Shadow Slave

[Your shadow has been destroyed.]

As one of his Shadow Cores exploded, a few others cracking from the aftershock of the devastating blow, Sunny was blinded by pain. He staggered and fell to his knees — all of his remaining incarnations did, some hidden from sight in the dark embrace of shadows, some surrounded by people, some waging war against terrifying abominations on calamitous battlefields.

‘N—not good...’

He had lost a Shadow Core, becoming a Terror once again — in an instant. One of his seven shadows, the crazy guy, had also been destroyed. Sunny did not have time to mourn the death of his invaluable helper, though, or think about how easily his incarnation had been killed.

How easily he had been killed.

After all, the disaster was not yet over.

The Unholy Nightmare Creature was still there, and neither Sunny nor Nephis were out of danger. In fact, Sunny thought that he would be lucky to only lose one incarnation today. That thing in the Abyss... to say that it scared him would be no different from describing an asteroid impact as bad weather. There were simply no words in the human language to name the feeling it inspired.

Sunny was shaken.

However, he had to act, and he had to act fast.

There had been two of his incarnations in the Underworld. One was gone now, but the other one remained — when Sunny dismissed Saint, he was left alone in utter darkness, suppressed and suffocated by its tenebrous expanse.

He could feel the fractured surface of the ramparts beneath him, as well as the cold wind blowing from the distant abyss. The defenders of the city had been slaughtered, and the shades were gone, having returned into the dark expanse of his soul with their commander. Only the shadow of the Prince of Darkness remained, slowly turning toward the great chasm, far away in the distance.

Nephis flashed past the towering colossus, then landed nimbly on the scorched and fractured surface of the devastated square. She slid back dozens of meters, finally coming to a halt at the very edge of a deep fissure.

By then, the Prince of Darkness was already swinging his enormous sword. The blade of the titanic greatsword, almost two hundred meters in length, was slow to accelerate — however, when it gathered momentum, its edge was heavy enough to cut the world apart.

However, before the colossal shade could deliver the blow, an invisible presence flickered in the darkness in front of it.

In the next moment, the towering figure of the Prince of Darkness was obliterated, disintegrating into a million pieces. The shadow of a Supreme Titan crumpled in the blink of an eye, vanquished without offering any resistance. Torn apart like a paper figurine.

Sunny was covered in cold sweat, gritting his teeth as terror clawed at his heart.

He was surrounded by elemental darkness, utterly devoid of power. There was no time to assume the form of the Jade Saint and channel Neph’s flames, either. He only had a few moments left to act.

So, gathering all his strength, he raised his hand, made it into a fist, and slammed it into the ground with all the strength of a Supreme.

The ground quaked.

In an instant, a terrifying amount of kinetic energy was converted into heat. The surface of the ancient stone shattered beneath his blow, melting and vaporizing in a devastating conflagration.

And therefore, there was a flash of light. This mundane light was weak and feeble, easily defeated by the endless mass of true darkness — its radiance was dim, and it had only lasted a brief moment.

But that moment was all Sunny needed to dive into the embrace of shadows cast by the fleeting explosion of light and emerge from them many kilometers away, in front of Nephis.

There, the mystical lantern left behind by Broken Sword still glowed, illuminating the ruined streets of the ancient city and summoning countless shadows into existence. Sunny arrived just in time to reach forward and catch Nephis, helping her balance herself and pulling her away from the edge of the deep fissure.

For a moment, they were face to face, pale and terrified.

That terror was not something they could control — it was simply an inevitable consequence of mortal beings finding themselves in the presence of a god... a fallen and corrupted god. That was why even Nephis, who had always shared a distant relationship with fear, could not control it now.

“Sunny...”

Her whisper was barely audible.

Unlike Sunny, Nephis was not sensitive to fate, so she had not witnessed the prisoner of the Abyss. However, she had inherited the Knowledge of Corruption, so she must have sensed it in her own way.

Sunny did not answer. There was no time for words — he knew that they only had moments left to live.

Trying to run was meaningless, as well. How could they hope to outrun a god? Speed and distance meant nothing in the face of an Unholy creature. Reality was nothing but a malleable canvas for that being, fragile and brittle. With a thought, it could bring them back.

Sunny raised a hand, feeling like he was suffocating.

He had not felt so weak and powerless — utterly helpless — in a long, long while. How could a demigod feel that way?

Sunny was standing with his back to the great chasm, while Nephis was facing it. He saw her eyes widen as he looked over his shoulder, trembling uncontrollably.

‘Faster, faster...’

He looked down, fearing catching a glimpse of what Nephis saw, reflected in the dark depths of her terrified eyes.

There was an eerie sound... the sound of stone turning to dust, of a waterfall turning to ice, of winds dying as something that had never been meant to exist moved through them.

Perhaps it was a giant, skeletal hand rising above the edge of the boundless black void. Sunny felt it then...

A clear premonition.

A damning understanding that he only had a single heartbeat left to live.

‘Faster!’

And, just then, a Memory finally manifested itself into existence in his hand, woven out of darkness.

It was a small lantern carved from black stone.

Sunny finally remembered how to breathe. Before the gaze of the Unholy horror fell on them, he turned into a shadow and pulled Nephis into the gate of the Shadow Lantern.

In the next moment, both of them disappeared.

The black lantern fell to the ground, rolled on shattered stone, and vanished without a trace.

A dead silence settled over the Underworld. Now, once again, only darkness remained, shrouding its vast and terrifying expanse.