Shadow Slave

Sunny, Nephis, and the Cursed Terror they were trying to kill escaped from the boundless darkness of the Great River, which had been robbed of its suns, into the light again…

Only, this time, that light was different from the clear radiance of the azure sky.

It was different from the eternal blaze of sunset and the gorgeous lilac tapestry that reigned on the edges of the Great River, as well.

This time, the light was piercing, overwhelming… blinding.

Sunny hissed, dismissing the myriad eyes with which he had been beholding the world. But even after they were gone, dissolving into the dark depths of his nebulous body, he still felt as if he could see the incandescent radiance that enveloped the world.

A moment after the light came the heat. Sunny had been spared from burning in the immolating white flames of Neph’s true form, but now, he found himself being subjected to an impossible amount of heat. He was scorched, he was singed…

He burned.

The vast expanse of his formless body bubbled and boiled, being destroyed bit by bit, rippling as it was turning to ash. The pain was unimaginable — just like the pain of his very being being torn apart by the talons of the Vile Thieving Bird was, driving him mad.

Sunny burned… and then was healed by Neph’s flames, and then burned again.

The Thieving Bird burned, too.

Even Nephis was enduring the torment of being burned alive, like she always did, because of her cruel Flaw.

Sunny screamed with a thousand bloodied maws.

And then, he quenched his suffering with blood, sinking his fangs into the charred body of the loathsome Terror.

He did not care whether darkness or light surrounded them. He did not care whether they were in the future or in the past, or if they would ever be able to find their way back to the present — to Ananke.

He did not care about being burned, and truly, he did not care about being in terrible pain either.

All he cared about was killing the odious Thieving Bird, about bringing death upon his enemy — so, he did not spend much time trying to figure out where the blinding light and the annihilating heat were coming from.

‘Die…’

As Sunny ravaged the Thieving Bird, the world became hotter, brighter… heavier. There were no shadows around him, so he could not sense it, but Sunny still felt it. The three of them were swiftly approaching something so vast that it possessed a pull of its own, making him feel like he was being slowly crushed under an immense pressure — and at the same time drawn closer to the source of the invisible pull.

A sudden thought flashed through his mind.

‘The… sun…’

In the next moment, the Vile Thieving Bird crashed into the surface of one of the seven suns illuminating the terrifying expanse of the Tomb of Ariel — into the soul shard of an Unholy Titan that Ariel had fashioned into a sun.

And then…

Sunny had thought that the heat melting his soul and turning his thoughts to ash was overwhelming. As it turned out, he knew nothing… he had not even known what true heat was, and what being reduced to ash meant.

Because when the colossal celestial orb that had illuminated the dark world of Ariel for thousands of years shattered, and all that was contained within it was set free, all of it — the light, the heat, the pressure — suddenly descended upon them tenfold. And there was the inconceivable kinetic force of the impact, as well…

It was not easy to shatter a sun, after all, artificial or not.

Especially by using yourself as a ram.

Sunny seemed to have lost consciousness for a brief moment.

Blinded, deafened, surrounded by nothing except light…

The only sense he had left was his sense of balance. Because of it, he knew that after the Vile Thieving Bird pierced the sun, escaping from the other side of it in a fountain of shards while the great crystal sphere behind it shattered and fell apart, he was thrown away from the swiftly expanding field of incandescent debris.

He also knew that there was something different about the world, the Thieving Bird, and himself now.

The fragile balance between them was broken, and the cadence of the battle was changing in a way that Sunny could not yet perceive, let alone understand.

‘Damn it!’

Sunny forced himself to manifest myriad eyes and open them, gazing upon the world through the piercing veil of intense radiance.

His eyes only existed for a split second, turning to smoldering coals a moment later, but it was enough for him to see something that made him feel concerned.

All around them, myriad shards of the broken sun were plummeting from the burning heaven toward the distant blue ribbon of the Great River, leaving trails of flame in their wake.

The Thieving Bird was flying through the storm of heavenly fire, its black wings rending the wings apart and erasing them from existence.

Flame was flowing off its black feathers like water, not leaving even a trace on them… The dancing flames were the color of molten gold, not white, as they had been before. As they were meant to be.

The Vile Thieving Bird had managed to shake off Nephis by barreling straight through the sun.

Now, it was plummeting toward a fissure in time, about to escape from Sunny, as well. He was barely holding on, having lost most of his vast shape in the conflagration of celestial flame moments ago.

And at the speed the loathsome Terror was moving, Sunny was going to lose purchase and slide off its scorched and mangled body very soon.

No… its body was not that mangled anymore. It was healing at a startling speed, a soft white radiance shining beneath its charred hide.

‘This wretched thing!’

Sunny growled, straining to sink his claws into the flesh of the Thieving Bird and keep it from escaping.

The loathsome Terror seemed to have stolen the healing miracle of Neph’s flames — they were quite shiny, after all — and used it to mend its damaged body.

‘C—cant… hold on!’

The fissure was already too close, and Sunny was moments away from being left behind, lost somewhere in time.

It was at that moment that Nephis, who had been thrown in the opposite direction when they destroyed the sun, assumed the form of the spirit of light and pointed the Blessing at the Vile Thieving Bird from a vast distance.

A rain of light more brilliant than anything Sunny had ever seen escaped from the tip of the Blessing, breaching the distance between her and the retreating Thieving Bird in an instant.

It reached it at exactly the same moment as it was created.

And when it did…

The loathsome Terror shrieked.

Neph’s final blow bit deep into the base of one of its wings, cutting a dreadfully deep gash in it.

Almost entirely severing one of the Vile Thieving Bird’s wings.

Losing control of its flight suddenly, the Thieving Bird turned its body awkwardly… And plummeted into the fissure a moment later, pulling Sunny with it.

While Nephis was left behind.