Shadow Slave

Sunny did get some rest after crafting the Curse—most of his incarnations did, at least. A few more remained busy with other endeavors, handling tasks that never seemed to stop.

Sunny had to admit—for a dead man, he was quite busy.

One of his incarnations was setting up a base of operations in Ravenheart, for example. Another was developing spells meant to guard the Citadels of humanity with Cassie.

And lastly...

Just a day or two before Mordret rose to the throne of Supremacy, one of Sunny’s incarnations led the Shadow Legion into a decisive battle against the Black Millipede tribe.

Out there, far north of the Dark City, the great tangle of the Burned Forest sprawled beneath the ashen sky. The charred mass of fallen trees was frothing and seething as it expelled a constant flood of something that looked like a black liquid from afar—it was not a liquid at all, though.

Instead, the black flood consisted of countless chitinous bodies that crawled from underneath the broken trees like an unceasing torrent. Now that the battle moved close to the nests of the Black Millipede tribe, its six remaining queens threw everything they had into resisting the sinister invader, fighting for each meter of land with chilling cunning and ferociousness.

Today, however—like every day for the last few weeks—the lethal flood of appalling millipedes had met its match.

That was because a different plague had been spreading across the vast expanse of the charred tangle, hidden from view in its depths.

The Burned Forest was suffering from a rat infestation.

At first, there had been a single rat... the shadow of a rat, even. However, that one rat was no mere rat—it was the king of all rats, no less, in all its Sacred glory.

The Rat King had spread like a plague in the weeks after Sunny first summoned him to the Burned Forest, consuming the black millipedes slain by the Shadow Legion and gnawing on the blackened forest itself when there were none to devour. Once the number of rats grew enough, the Sacred shade became capable of tearing them apart all by itself... which only increased the rate of its growth.

By now, the flood of the grotesque millipedes was almost dwarfed by the seething ocean of rat bodies scurrying along the charred branches and broken tree trunks of the great tangle. It was as if two vile tidal waves collided in the middle of the Burned Forest, unleashing an awful cacophony of bestial screeches and visiting an unimaginable level of violence upon the world.

An incalculable number of rats were torn apart by sharp mandibles, crushed by slithering chitinous bodies, and dissolved in powerful acid. At the same time, countless millipedes were shredded with tiny teeth, buried under a mass of vermin, and devoured from the inside.

Sunny grimaced as he observed the battle from the towering remains of a burned tree, playing with a single rat that kept trying to bite his fingers off.

”What a distasteful sight.”

There was a dark smile playing on his lips. The Rat King was growing, which was good news—even if the strain of sustaining its existence was draining his reserves of essence more and more. Shades of his own Rank or those who were weaker than Sunny provided him with more spirit essence than what was required to summon them, but Sacred shades were different.

Calling them forth from the dark expanse of his Soul Sea was strenuous both for his Will and his essence, so he could only manage summoning one.

But the Rat King was worth it here, in the Burned Forest, where it had an almost endless amount of relatively weaker enemies to feed on—not only because the number of rats constantly grew, but because it meant killing two birds with one stone. When the Rat King devoured black millipedes, its power increased. At the same time, the shades of the devoured millipedes joined the Shadow Legion, making it stronger as well.

That was why the conquest of the southern outskirts of the Burned Forest was going even faster than Sunny had anticipated, despite the weeks of his absence.

The Millipede Queens would not have allowed him to get this close to their nests if they were not struggling.

Still... he had not won a battle yet.

Each time the Shadow Legion advanced, it suffered a crushing defeat and had to retreat. Then, Sunny was forced to wait days until his shades were mended while escaping the pursuit of the Great Tyrants of the Black Millipede tribe, who had long understood that there was only one way to destroy the silent invaders—it was to kill and devour their lord. ꞦἈN∅ꞖÈȿ

If only these poor creatures knew that there were six others just like him where he came from...

Their struggle was hopeless.

The Shadow Legion rose from the darkness over and over again, no matter how numerous times it was destroyed and wiped out. Worse still, it returned stronger and more numerous every time—after all, the millipedes who had fallen in each of the battles or had been consumed by the Rat King joined the ranks of the silent shadows. By now, the Ember Queen—the shade of the Great Tyrant of the Black Millipede tribe—ruled more members of their appalling kind than any one of her six remaining sisters did.

Sunny inhaled deeply as he watched the tide of rats slowly drowning in the ocean of millipedes. The Rat King was struggling, it seemed...

Far in the distance, the elusive forms of the six Millipede Queens were hidden behind the seething mass of their harrowing children.

”It’s time!”

He looked around, suddenly missing the company of his other incarnation. Now that Sunny was alone, there was nobody for him to talk to, even.

Of course, talking to his other incarnations was no different from talking to himself, so he could just do that.

He sighed.

”...Godspeed.”

With that, Sunny turned into a shadow.

His shadow grew, enveloping the world... And then, a tenebrous army rose from it.