Shadow Slave

Just before the wraith ships reached the shore of the Palace Island, Naeve summoned a peculiar Memory that looked like a mass of translucent fabric. Taking a step forward, he spun and tossed the fabric into the air in one smooth, practiced motion.

The Memory soared high, unfolding into a vast net woven out of thin opalescent strings as it did. It glimmered with a shimmering light and expanded like an effervescent spiderweb. The beautiful net was hundreds of meters across, but as Naeve tensed, it grew even more, covering a vast swath of the sky.

Then, it fell on the ghostly ships and blazed with multicolored flames, dimming their ethereal glow.

In an instant, the core of the advancing armada was suddenly swallowed by a radiant, iridescent inferno. The opaline flames burned above the water and reflected on its surface... it was as if an explosion of vibrant colors suddenly invaded the black and silver majesty of the Eternal City, brightening the somber expanse of the lake.

Of course, what mattered most was not the beauty of the shimmering flames. It was the fact that the spectral ships and the phantoms caught under the net melted in the colorful blaze, dissolving into its radiance.

Compared to the great size of the ghostly armada, these losses were minor — but the opaline net broke the momentum of the first assault wave, buying the Shadow Legion some time.

Looking at the colorful wall of fire burning above the water, Naeve winced and bent down to pick up his harpoon. His indigo eyes seemed to shine with a dark radiance for a moment.

Jet smiled lazily.

”Where have you been hiding that Memory?”

He sighed.

“It’s... my mother’s Aspect Legacy. It is a powerful Memory, and could be exponentially so, but it consumes too much essence. There’s no point in being frugal anymore, though — this is do or die, after all.’

Jet chuckled.

“Don’t forget to thank your mother when we get out of this hellhole.’

Personally, she was in the exact opposite situation. Naeve had been rationing his essence and was now prepared to burn it all in a final confrontation. However, she had exhausted most of hers and was now hoping to replenish her reserves in the battle against the Dutchman.

Jet had even resorted to consuming the souls trapped in the Mist Blade in order to survive the horrors of the Eternal City... all but one, that was.

The soul of the Heart of Kanakht was too valuable to be wasted that way, so she had chosen to retreat and find safety on the bridge of the Night Garden in order to preserve it.

So, at the moment, Jet felt... hungry. Looking at the approaching ships, she grinned.

”Stay alive, Naeve.”

The Mist Blade assumed the form of a ghostly war scythe.

In the next moment, the harrowing armada was upon them.

Countless wraiths poured from the decks of the spectral ships, landing on the soil of the Palace Island. They seemed to be acting with some kind of strategy in mind, but whatever their goal was, the Shadow Legion did not give them a chance to implement it — the silent shades advanced, aiming to push the enemy back into the water, where myriads of hungry abominations awaited... even if they would never be able to satisfy their hunger by devouring ghosts.

As it had happened before, the champions of the Shadow Legion led the assault, causing havoc and devastation among the ethereal wraiths. The beautiful statue of a female knight, the towering fiend forged from blackened metal, the formless creature who constantly changed shapes, sometimes turning into a colossal serpent...

‘I suppose I am an honorary champion of the Shadow Legion too, today.’

Even if she was of a lower Rank than most of these immensely powerful creatures.

The thought was amusing.

Taking a deep breath, Jet lunged herself into the fierce crucible of battle.

Her Aspect was not at all flashy, and her powers were quite simple. Jet could absorb the essence of those she killed, bypass flesh to attack one’s soul directly, and enhance her body with more essence than an ordinary Awakened could. She could also turn into mist or assume the form of a wraith, and her shattered soul core always continued to grow, one jagged fragment at a time.

After decades of strife and slaughter, it had become quite imposing.

Her enemies in this battle were phantoms, though, so her Awakened Ability — one that had made her the infamous Soul Reaper — was meaningless. So was the Transcendent one, meaning that Jet only had two things going for her.

She was far more powerful than a Transcendent was supposed to be, almost reaching the level of physical prowess one would expect from a Supreme. And she would remain inexhaustible for as long as she kept killing her enemies.

‘That is fine.’

People liked to tell tall tales about combat and warfare. There was no end to sophisticated philosophies and profound musings dedicated to the supposed art of battle, making it all seem far more complicated than it truly was. That was because people liked to feel enlightened and elegant even while doing something as barbaric as perpetuating ruthless violence. But, in fact, there was no art to battle. It was at best a craft, and a very simple one at that — fit for a butcher, not an artist.

And Jet excelled in her craft.

Her craftsmanship was beyond compare, even.

Instantly overtaking the foremost shades, Jet descended upon the disembarking wraiths like a hurricane of ghostly steel. Her war scythe flashed, causing the mist to part before it. The curved blade pierced the chest of a spectral warrior, obliterating it, then slashed in a wide arc to cut another one apart.

As the two wraiths dissolved into ethereal light, Jet used the inertia of the slash to raise the Mist Blade high and then brought it down. Instantly, her somber weapon changed form, turning from a war scythe into a mundane one. With its blade now extending perpendicular to the shaft, it easily bypassed the block that one of the phantoms tried to make with its weapon and plunged into his head.

In the blink of an eye, three of the Dutchman’s wraiths were destroyed.

Jet spun her scythe, deflecting several blows and forcing the enemies to retreat for a moment.

Finally, a refreshing stream of essence flowed into her shattered soul.

Inhaling deeply, Jet looked at the endless sea of eerie phantoms in front of her and smiled. Her icy blue eyes glowed with a chilling killing intent.

’Goodness gracious. There’s so many.’

It was a real feast.