Shadow Slave

Sunny was wounded. The Wolf was wounded more.

It was because Sunny was defending his Domain while the Wolf was invading it. It was also because Sunny was especially tenacious, while the Wolf was simply furious.

Plus, Sunny fought with a spear, the purpose of which was to keep the fangs of the enemy away from his body. The Wolf, however, fought with its body - so, naturally, its body had received more damage than Sunny’s own. But that was not going to last much longer.

At the end of the day - even though the time seemed frozen and the day showed no sign of ever progressing, let alone coming to an end - Sunny was still much weaker than the Cursed Demon. He could have defeated it in combat, possibly, if there were no other figures attacking the Shrine of Truth at the same time. But as things stood, his temporary advantage was rapidly coming to an end. Soon enough, the balance of power between them would be broken and reversed, and when that happened, Sunny was going to be ripped apart by the fangs of the harrowing Wolf. He would become its meal. So, there was no point in continuing their calamitous fight.

Luckily, he had accounted for his lack of strength in advance and prepared a trap.

The trap he had built was quite a simple one, but also quite devious. I’m Sunny knew that he going to weaker than his enemies… even his sorcery would be weaker than them, no matter how intricate of a weave he wove.

So, he needed to borrow power from somewhere to deal with his enemies. But where would he borrow power to kill Cursed abominations?

After thinking for some time… Sunny had decided to borrow that power from the Cursed abominations themselves.

There had been no time to create a truly complicated spell, but the one he wanted to enchant the mountain with was relatively simple. All Sunny had to do was scale it to titanic proportions and invent a way to etch the spellweave into a towering volcano instead of a Memory.

The enchantments he wove belonged to a shield he had received as one of the Dream Tournament rewards courtesy of its sponsor, the Great Clan Valor, only to use it later to kill one of the Valor Knights in the Night Temple. Both Sunny and Saint had used that shield well in the Kingdom of Hope - later, it was inherited by Quentin, whom it served faithfully in Antarctica and the second Nightmare. The gallant Master was still using it, in fact.

That shield was no other than Patient Avenger, and its enchantments were called [Burning Heart] and [Cold Steel].

[Burning Heart] Enchantment Description: ”This shield can store a portion of fire damage it receives to enhance another weapon of its wielder or unleash a destructive shockwave.”

[Cold Steel] Enchantment Description: ”This shield can store a portion of impact damage it receives to enhance another weapon of its wielder or unleash an immolating wave of fire.”

…As Sunny had already noted, the mountains of Ariel’s Game were incredibly sturdy. And yet, they were on the verge of toppling after each titanic battle, since the forces unleashed by the clashing figures were simply too awful. How could they not be, when literal gods were fighting on the weathered slopes?

So, Sunny had enchanted a fire - breathing mountain in a way that allowed it to absorb the damage it received, store it… and then unleash it in one distressing, world - ending conflagration.

To be precise, he had enchanted the volcano to incinerate everything and anyone touching its surface.

’Haa…’ As the Wolf shredded Sunny’s formless body furiously, repeatedly slamming it into the fractured, crumbling slope, he exhaled slowly.

’Am I not a genius? No, but really?’ He would have laughed if he could.

Any other enchantment would have needed time to collect charge, which would have doomed Sunny because of how rapid the battle was progressing. However, the enchantments derived from the Patient Avenger he had woven into the mountain did not depend on time… they only depended on the amount of damage dealt to the mountain.

The faster the Wolf, the pack of its lesser kin, the Clockwork Giant - as well as Sunny, Slayer, Kai, Abundance, and the Obsidian Wasps - moved, the fiercer their battles were, the more damage they dealt to the volcano. And the more damage was dealt to the volcano, the more of it absorbed, hastening the moment when the enchantment would reach critical mass.

’It’s time, now. I think,’ Sunny was ready to spring his trap on the wounded Wolf.

The formless, hundred - handed mass of darkness tore all of the flint spears from the body of the Cursed Demon, ripping its white fur.

And then… it simply dissolved into the shadows.

Sunny sent himself to the Shrine of Truth. At the same time, Slayer was pulled into the shadows, as well, appearing next to him in a stagger. If the murderous Shadow was surprised by suddenly being taken out of the fight, she did not show it - if anything, she seemed dissatisfied by the fact that Sunny had robbed her of the chance to kill more wolves. 𝘙ἁΝö𝐁Ěȿ

Kai had just landed on the shattered rock a split second ago to avoid a world - severing strike of the Clockwork Giant’s sword. He was pulled into the shadows, too, and there was suddenly a giant dragon in the vast hall of the Shrine. The surviving Obsidian Wasps and the shade of Abundance were dismissed, leaving only the Snow abominations on the slopes of the volcano.

That was quite a dangerous situation - not only because the enemies could converge freely on the caldera, but also because the Wolf could unite with the pack of Great Beasts, regaining its greatest strength. But, naturally, Sunny was not planning to give the nightmare creatures a chance to meet.

Assuming his human form and falling to his knees, awash in blood, he grinned wildly. And sent a pulse of essence into the scorched floor of the ancient Shrine, activating his spell.