Shadow Slave

Slayer was a strange existence. She was a Shadow, her dark essence lit by the silvery glow of pure soul energy. Not quite Supreme, yet no longer merely Transcendent, and although she fought beneath Sunny’s dark banner, she held no loyalty or care toward him.

Her target, the Great Tyrant leading a large portion of the vile swarm, was a strange creature in its own right.

In truth, Sunny had first thought the black millipedes to be nothing more than a mindless horde, driven by pure instinct with no central control. Only after suffering several brutal defeats had he begun to suspect the presence of a guiding force behind them. Even then, it took him far too long to uncover the Tyrant’s presence.

Which was quite late, considering how far his shadow sense had grown, nearly all-seeing when pushed to its limits.

As it turned out, the Great Tyrants of the Black Millipede tribe were extremely elusive. Their twisted forms were tough to perceive, and catching them unaware proved even harder. That was because they existed in a state of strange ambiguity.

Only, unlike Slayer, who was caught between two Ranks, the Millipede Queens seemed to exist between two moments. At least, that was the conclusion Sunny reached after failing to kill them again and again.

These Tyrants did not live in the now. They floated always in the sliver between a moment just past and a moment not yet arrived. And since one could not kill something that was not truly present, Sunny had failed to strike them down each time.

It was a strange and twisted gift, to say the least. But it was the kind of unfair power Sunny had come to expect from beings of the Great Rank.

In addition to their time-hiding trick, the Millipede Queens were huge, wrapped in unbreakable chitin, able to birth an endless flood of smaller horrors, and typically nested safely inside strong hives.

Sunny had found seven of them in total. Today, his goal was to kill at least one.

Facing six destroying swarms would not be much easier than facing seven, and the millipedes left behind would likely be pulled into the rest of the Queens’ legions, making them even stronger. But this would still mark a turning point in the war.

Because once one of the awful Queens joined his Shadow Legion, she would gain control over the thousands of shades of her dead spawn already within it. His own growing swarm of millipedes would instantly become far more deadly. So, being beaten by Slayer and giving her his blood was a small price to pay.

While one of Sunny’s incarnations kept the Devils busy, Slayer had waited in silence.

Hiding herself among the endless tide of Nightmare Creatures, many of whom had odd senses unknown to humans, was no easy task. But she stayed unseen, even right under their… whatever passed for noses.

Either way, Slayer stepped out of the shadows and fired an arrow. She had always been a frightfully skilled killer, and now, her power was boosted by Sunny. He could feel through her, the perfect grace of her moves, the cold steadiness of her will, and the deadly sharpness of her mind.

A Great Tyrant was a world-ending creature. Just one of them could wreck continents in the real world, level cities, and wipe out millions of lives in only days or even hours.

Their huge bodies could flatten mountains. Their armor could shrug off nearly any blow.

And yet, Slayer’s arrow hit the Queen’s head without meeting any resistance.

That was because her will was stronger than the Tyrant’s. Not just stronger, but also sharper, honed into a cutting edge instead of crashing like blunt force.

Oh… so that is how it can work, too.

Even in the chaos of battle, Sunny never missed a lesson.

His Transcendent Battle Art was complete. His swordplay no longer needed deep insight. But a Transcendent Battle Art could still be raised higher, changed into something greater: a Supreme Battle Art.

The difference was clear.

A Supreme Battle Art added a new layer. It was unseen, yet key, the layer of will.

To master that, Sunny needed to fill his will into every move, every hit. He had started learning this during his clash with Anvil, taking insight from the King of Swords’ Supreme Battle Art, and had made big progress in shaping his Will since then. 𝘳Άɴọ𝐛Ε𝘚

But there was still much more to learn.

And Slayer was the best teacher. She was old, with the skill of a born killer. She had lived long before Sunny, had hunted more prey than he ever had, and had shaped her Will into something sharper than his own.

Else, she would not have lived for thousands of years in the Shadow Realm, never giving in to death.

“Interesting.”

The arrow had struck the Queen’s skull, but it had not killed her. The damage was far less than it should have been.

He paused for a moment.

Ah… I get it now.

In fights at this height, Will was both blade and shield. But it did not stand alone — it needed a tool. That tool, of course, was the one who held it.

But there was more…

Will needed to be shown straight. The fewer things between the source and the goal, the stronger the strike. The closer the touch, the more deadly the result.

Here, the source of the Will was Slayer. Sunny was part of it, too, not because he had made her stronger, but because he had made her bow and arrows, leaving parts of his Will inside them.

Still, the total weight of their Wills should have crushed the Queen — yet it only did small harm.

That was because Slayer’s Will had not been shown straight. It had been sent from far, through a tool.

It was like her Will had faded over the space between them.

If Slayer had hit with her bare hands, the Will would have landed at full strength. A sword would also have worked, as it linked to her hand and body right away.

But a far weapon was a weaker tool.

A bow was better than most — the archer had to pull it by hand, using their own strength — but a crossbow would have been worse. A bullet, even worse still. Almost no Will would stay in such cold strikes.

No wonder modern tools became almost useless against Nightmare Creatures of the Fallen Rank and above. Even at that level, Will began to matter. Cold, machine-made strikes could not cut through the armor of hidden Will that wrapped such beings.

But a sword held in an Awakened’s hand could.

Sunny let out a low whistle.

“This is really quite something. Fully unscientific, of course.”

He also started to think about his own Will — that of the Lord of Shadows — and how it moved through his created shades.

But that was a mystery for later.

Right now, there was still a hurt Great Tyrant that had to fall.

While far weapons might have been weaker in battles between truly great beings, they were not without worth. They just needed great skill from the one using them — and Slayer had that in full.

That was why her arrow had found the Queen’s head with ease. And even if it had not done much damage, that had not been its main aim.

The arrow was special — one Sunny had made while thinking of the [In Case of Emergency] Memory Rain used to wear. That Memory kept her in place, holding her where she stood in case of a full crash in Godgrave.

The arrow’s use was close — to hold the target in place.

The Millipede Queen was hugely strong, her Will vast. She broke the magic binding seconds after it took hold…

But in that short blink, she was fully bare. Fixed in space and time, she lost the gain of her strange cover.

And in that same moment, three more arrows hit the soft points in her armor.

This time, the harm was huge.

The Queen’s neck burst open from the inside, shards of chitin and torn meat flying into the air.

Streams of blood poured down in red waves, and thousands of lesser beasts stumbled, losing all form.

The Queen screamed, a sound that shook the air, and twisted in pain and fear. The Great Devils who had gone to block Sunny turned back, rushing toward their mother’s cries.

But they were already too slow.

Because Slayer had already drawn one more arrow.

And she had already let it fly.

The killing arrow.

A blink later, the Queen’s massive head was sliced clean off her body.