Shadow Slave

Keeping his identity from becoming lost with the help of the Chain, Sunny channeled the essence of Serpent and assumed its form.

Actually, the form of Soul Serpent was the opposite of what those words usually meant — it was a state of utter formlessness inherent to the shadows, and therefore the reason why they could take any shape. Sunny found it surprisingly easy to assume that shapeless form. After all, there were a lot of parallels between him and Serpent, as well as between the powers they wielded… and for a good reason.

Serpent was unique among Sunny’s Shadows. Sunny had earned the rest of them in a variety of ways, most of them involving slaying the original… the Stone Saint, the Ravenous Fiend, Nightmare, Slayer, the Mordant Mimic. As such, his Shadows came from creatures he had met and killed.

But Serpent was different. It had been given to Sunny by the Nightmare Spell as a reward for mastering the first step of Shadow Dance, and was therefore a remnant from the times when Shadow God ruled the Realm of Death. It had also been born a Shadow Creature, as opposed to becoming one after its original was destroyed.

As such, Serpent was closer to the ideal of a true shadow than anyone else. And Sunny, as the person who had inherited his Aspect from a divine shadow, was walking the path to becoming such a creature himself.

So, he managed to shadow Serpent with surprising ease. It almost felt natural… the feeling of something vital missing did not bother Sunny this time, either, like it had when he was trying to replicate Slayer. Sunny channeled the power of the Soul Serpent, turning himself into a weapon capable of slaying deities.

The nameless Sovereign of Death became the Slaying Blade, and wielded himself to kill the loathsome Terror who had stolen his name and his fate.

‘I am going to kill you, wretch…’

Driven mad by pain and almost destroyed, his essence running dry, Sunny growled and redoubled his vicious assault on the wounded, bleeding Thieving Bird.

This time, he felt the difference.

His Will did not change, and it didn’t grow more potent either — however, his ability to express it became much more refined and pure, as if his nebulous body had become the perfect vessel for channeling death. As a result, the same amount of effort yielded far greater results, affecting the Vile Thieving Bird and its daunting vitality far more than it had before.

The Thieving Bird shrieked, a hint of discomfort — nervousness, even — finding its way into the odious creature’s harrowing voice for the first time.

…And just like Sunny, it redoubled its efforts to destroy the eerie things clinging to its feather, as well.

Sunny groaned, feeling his soul coming undone.

He laughed, feeling the body of the Thieving Bird shudder in the deadly darkness of his inescapable embrace.

‘Die, die… die, you abominable thing!’

The two of them plummeted through the maze of broken time, straining to destroy each other.

Various eras and places on the Great River flashed past Sunny, barely registering in his dazed, frenzied mind.

He saw a great city being besieged by an azure sea serpent and his army… he saw a stone island rising from the depths to answer the call of a beautiful philosopher… he saw a delicate body in a flowing silk shroud being lowered into the water as countless people cried, seeing her off on the last journey…

Sunny’s nebulous body had become tattered and small, seemingly ready to fall apart. But, at the same time, the Vile Thieving Bird was growing weaker. Its vitality was swiftly being drained as the poison of Death Will permeated it, while its strength was diminishing.

Its movements had already slowed down considerably, and its attacks grew less confident.

But it was still alive.

Still alive and not showing any signs of being ready to die, even.

‘Damn it! Die, die! Why won’t you die, wretched horror?!’

The Vile Thieving Bird answered with a pained, panicked cry.

Even if it was not on the threshold of death, it seemed to have grown wary of Sunny.

In the next moment, they broke through another fissure and found themselves…

In a chaos so violent and inconceivable that Sunny almost lost consciousness for a moment.

All around them, a fractured darkness was being ravaged by a terrifying storm. Devastating rain fell upon them, and bolts of lightning flashed nearby, making the air crackle.

Worst of all, the laws of existence seemed to be broken in this terrifying place. Reality was completely twisted, its sharp edges cutting into Sunny’s mind like endlessly folding blades. At first, he thought that they had failed to escape the broken eternity that dwelled in the gaps between the fissures, but this place was much more violent, much more unstable, much more devastating.

‘A time storm…’

The thought flashed through his mind and disappeared, erased by the maddening wrongness of the terrifying expanse of twisted time around them.

All his other thoughts disappeared, as well — thoughts about the past, the future, the present. Thoughts about how close he was to being destroyed, and what would happen if he were killed by the Vile Thieving Bird. Sunny had banished them himself, leaving space for only one thought in his mind — the thought of killing the Thieving Bird instead.

Its body was riddled with wounds by then… just like his.

It was in pain and suffering under the strain of the vicious battle, just like he was.

Sunny growled and shaped himself into an onyx serpent, coiling around the Vile Thieving Bird’s body and sinking his fangs into the deep wound on its neck.

Death flowed through them into the very heart of its soul, poisoning the six nodes of revolting darkness pulsing there like abyssal cores.

And then, finally…

He felt the Vile Thieving Bird shudder.

It was finally afraid of him, it seemed.

So, the Thieving Bird did what it always did…

Even if nothing about Sunny was shiny and desirable, it stole from him.

The first thing the Thieving Bird stole was his desire to kill it.

Suddenly, the dreadful fury that had been raging in Sunny’s heart disappeared. His bloodlust receded, leaving behind only a cold sense of exhaustion. His hatred was gone, replaced by indifference.

‘W-what?’

Sunny still knew that he had to kill the Thieving Bird and remembered all the reasons why it had to die. But now, there was no emotion attached to that knowledge, no personal meaning… no hope, no fear. No desire.

He pressed his jaws tighter together, straining to strangle the Vile Thieving Bird and crush its neck.

So, the next thing it stole was his reason. Suddenly, Sunny could not remember why he needed to kill the Vile Thieving Bird. There seemed to be no cause to wish it harm, and no possible way to arrive at such an intention logically.

No matter how he thought about it, the act of attacking a Cursed Terror seemed woefully irrational and unprovoked. It was pure folly.

His jaws grew slack a little.

As the time storm raged around them, Sunny hesitated for a moment… and then tore into the Thieving Bird’s neck once more, his fangs growing slick with blood. This time, he was acting on pure instinct — an instinct of a carrier of the Spell who was confronted by the Nightmare Creature.

He knew that his enemy had made a mistake.

‘Stupid beast…’

Even if his desire to kill the Vile Thieving Bird was gone, rendering his killing intent weak and ineffectual, the loathsome Terror was in a worse situation.

That was because the Thieving Bird stole things, not destroyed them.

So, having stolen from Sunny, it was now in possession of the things it had stolen — his desire to kill it and his logical reasons to do so.

So, now, the Thieving Bird suddenly wanted to die and was convinced that it had to be killed.

As a result, its will to live plummeted, becoming even weaker than Sunny’s instinctual impulse to attack the Nightmare Creature in front of him.

Opening its dreadful beak, the Thieving Bird let out a deafening shriek.

It was dying…

Sunny was dying, as well.

The problem was that he was dying faster than the Vile Thieving Bird.

Even after everything he had done… his efforts were proven to be not enough.