Shadow Slave

An enormous being slowly rose from the red lake, absorbing it. After the two gigantic arms, a back with a bent spine showed itself next. Then, the top of a bloody skill, uneven shoulders, and an endlessly stretching torso. Finally, two towering legs were formed from the last remains of the lake, ending in stumped feet.

The being crawled across the ruins, pressed into them by the Crushing, then opened its maw and let out a dreadful, deafening, tortured wail.

The twitching muscles on the creature’s gigantic arms contracted once again, and it slowly pushed itself off the ground.

’Hell...’

In the next moment, Jet had no more time to study the titanic figure of the newly evolved Flesh of Kanakht. The captain of the Dutchman appeared from the mist, and a split second later, his cutlass was already flying through the air to cut off her head. Jet felt like she was drowning in her own blood, but she still managed to evade, mumbling curses as she struggled to draw a breath.

She had to dedicate her entire focus to battling the great wraith once more...

And yet, the image of the newborn Titan remained in her mind, as if burned into it. That thing looked like a huge human... or rather, like a failed attempt to create a human. Its titanic body was horrid and misshapen and covered in patches of disgusting rot. The creature’s skin was entirely missing, revealing contorting muscles that were constantly seeping blood.

Its deformed skull was half-buried in slithering flesh, with a lower jaw that hung askew, barely attached to the rest of its face with rotting cartilage.

There was no intelligence in the deep dark pits of its missing eyes, just beastial and hungry lights.

Jet did not know whether the ghastly state of the Flesh of Kanakht was due to the Crushing or simply due to the rot of Corruption that permeated it. What she did know, however...

Was that the abhorrent thing was, without a doubt, a Titan.

As she fought the Cursed Wanderer, the Flesh of Kanakht slowly rose to its feet and straightened. Its size was so enormous that its head almost reached the roof of the invisible dome, the same size as the monumental edifice of the Palace.

‘Damn it.’

Things were not looking good for them.

Out there across the lake, the Flesh of Kanakht let out another groan of agony and took an earth-shattering step forward. At the same time, the Cursed Wanderer landed another blow, sending Jet flying back.

She fell on the ground and rolled, feeling blood streaming down her face. Her vision turned blurry as the blood got into one of her eyes, burning it.

Not too far away, Naeve’s harpoon shattered, leaving him unarmed.

The Dark Castle warily moved back as the wraith army advanced up the shore of the Palace Island.

The Shadow Legion was dwindling, and with every shade it lost, its eventual defeat seemed more and more cemented.

In the east, hidden from view by the soaring mass of the Palace, flashes of blinding white light were getting closer and closer to the shore. Nephis was being pushed back, as well.

Jet winced and spat out blood, turning into a wraith and shifting away to avoid the deadly blow of the viridian cutlass.

Assuming her human form again, she raised the Mist Blade and pointed it at the Cursed Wanderer tiredly.

She wasn’t feeling too well.

“Sunny, are you perhaps about done?”

There was a second of silence, and then Cassie’s voice resounded in her head once again:

[He needs a few more minutes.]

Jet sighed.

At this rate, they’ll all be dead in a few more minutes.

The expedition and its reinforcements could face the Madness of Kanakht, the Flesh of Kanakht, or the Soul of Kanakht and its master... but not all of them at the same time.

If they wanted to last several minutes in this hell, one of their enemies had to die. Looking at the Cursed Wanderer, Jet grinned and slowly lowered the Mist Blade. As she did, the long war scythe changed form, turning into a black khopesh and robbing her of her reach advantage.

The mist turned frigidly cold, and a layer of ice formed on the shattered ground.

She grasped her sickle sword and lowered her stance a little, looking at her adversary with a dark intensity.

“Your Heart once told me to surrender and succumb, you know?”

Her grin widened a little.

”..Guess who succumbed in the end?”

As the Flesh of Kanakht took another step, approaching the Palace Lake, the Cursed Wanderer lunged forward.

Jet did, as well.

***

In the depths of the Palace, Sunny had stepped through the shadows and moved past the floor of the vast circular pit. There was nothing but solid metal beneath it, stretching for about a hundred meters down. The reach of his suppressed shadow sense just barely allowed him to perceive a hollow space below — appearing under its ceiling, he cursed and prepared to plummet down.

There was another great hall hidden under the Seal Chamber, this one entirely circular in shape, with no doors leading into its vast expanse. Sunny expected to fall down, but to his surprise, he didn’t.

In fact, he felt oddly weightless, drifting in the air...

Well, not exactly air. There was no air in the spherical hall to speak of, only the cold void of vacuum.

There was no gravity, either, so Sunny found himself in a peculiar state of falling endlessly while standing in place.

Summoning a tentacle out of shadows, he pulled himself to the roof of the hall — or its floor, depending on perspective — and manifested another shadow in a thin layer on the sole of his boot, instilling an adhesive quality to its composition.

Stepping onto the cold metal, he found himself sticking to it.

He looked around.

‘How is this possible?’

All around him, there stood shadows.

They were the shadows of the immortals of the Eternal City.