Shadow Slave

There were deadly beings out there, in the dreadful reaches of the ruthless and broken world... and then there was the Lord of Shadows, Sunless—the Sovereign of Death.

Among those who were just one step behind him, Soul Reaper Jet was perhaps the most lethal. She was definitely the most feared, and for a good reason. Few could survive her insidious Aspect and deathly resolve.

So, it was no exaggeration to say that when the two of them decided to fight side by side, there was hardly a more deadly duo than the Lord of Shadows and Soul Reaper.

..And yet, they failed to kill the eerie abomination that had welcomed them to the Eternal City. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ NoveI-Fire.ɴet

’The battle was swift, but furious. Several blocks of the sunken city had been reduced to rubble as Sunny and Jet fought the monstrous youth... or, rather, the grotesque abomination that wore the exquisite face of a human youth. The ancient buildings toppled, and the stone canvas of the roads exploded into an avalanche of jagged shards.

The silence of the empty streets was vanquished by the roaring clamor of a terrifying battle, and the beautiful landscape of the ancient city was replaced by a scene of total devastation.

’Curse it.”

Sunny dashed back, barely evading another fleshy tentacle. The breathtaking statue he had hidden behind was split in two, severed by the spike at the end of the tendril so cleanly that the cut seemed like no more than a thin crack for a few moments.

”This... is a bit tough...”

Jet had spun her ghostly scythe, slicing several tendrils, then allowed the Mist Blade to assume the form of a graceful lucerne and used its long spike to pin the nearest severed tentacle to the cobblestones. It was just in time - despite being separated from the main body of the abomination, the fleshy tentacles continued to move, trying to slither across the rubble toward her.

—

”What the hell do we do?”

Sunny cursed again.

The eldritch horror was strong — about as strong as a Great Beast would be, making it a walking calamity. Even a Supreme like him had to stay alert in a battle with this thing, so it was understandable that Jet was struggling. However, that was no reason for them to be having so much trouble dealing with the grotesque abomination. Sunny could slay a Great Beast in a heartbeat, and Jet was more than formidable enough to bridge the gap between the Ranks. By all accounts, the eerie creature should have been dead by now.

And in fact, they had already killed it many times...

It was just that the grotesque abomination refused to stay dead.

Sunny and Jet had cut, pierced, and crushed its body. They dealt fatal damage to its soul and poisoned it with the Death Will. The creature was burned to death and shattered after being frozen solid.

But no matter what they did, the beautiful youth was restored to his original appearance before too long. Its crushed, severed, burned, shattered body returned to a flawless state, and then turned hideous and horrid once again as it swelled with malformed flesh and burst into a slithering forest of deadly tendrils.

It did not take a wise man to realize what was happening.

’Damn... that damn daemon!’

The fiend they were fighting was powerful, but in and of itself, it was not too terrifying. As evidence, Sunny and Jet were still unscathed despite battling it for several minutes already. The problem, however, was that it was immortal or rather, that the Eternal City made it immortal.

-

The distinction was subtle, but important.

’The incredible, inexhaustible vitality that the monstrous youth possessed was not his own power. Rather, it was the manifestation of the sorcery that governed this cursed place - and so, killing him was not a matter of overpowering a Great Beast.

It was a matter of overcoming the sorcery of a daemon, and while Sunny had a high opinion of his prowess, that was not a feat that he could accomplish just yet.

How did one fight an immortal abomination, then?

Dodging another explosion of hungry flesh, Sunny could not help but smile darkly.

’No, but it’s quite ironic, isn’t it?’

’Two dead warriors were trying to kill an undying monster.

Brandishing his black odachi, he called out to Jet:

”We can’t kill it!”

His gaze landed on the shambling, appalling figure of the corrupted immortal. ”So, let’s subdue it instead!”

He lunged forward, turning into a torrent of shadows to evade the whipping tendrils, and manifested into a corporeal form right in front of the abomination. His odachi flashed, severing the creature’s arms the same time, a current of mist coalesced into a lithe figure behind the immortal, and Jet used her scythe to cut his legs.

—

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As the fiend fell to the ground, dozens of black chains burst from it and wrapped themselves around him. Individually, none of them were strong enough to bind him, but all together, they held long enough for more chains to descend on the struggling form and bury it under the mass of inky-black metal.

Soon, there was nothing but a small hill of black links towering where the horrid youth once stood, trembling slightly like a macabre cocoon.

Sunny stared at it somberly.

A large swath of the Eternal City around them was entirely decimated...

But the ornate buildings were already restoring themselves, too.

Shattered statues coalesced into their original, elegant forms. Toppled pillars rose from the rubble and assembled themselves. The rubble floated into the air and returned to its previous shape.

The buildings grew from the devastated ruin like flowers, and the paving of the street smoothed itself out.

Before too long, Sunny and Jet found themselves standing on a beautiful plaza. Their surroundings were spotless and undamaged, with only the cocoon of black chains and their heavy breathing proving that the battle had happened.

Jet stared at the small hill of chains and then looked at Sunny with a somber expression.

”Hey.”

He raised an eyebrow.

”What?”

She pointed to the black cocoon with the blade of her war scythe.

”That was just one of them, right?”

Sunny nodded slowly, prompting her to give him a dark smile.

”...And you said that there were thousands, or maybe even millions of these things within the city?”

He hesitated for a few moments, suppressing a shiver.

What could he say?

Sunny sighed.

”Sounds about right...”

As the person who had invited Jet to this nightmarish place, he was starting to feel a tiny bit guilty.