Shadow Slave

Night was descending on the desert once again.

As the setting sun painted the white sands vibrant red, the dark sea of shades assembled into a marching formation. Tonight, Sunny did not have enough soldiers to form the defensive wings around the core of the legion — instead, the strongest of his warriors, whom he had held back the previous night, would have to join the battle.

Nephis was sitting on the sand, meditating with her eyes closed. She had used neither her partial nor full Transformation yesterday, but today the battle was promising to be more difficult. So, she had to prepare herself for the agony of the merciless white flames — of becoming flame.

Sunny was preparing, as well.

Today, he was going to send all seven of his avatars into battle independently. More than that, he was going to attempt to accomplish an ambitious feat — building seven intricate Shells at the same time. If he succeeded, then there would not just be one towering Shadow Colossus protecting the legion. There would be seven.

Today’s battle was going to be different in one more way, as well…

Today, the Plague of Steel would be fighting on their side.

Azarax was standing a few steps ahead of Sunny, looking at the vast expanse of the Nightmare Desert impatiently. He was not preparing himself in any way — instead, he simply could not wait to plunge into the ferocious battle.

Sunny sighed.

“Should I create you a weapon, at least? What do you fancy? A sword, a spear? A club?”

The ancient skeleton turned his grinning skull in his direction.

“No need. I’ll simply take the weapons of my enemies after crushing the fools to dust.”

Sunny studied him for a few moments, amused.

Was that the mindset of an ancient conqueror?

There were many things he wanted to ask, but sadly, they did not have a lot of time. So, he settled on the most important thing.

“What powers does the great and mighty Azarax wield, exactly?”

It was a natural question, but a complicated one. After all, despite this temporary alliance, they were still enemies — Azarax made no secret of his hatred toward both Sunny and Nephis, as well as of his desire to unleash a bloody conquest upon the world. So, describing the details of his powers to them would be like arming his future adversaries for the battle against him.

It was not even clear if the ancient skeleton possessed an Aspect at all. The original Azarax had… but he had also been human. This one, meanwhile, was one of the Deathless — of cursed beings reborn through the loss of their shadows, and therefore of their deaths.

Azarax might have lost his Aspect and Flaw a long time ago.

He laughed.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

With that, the ancient tyrant looked ahead once more.

“You’ll see soon enough. However, my power is not even the reason you wanted to strike a deal with me so badly, is it, shadow?”

He shook his head.

“Instead, it’s simply the fact that I am Deathless.”

Sunny hesitated for a moment, then smiled faintly.

“Oh no. You caught me.”

Azarax shrugged, causing his bones to scrape against each other.

“l am Deathless, which means that I am very difficult to destroy. I am also one with the creatures you need to fight in this desert — and half of them were my comrades once. So, you hope that only half of the Deathless will attack me, and by extension, you.”

He pointed at Sunny with a cackling laughter.

“You might even be hoping that the ones who recognize me as one of their own would pay less attention to you and the nephilim, or perhaps even join me in destroying the Deathless who were once soldiers of the Divine Host.”

Sunny shrugged.

“More or less, yes.”

Azarax gazed at the desert.

After a while, he said:

“I do not know what the warriors of other Domains will do… but if we encounter soldiers who once fought under my banner, they will submit to their lord. If they don’t, I’ll force them. I will restore my army — one soldier at a time, if need be.”

Azarax clicked his jaw and looked at the sun, which was drowning in the sea of scarlet dunes.

“Ah… the night is almost here. Finally, I will taste the sweetness of this glorious battle after observing it powerlessly for thousands of years.”

He turned around, the darkness nestled in his empty eye sockets overflowing with malevolence and hatred.

“Before that, however…”

But before he could move, Neph’s calm voice interrupted him.

“Don’t.”

Opening her eyes, she rose from the sand and looked at Azarax coldly.

“You were going to destroy the tree, weren’t you?”

Azarax seemed amused.

“So what if I did? Why should I spare that accursed thing?”

Nephis sighed.

“Because it withstood thousands of years without succumbing to Corruption. Very few things in the world did, so… leave it be, Azarax.”

He glared at her for a while, then shook his skull and turned away.

“And you call yourselves Supreme? Pitiful, pathetic. Both of you are too young… too soft, too kind. Conquering and killing you will be too easy.”

Nephis opened her mouth to say something, but then her expression changed subtly.

It did not escape Sunny.

“What is it?”

Nephis remained silent for a while, then gritted her teeth.

“I just lost another Citadel.”

For a moment, there was a troubled look on her face. Then, it was replaced by her usual impassive expression.

“It seems that Mordret’s invasion pushed the Dreamspawn to accelerate his plans. We will have to hurry, as well.”

Sunny sighed.

A loss of a Citadel meant that another Saint had become Asterion’s thrall.

It also meant that Nephis had grown a little weaker.

That loss was not substantial, for now, but it meant that her powers would continue to diminish as they travelled deeper into the desert — even though their enemies would only keep growing stronger.

He looked at the endless sea of dunes and the distant silhouette of the Tomb of Ariel, all drowning in the crimson light of the falling sun.

The last vestige of the sun disappeared behind the horizon, and the sands came alive, giving birth to a boundless horde of skeletal horrors.

‘Hurry…’

They had to hurry and conquer Hell.