Shadow Slave

Sunny had dismissed the Marvelous Mimic from the Forgotten Shore while four of his incarnations were inside, and then summoned it to the Eternal City. That was how five of his avatars ended up at the bottom of the Stormsea at the same time. He called upon the Shadow Legion and summoned the Puppeteer to gain a flawless measure of control over his shades. Mind Weave allowed him to issue countless commands at the same time, so he could control all of his shades individually... but at the end of the day, he was still issuing orders.

With the great Moth controlling the shades like marionettes, though, Sunny could do more. Instead of giving endless commands to make his shades do what he wanted ther to, he only needed to command one — and as long as an incarnation of his was wrappec around the Puppeteer, the entire Shadow Legion became no different from an extension of his body.

That meant that he was not limited to giving orders anymore, he could control his shades like he did his body. The cohesion of the Shadow Legion was therefore nearly flawless now, and more than that, every shade — even those of mindless beasts — could fight with the same skill and technique Sunny possessed.

Needless to say, his mastery of Shadow Dance was instrumental in controlling thousands of varied bodies skillfully.

Armed with these advantages, Sunny engaged the fallen immortals of the Eternal City in battle. Their crushing collective Will washed over him, and was repelled by his own with the help of the Curse.

But that was merely the boring part... the necessary part.

Now, however, was his time to have fun.

‘No, really, what is wrong with me? Is this my idea of fun?”

Encased in the fearsome carapace of the Jade Mantle, wielding the Soul Serpent, and empowered by the Curse, Sunny plunged into the swarm of monstrous, immortal abominations.

His shield was broken under the avalanche of fleshy tendrils, but instantly restored itself as Sunny manifested more shadows into its form.

His slaying blade cut the fallen immortals down one after another, but failed to kill them.

His armor remained unscathed, for now, both protecting his body and empowering it through the Curse.

Sunny struggled a little with not getting drunk on his fierce strength. In that moment, he truly felt like a demigod — his power had transcended the mundane, forcing the world to bend and change shape around his movements.

Naturally, there was a wall standing in his way. That wall was the Will of his enemies... but while Sunny could not demolish it completely, he could overcome it enough to not feel too restrained. The Will technique he had been developing for a long while now helped him to achieve that.

So, yes... he was having fun.

The battle was a little exhilarating.

It had been a long time since he used that much of his power, and even more since he had been matched this well against an adversary. His legion was battling the mob of detestable immortals all around him, and he was barely staying alive while cutting down his foes — it was in that narrow gap between triumph and the cold defeat of death that the thrill of a battle lay.

Best of all, his enemies were immortal. So, he could kill them as many times as he wanted.

Naturally... the fact that they were immortal was also infinitely troubling.

‘What exactly must I do here?’

Deflecting a lightning-quick tendril of repugnant flesh with his shield, Sunny pierced the body of a fallen immortal and sliced it apart. A split second later, he was already moving to avoid the next lethal strike while raising his sword to deliver a rapid downward slash.

He was doing well in the battle against the fallen immortals, and the Shadow Legion was confidently overcoming them as well. But these were eternal beings, after all — no matter how many times they were destroyed, they would endlessly rise from the dead. If nothing changed, the scales of battle would begin to favor them soon, and eventually, they would swallow both him and his shades.

He needed to find a way to contain them.

The first idea Sunny had was to feed the undying fiends to either Fiend or Mimic. However, he was wary of that method since it could poison and destroy his Shadows... with how indestructible these nightmare creatures were, there was no telling what would happen if one of them was consumed.

Luckily, there were other potential solutions, as well.

The simplest one was to toss the fallen immortals into the Shadow Realm. After all, immortality was not an inherent trait of these fiends — it was the Eternal City that kept reviving them. So, moving them to somewhere else was supposed to solve the problem, especially if that place was the Realm of Death.

However, there were two problems with this idea. First, Sunny would have to drag every Nightmare Creature into the Shadow Lantern personally, by pulling them into the shadows. Second, he was not sure that it was even possible — something told Sunny that the barrier created by Daeron would prevent the fallen immortals from leaving the Eternal City, even in that unconventional way.

‘What else, then?’

He could potentially use the Puppeteer to take the immortals under control. And yet, that was not guaranteed to work, either — after all, the great Moth was merely a shadow of the Spirit of Doubt. It did not possess a Will of its own, so subjugating creatures of the Great Rank was unlikely to work. Apart from that, the Eternal City could simply return the immortals to a state prior to subjugation.

‘Well, then...’

Sunny continued to fight, dividing his mind between countless shades and his own body.

There was one way that could work, even if it demanded more effort to implement.

‘Yes... yes, that should do the trick.’

He smiled darkly.

Before Sunny could subdue the fallen immortals in that way, though, they had to be thoroughly defeated.

The Shadow Legion had its work cut out for it.