Shadow Slave

Previously, Sunny had considered the living statues to be just that, monuments brought to life by evil spirits. There were a lot of revenants like that walking the streets of the cursed city.

Take the Black Knight, for example — Sunny was almost sure that the bastard was actually just a suit of armor with a vengeful wraith imprisoned within it. He had no proof that there was an actual body in that moving steel fortress, at least.

However, after watching the Stone Saint die right before his eyes, he wasn’t so sure that she and the Black Knight were the same anymore. There certainly were similarities… even the design of their armors was somewhat similar, as though one had originated from the other. But the stone warrior’s armor seemed much more… ancient.

And then there was the ruby dust that flowed from the stone creature’s wounds instead of blood. Since when did statues have blood? It was almost like these strange creatures were designed to possess their own weird form of life. Come think about it, the stone warriors resembled artificial beings brought to life by some dark magic much more than they resembled undead creatures.

‘Mysteries, mysteries, mysteries all around!’

Perhaps the runes describing the Stone Saint would provide him with some answers.

The Echo, meanwhile, was coming to life. Two magenta flames ignited in her gemstone eyes. The stone of her armor suddenly gleamed with subtle metal shine, the smooth surface of her granite skin turned slightly less rigid. Silently turning her head, the Saint gazed at Sunny through the narrow split of her helmet’s visor.

“Let’s see…”

He concentrated on the runes.

Echo: Stone Saint.

Echo Rank: Awakened.

Echo Class: Monster.

Echo Attributes: [Battle Master], [Stalwart], [Mark of Divinity].

Sunny blinked. Mark of Divinity? That was the same as his original Attribute! What business did a Nightmare Creature have walking around with the traces of divinity left in its evil, corrupted soul?

And what with these other Attributes…

Battle Master Attribute Description: [Born on the battlefield, the Stone Saint is proficient in all forms of combat.]

Stalwart Attribute Description: [The Stone Saint is highly resistant to all forms of damage, as well as being fully immune to mind and soul attacks.]

Bewildered, Sunny shook his head. No wonder these silent stone warriors were so deadly. They were literally a bunch of killing machines created to last as long and deal as much damage as possible on the battlefield.

But who had created them?

Leaving the Attributes alone, he lowered his gaze and read the next line of runes:

Echo Description: [Deep in the cavernous halls of his dark domain, the last child of the -unknown- had created them from stone to quell the fire burning in his resentful heart. However, that fire only grew hotter. Designed to bring peace, they were instead born into an endless war.]

Huh… the Unknown again. Or rather, their children. It seemed like his theory was correct. The Stone Saint was either an artificial being or a descendant of one. In any case, that was before she was corrupted by… well. Whatever it was that had corrupted all the Nightmare Creatures, and especially those in the cursed city. Now even gods wouldn’t be able to describe what exactly she was.

Not that it mattered. A monster was a monster.

Sunny was more interested in the fact that the traces of divinity that the stone warrior bore had to have come from their original creator, who was at least partially one of the Unknown. Which meant that the Unknown, indeed, were closely related to the gods and to divinity itself.

Just like mysterious Weaver.

Just like the Memories, the true essence of the Echo was weaved from the countless diamond strings that formed an infinitely complex pattern. Only in its case, the pattern was even more elaborate, dwarfing anything that Sunny had previously seen.

Two embers were burning inside the Stone Saint’s body, serving as anchors for the endless strings. One of them was situated in the place where her heart should have been, the other in the lower part of her abdomen.

Sunny closed one eye and looked more closely. And there, behind the shining pattern of the diamond strings, he noticed another, much more primitive and crude system of adamantine threads. They pierced the stone flesh of the Echo, resembling a human nervous system.

These strings were also seemingly made from diamond, but they were much less ethereal. In fact, they were entirely corporeal. Sunny frowned.

‘Makes sense… that makes sense. Wait, how does it make sense?’

The Memories and the Echoes were created by the Spell. They were artificial. The Stone Saint, too, was artificial, but in a much more mundane sense. She was made by a child of the Unknown, just like her Echo was made by the Spell.

Which meant what? That the technique that had been used to create the Stone Saint was eerily similar to the technique that the Spell used, although it did look extremely primitive in comparison.

Could that mean that the Spell itself had come from the Unknown?

Sunny grimaced and shook his head. No, no. Although it was a sound theory, there was too little information to actually consider it substantiated or even remotely believable. He needed to find out more, learn more, uncover more before even beginning to understand the true story that connected the Spell, the gods, the Unknown, and his own life into one nightmarish tapestry.

But there would be time for it later.

Right now, he had something equally as interesting right within his grasp.

Glancing one last time at the graceful stone monster, Sunny gulped and licked his lips. Then, he said timidly:

“Let’s… let’s do this.”

Taking a step forward, he hesitated and then carefully put his hand on the breastplate of the Stone Saint’s armor, right across from the place where the main nexus of her Spell Weave was situated.

To his surprise, the breastplate felt like stone and was warm to the touch. It was as though a furious crimson flame was burning inside the Nightmare Creature’s chest.

‘Huh.’

As soon as Sunny touched the Echo, a new string of runes appeared in the air in front of him.

[Transform Echo into a Shadow?]

He hesitated, once again afraid to make the choice. What was he going to do if the process made the Stone Saint weaker, or even useless?

Trying not to think of this possibility, Sunny sighed and forced himself to say:

“Yes!”

An imperceptible change happened to the Soul Sea, as though a gust of wind suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The tranquil dark water seemed to simultaneously stay still and move restlessly. Then, a sudden pressure came from somewhere above.

Raising his head, Sunny saw two dark beams descending from the depths of the Shadow Core. One of them fell on the Echo, while the other landed on one of the silent shadows that stood motionlessly behind his back, as though connecting them together

Bathed in the dark light, the shadow of the dead Stone Saint slowly dissolved into it.

And then the Echo began to change…