Shadow Slave

As night descended upon the Nightmare Desert and the shadows drowned its vast expanse, Sunny took a step toward his six incarnations.

One of his avatars turned into a shadow and glided across the sand, wrapping itself around his body.

The darkness around Sunny suddenly seemed deeper, and his cold presence felt heavier.

The second incarnation was absorbed into that darkness, making him stronger. Then, one more.

With each layer of augmentation, Sunny felt stronger, faster, and more resilient. In fact, the fierce might coursing through his veins was so daunting that he had to grit his teeth, barely holding himself back from exploding forward.

The six fragments of Weaver’s lineage were making him stronger, as well. Blood Weave, Bone Weave, and Flesh Weave had fused to make every aspect of his corporeal manifestation more fearsome. Soul Weave was making his essence more potent, while simultaneously reinforcing his soul. Mind Weave had made him capable of thinking a thousand thoughts at the same time. Spirit Weave, meanwhile…

Spirit Weave augmented his Will, making the world far more malleable and dependent on his whims.

The last three incarnations of Sunny turned into shadows, as well. However, these three did not move to augment the leading avatar. Instead, two figures rose from them.

Saint stood to Sunny’s left, while Slayer stood to his right.

Finally, Serpent slithered down from his arm and coiled on the white sand, the onyx scales contrasted sharply against it.

The three shadows wrapped themselves around them, making each of the Supreme Shadows seem even more fearsome than a second before.

Standing nearby, Nephis simply summoned the Blessing. The radiant sword shone brightly, chasing the darkness away and making the shadows look deeper.

She glanced at him, lingered for a moment, and sighed dejectedly.

“I never did have any luck with Echoes, you know?”

Sunny turned to her with a slight grin.

“You just keep giving them away, though. If you didn’t, you’d have an entire stable of powerful Echoes, already.”

Then, gazing at his Shadows, he added in a quieter tone:

“But not as powerful as my Shadow Cohort, of course.”

Slayer spared him a cold glance, while Saint summoned two torrents of liquid darkness that formed into a sword and a shield. Serpent just hissed and rippled, slowly assuming a human form — the form of a knight in heavy armor and a black cloak, seven onyx swords hovering in the air behind him like black fangs.

It had assumed the form of the King of Swords.

Sunny was not done, of course.

As the last vestige of the sun glowed red above the horizon, the deep shadows all around them surged and boiled.

Then, countless shades marched onto the white sands in the Nightmare Desert, assembling into a vast battle formation. Some of them still wielded weapons salvaged in the Eternal City, some were encased in the armour from the martial pools of the Hippodrome.

It was a fearsome sight.

Sunny had summoned his entire legion here, leaving behind only a small number of shades that guarded the prison camp beside the Dark City and the Citadel in the Burned Forest. Hundreds of thousands of them were soon arrayed in front of the white dunes, waiting silently for the enemy to reveal itself like a sea of darkness.

The Shadow Legion looked quite fearsome, indeed…

Sadly, it was not going to be too useful to Sunny and Nephis in their quest to reach the Tomb of Ariel. After all, only a relatively small number of shades Sunny commanded were of a high enough Rank to endure the battle against the Deathless — most of them were too weak to survive the Nightmare Desert, and would be sent back to his soul shortly.

In this battle, their role was to serve as a flesh shield… well, rather a shadow shield… to give Sunny and Nephis enough time to learn more about the enemy and come up with a way to fight the Deathless effectively.

He doubted that a tenth of his silent warriors would survive until dawn…

And this first night would be the easiest of the unknown number of them Sunny and Nephis would have to survive in order to reach their goal.

Worse still, the Deathless could not die, which meant that there would be no constant stream of new shades joining the Shadow Legion.

Sunny glanced at the centre of the battle formation, where the shades from the Eternal City stood, ready for battle.

A headache-inducing thought suddenly graced his mind.

‘So… a legion of dead souls is preparing to battle a horde of deathless monsters, led by the shades of former immortals.’

All for their dead ruler to climb into a tomb. He chuckled.

“You know, I never thought I would return to the Nightmare Desert with such style.”

Nephis gave him a brief look.

“I’ve always meant to ask…”

Sunny turned to her.

“Yes?”

She pursed her lips slightly.

“Shadow Cohort, Shadow Legion… Lord of Shadows, shadows, Shadows, shades… Rain did mention that naming things is a glaring flaw in your otherwise stellar collection of talents, but do you really just add ‘shadow’ to everything when you need to name something?”

Sunny stared at her, scandalized.

“What? Of course not! I am brilliant at giving things names. Take the Brilliant Emporium, for example. Can there even be a more brilliant name than that?”

Nephis just stared at him silently for a while, something suspiciously akin to pity in her gaze.

Then, she shifted it to his Shadows.

“So, let me get this straight… the snake is called Serpent, the killer is called Slayer, and the Stone Saint is called Saint?”

Sunny blinked a couple of times.

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

Nephis remained silent for a few seconds, then lowered her gaze and looked at the Blessing intently.

“I see. As it turns out, I was lucky… I could have ended up with the Sword…”

Sunny stared at her, mouth agape.

‘Wow. Damn it.’

The Sword! Why had he not thought of that? It sounded perfect…

Just then, something black appeared on the surface of the white sand in front of them. A skeletal hand rose from its, followed by a black skull and a towering torso. Everywhere Sunny glanced, the sand seemed to be boiling as countless skeletons slowly rose from it, clad in crumbling remains of rusted armor and armed with ancient weapons.

The Nightmare Desert had finally fallen into the embrace of night.