Shadow Slave

Sunny was still reeling from having his soul torn apart, then sewn back together. However, the battle was raging, so he had no time to recover in peace... that was fine. He was long used to fighting in the most dire conditions, anyway.

It took him only a moment to assess the situation. It seemed that he had been out of it for quite some time. The battlefield was ravaged and upturned, with the river itself slightly changing course. Its water, which had been clear once, now seemed muddy and noxious. Effie and Kai were still fighting the ghastly centipede in the shallows, with Saint supporting them from the darkness. The three seemed to be doing fine.

The soldiers, however, were straining to hold their ground. The slope of the river shore was littered with shattered bones, and hundreds of the Tyrant’s abominable minions had already been destroyed. But there were hundreds more, and now that Saint was busy turning the Skull Centipede into a pincushion and weighing it down with the help of the [Burden of Peace] enchantment of Morgan’s Warbow, there was no one to serve as the wave breaker against their tide.

There was only Jet. Soul Reaper moved like the beautiful visage of death among the bone fiends, erasing one after another from existence, but she was just one woman. No matter how fast and lethal, she couldn’t be in several places at the same time.

Sunny hesitated, trying to make a decision. His instinct was to go for the biggest threat, personally removing it from the equation. However, the Tyrant was still strong and ferocious. Even without most of its powers, the centipede was putting up a dreadful fight. It was hard to say how long it would take to bring it down. The soldiers, meanwhile, would continue to suffer under the onslaught of the bone fiends until it did.

So what was he supposed to do? Follow his habits and race to kill the Tyrant, or act against instinct and put his trust in Effie and Kai, concentrating on reinforcing the ordinary soldiers instead?

Sunny sighed. ’Instincts are great. But humans rose above beasts for a and thanks to reason.”

In the end, no matter how unnatural it felt, he could do no better than to follow the plan. The role he had been assigned was to lure the Tyrant to the ambush, and then put obstacles in the path of the bone army to make it easier on the Awakened and the mundane soldiers.

So... Sunny was going to put himself between the abominations and the humans.

Before lunging into the fray, he dismissed Nightmare and the little imp. They had already done their job by guarding him - throwing the two into the mass of Fallen enemies would do more harm than good.

Then, Sunny glanced down, at the shadows gathered on the ground in front of him. The first four were his old companions - the gloomy, happy, creepy, and haughty fellows. The fifth one, however, was new.

The fifth shadow seemed naive and good-natured. Even though it was not as boisterous, the guy resembled the happy shadow... a little bit too much. So much, in fact, that Sunny couldn’t help but feel that its amicable disposition was just a front.

And behind that front, he could sense a hint of boundless deviousness. The shadow was up to no good... it was clearly full of all kinds of mischief!

He raised his eyebrow and sighed. ”...You’re a naughty one, aren’t you?”

The naughty shadow stared at him, radiating nothing but innocent surprise. Eventually, the shadow shook its head with utter sincerity. It seemed a little hurt.

It was as though the shadow was saying: ”Who? Me? Oh no, of course not! I would never...”

Sunny squinted his eyes. ”Yeah... yeah, right. Well, let’s go then. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re in the middle of a battle.”

The shadow looked at him, then scratched the back of its head and glanced at its siblings, as if unsure what to do. When the other four shadows moved forward to wrap themselves around his body, though, it quickly followed.

A feeling of overflowing strength permeated Sunny’s body. He inhaled deeply, getting used to his new limits, then caught sight of Effie breaking a dozen of the Tyrant’s legs with her round shield. Instantly, his limits were expanded even further.

Sunny smiled, summoned the Cruel Sight, and dashed forward. At the same time, he used the [Blessing of Dusk] to establish a mental bond with Jet and coordinate their movements.

She moved to her right. Soul Reaper was going to be responsible for the western half of the defensive line, while Devil was going to rampage in the eastern part.

Shadows surged forward. In the next moment, the sound of breaking bones rolled over the battlefield.

In the end, it was Kai who brought down the Skull Centipede. Saint had debilitated and slowed it down with her arrows, which gave Effie an opportunity to deliver a devastating blow to the creature’s head, cracking its skull.

Of course, that alone would have never killed a Corrupted Tyrant. However, it did give Kai a chance to deal a fatal strike to the ghastly abomination.

Flying across the sky, he positioned himself above the centipede and drew his bow. This time, an arrow of incinerating flame appeared on its string. The heat of the arrow was so dreadful that it seemed as if the world itself was melting around it.

Luckily, Kai was protected by the armor made from the scales of a dragon. Unaffected by the immolating heat, he let the fiery arrow loose. It flew down like a streak of light, entering the creature’s skull through the thin crack.

Then, a dreadful explosion illuminated the Tyrant’s head from the inside. Tongues of flames and streams of smoke shot from its mouth, from the pit where the broken tree had been, and from the empty eyes of the countless skulls.

The centipede’s own indestructible, giant skull seemed as if it was going to burst open, for a moment. But in the end, it didn’t. Trailing smoke and fire from its head, the creature swayed, and then heavily crashed to the ground.

The Skull Centipede was dead.

With the Tyrant gone, its minions lost all remaining cohesion. Effie, Kai, and Saint were also freed to attack them from behind. Caught between them and the main body of the expedition force, the bone army swiftly dwindled.

It wasn’t long before it was completely annihilated.

Looking at the battlefield, which was covered in broken bones, Sunny took a deep breath. ’I can’t believe it. A plan actually worked. I think that’s a first...’