo.]