Shadow Slave

On the shores of the Palace Island, a legion of shadows was drowning in the sea of wraiths.

The lake had become covered by billowing mist, glowing with ethereal light as an endless armada of ghastly ships glided across its waters. There were so countless of them that one could travel from shore to shore by jumping from deck to deck; each ghostly vessel carried scores of imprisoned souls in its hold, and as soon as they reached the Palace Island, those souls were sent forth to join the battle.

The island was being swallowed by mist, and the Shadow Legion was being besieged by the dreadful tide of wraiths.

Jet had found herself plunging into the familiar heightened state of battle focus. The world had become both simple and profoundly intricate, void of emotions, but full of calculated intent. There was no past or future in that world, only the present moment — only action and reaction, cause and effect, happening so rapidly that they were almost one and the same.

Combat was simple.

It was really the simplest thing in existence, both in principle and by definition. That was because combat only had two components — choice and execution. Execution was a foregone issue of matching action to its intent, while choices were easy to make by always striving for optimal efficiency. Efficiency of movement, efficiency of emotion, efficiency of thought... the most efficient move was always the most economical, the least wasteful, and therefore it was always the simplest. Made up of these simplest choices, combat was simplicity itself.

Perhaps such an approach was not very elegant, but then again, the same people who critiqued Jet for lacking refinement were the first ones to tremble at the sight of her blade.

So who cared?

She definitely couldn’t give less of a damn. The only thing that mattered was slaying the adversary and staying alive... well, alive-adjacent, at least.

‘Haa...”

Jet felt very alive at the moment.

That was because the Mist Blade had reaped countless lives — or whatever the wraiths possessed instead of lives — and raging torrents of essence were pouring into her starved soul.

With every phantom she destroyed, more jagged fragments were added to her shattered core, as well. Jet was a veteran of countless battlefields, but she had never reaped such a bountiful harvest of powerful souls. It would have been exhilarating if it weren’t so daunting... if she had the capacity to feel exhilaration while chillingly making an endless amount of optimal choices.

Time flowed slowly, each moment encompassing countless actions. Jet, meanwhile, moved with the speed of lightning — or maybe with the speed of the last electric impulse that traveled through the nerves of the dying before they were embraced by darkness.

There were wraiths all around her. Their ghostly bodies were ethereal and insubstantial, but that did not mean that their weapons could not cut her, could not bring her down. So, she had to stay ahead of an endless avalanche of deadly blows — either by staying on her toes and being faster than death, or by killing those who aimed at her faster than they could kill her.

The Mist Blade was like a vicious and mercurial predator, sometimes biting like a stinger, sometimes cutting like a scalpel, sometimes turning into a shimmering sphere of slaying steel around her. Scores of wraiths had already fallen to her blade, and scores more would follow soon... a startling massacre even by her standards, especially considering how powerful these sinister phantoms were.

And yet, it was a drop in the ocean.

The champions of the Shadow Legion — the living statue, the steel demon, the serpentine shadow — were in similar situations. The silent shades were holding ground against the tide of ghosts, but their number was slowly diminishing, while the army of the Dutchman seemed endless. The murderous archer was still raining down death and destruction from the walls of the Dark Castle. Naeve was still alive, and even doing well. He had found himself fighting side by side with a shade of a tall warrior who was clad in splendid armor and wielding a fearsome spear, displaying might worthy of a Supreme. They made for a lethal and peculiarly harmonious duo, thriving in the chaos of battle.

But there were simply too many enemies for them to slay.

‘Just how deep is the Dutchman’s hold?” How countless souls had that fiend swallowed and subjugated over the ages?

And where had it come from?

Jet did not really believe the story about a lovesick captain and a cursed treasure he had found. The Demon of Repose was not someone who inspired love — she was someone who inspired terror. She was the very definition of the saying that there were worse things than death. Similarly, the captain of the Dutchman did not seem like someone who had been blinded by affection.

He seemed like someone who had been blinded by a callous, malignant hunger for power. Someone who had sacrificed his soul in pursuit of a clear and sinister intent.

Jet knew people well — all too well, really — and she especially knew those who lusted for the corruption of power. She had only looked the captain of the Dutchman in the eye once, but it was enough to recognize what kind of being he was.

‘What is that bastard doing, anyway? He should be halfway across the lake by now...’ Jet leaped back to create some distance between her and the nearest wraiths for a brief moment, then looked into the distance.

There, hidden in the mist...

Her eyes narrowed.

Just then, the looming silhouette of the Dutchman vanished. No... it did not disappear. Instead, it turned into an eerie cutlass and fell into its captain’s hand.

Jet knew that because the captain of the Dutchman soared into the air in a breathtaking leap, breaching the remaining distance to the Palace Island and plummeting down in a whirlwind of viridian glow.

A moment later, he landed in the shallows, rising a plume of foaming water, and cast the indifferent gaze of his distressing, sea-colored eyes at the struggling shadows. Jet pursed her lips.

‘Crap...’