Shadow Slave

Out there in the distance, just outside of the Ivory City, a steel colossus towered above a desolate island, his gargantuan body shrouded in darkness. The terrible wound delivered to him by Noctis was mostly repaired, with broken scaffolds hanging from the giant where he had torn himself out of them to join the battle. However, he was still missing an arm.

The face of the giant was stoic and unmoving, and his eyes drowned in deep shadows. In front of him, dozens of enormous javelins were thrust into the soil, each tall enough to dwarf a siege tower. As Sunny looked, Sun Prince calmly grabbed one of them, then pulled it out of the ground and moved his hand up, preparing to make another throw.

‘…Crap!’

Plummeting down, Sunny balanced himself in the air and then dove in a certain direction. A few moments later, he crashed into a large fragment of the destroyed ship’s hull and disappeared, diving into the shadows on its surface.

In a blink of an eye, Sunny rolled onto the deck of one of the two attacking vessels and jumped to his feet, ready to fight.

He could not do anything to the steel colossus… all he could do was continue playing his part and prey that Cassie manages to survive. If she failed to draw the giant’s attention away from Noctis, all of them were going to die… but he could not do anything about that, either.

Sunny could make sure that there were fewer enemy ships pursuing her, however, and that was what he intended to do.

Killing things was one of his greatest talents, after all.

With a loud roar, he dashed forward, toward a battle formation of Awakened soldiers. Unlike the crews of the ships he had destroyed already, these warriors had been waiting for an attack, and so were prepared… but it would not save them.

They were still going to die.

Just a split second before the four-armed devil collided against the front row of the enemy, a sickening feeling suddenly permeated their souls, sapping their hands of strength and filling them with insidious pain. Augmented by the [Underworld Armament] enchantment of the onyx armor, the Broken Oath spread its eroding influence, slowly destroying the very souls of everyone around Sunny.

…Of course, his own soul was being damaged as well. But it was much stronger than that of mere beasts, and protected by the Mantle of the Underworld on top of that. He was not going to be able to endure the effect of the vile charm for long, but that did not matter. He just needed to last longer than his enemies.

Turning the Cruel Sight into a sword and summoning the Patient Avenger into a free hand, Sunny crashed into the formation of weakened enemies and spun, dancing as he sowed death among them. His two blades and his tail moved as if possessing their own lives, and the charred kite shield soon started to emanate an angry orange glow as a rain of strikes fell on it.

As it did, the blade of the Cruel Sight suddenly shone with incandescent white light, and the austere tachi with dim orange one. Infused with flames — one divine, the other mundane — both blades cut through steel armor as if it was made of paper. Screams of terror and agony rose above the deck of the flying ship, disappearing into the moonless night.

…Similar slaughter was happening on other ships of the fleet, as well.

Effie was rampaging on a slippery deck, moving like a wrecking ball across its blood-soaked surface. When someone tried to attack her from the back, they were killed by sharp arrows falling from the darkness. Kai moved swiftly above the ship, dodging enemy archers and never missing a kill shot. He was dealing almost as much damage as the feral girl.

Just like what had happened to Sunny, other vessels moved to assist the one where the two were fighting. But as they did, a black steed landed on the deck of one, while a dark abomination with the head of a raven landed on another. For a few minutes, the defensive formation was in chaos, and then, even more ships had to abandon the hunt for the graceful vessel of the traitorous sorcerer to come to their rescue.

When they did, however, the stone gargoyles attacked them, causing even more mayhem.

Some distance away, Cassie had managed to reach the Sky Below and was now being pursued in a deadly race between the flying islands, causing several of the enemy ships to break apart as they collided with the heavenly chains and allowing the Sailor Dolls to shoot several more down with the siege engines.

Down there, she was protected both from the unobstructed attacks of the fleet and from the steel giant’s javelins.

For a moment, things seemed to be going well…

But that was exactly the problem.

Left without a target, the steel colossus threw two more javelins, destroying one or two gargoyles with each of throw, and then paused, his gaze traveling across the lightless islands.

Just as it did, one of them quaked viciously, and a large chunk of it suddenly crumbled, falling into the abyss of the Sky Below in a cloud of stone debris. The heavenly chain attached to it was released and whipped across the sky, pulverizing a couple of unfortunate ships that happened to be in its way.

Then, something strange happened.

The shadow devouring the moon finally spread across all of it, leaving nothing but an empty circle of darkness on the surface of the night sky. But then, that circle suddenly became infused with a dim red glow, and the moon slowly revealed itself once again. Only now, it was not silver anymore…

Instead, the moon was red as blood, and drowned the whole world in an eerie crimson radiance.

…Still fighting on the deck of the ship and being poisoned by the soul erasure of the Broken Oath, Sunny spared a moment to glance at the sky, and then pulled his attention back to the battle. Moving through the dim crimson light, he killed another human, gritted his teeth, and then thought:

‘I wonder… If this… is good news for us, or bad…’

A distance away, Sun Prince stared at the crimson moon for a few moments, as well. Then, he shifted his gaze back to the broken island…

And raised his hand, aiming a javelin at something only he could see on its dark, shattered surface.

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