Shadow Slave

‘Aargh!’

Sunny staggered, his mind reeling from the profane triumvirate of terror, pain, and the Call.

The oars of the Chain Breaker almost got away from him, but he managed to grasp them tightly at the last moment and steer the ship away from the falling corpse of a Nightmare Butterfly.

A moment later, something dark and bloody struck one of the masts, shattering it, and was sent crashing into the deck. The thing rolled, leaving a bloody trail behind it, and came to a stop with a pained groan.

That thing was Sunny, as well — one of his two winged incarnations that had been protecting the ship in the air.

The blood left on the splintered wood moved like a living being, flowing back into his broken body. But it was of little use, since he had been hurt too severely. His wings had been destroyed, and his body was torn and mangled under the crumbling jade armor.

He strained to stand up, but then toppled back to the deck with a stifled hiss. At least one of his arms seemed to be viciously broken, splinters of white bone protruding through torn skin, so leaning on it had been a mistake.

Raising his bloodied face to give the incarnations piloting the Chain Breaker a grim look, Sunny allowed his battered avatar to collapse into a shadow and moved to wrap Saint into his dark embrace.

‘That’s… two down, five to go.’

Things were not looking good for Sunny and Nephis.

The Chain Breaker must have already climbed very far up the endless flat expanse of the great pyramid’s slope — far enough for him not to sense the echoes of the ferocious battle between Azarax and the Ash Tyrant, at least.

But he could not sense the entrance to the interior of the Tomb of Ariel, still.

And he was not sure that they would continue fighting their way through the dreadful swarm of Nightmare Butterflies for much longer.

Far away, deep in the dark stormfront of Great abominations, the Puppeteer was on the verge of being vanquished. The great moth’s wings were so torn that it could barely keep itself in the air, and its movements were turning sluggish.

It tried to keep the Nightmare Butterflies from coming close, but it was of no use — more and more of them were landing on the Puppeteer’s titanic body, covering it like a ghastly, undulating carpet.

The abominations were sinking their scythe-like legs into the Sacred shade, rending it apart bit by bit. Two of its legs had already been torn off, and now, one of the Nightmare Butterflies landed on its enormous compound eye, piercing the glittering onyx surface with a monstrous proboscis.

The strings of black silk were dancing chaotically, unable to catch their prey anymore.

In the distance, Slayer was in a similar condition. Her missing eye and shattered fangs only made her look more furious, but even if her murderous rage and chillingly cold killing intent had not abated one bit, only growing fiercer as time went by, she was slowly beginning to succumb to her wounds.

Even as dozens of Nightmare Butterflies continued to fall prey to the stunning, malevolent obsidian dragon, the dragon was losing a piece of herself with each adversary she killed.

Far above, Neph’s blinding radiance was now completely obscured by the rustling mass of winged horrors, as if she had been swallowed by the swarm. Only a rare ray of radiant white light managed to through the impenetrable wall of monstrous butterflies, showing Sunny that she was still alive and fighting to clear a path for them.

As for Sunny himself…

He was not doing that great, either.

In fact, he felt like he was ready to collapse.

“Serpent! Protect that tree!”

The golden fruits of the sacred tree were already rolling on the deck. The Chain Breaker was climbing at a steep incline, so they all ended up near where Sunny was controlling the ship, feeling the air with a mouth-watering aroma.

All he could taste on his tongue was blood, though — not because he was bleeding, but because his vanquished incarnations had been drowning in blood seconds before turning into intangible shadows.

The Chain Breaker had already sustained damage, as well. Sunny had been using manifested shadows to operate the mighty siege engines installed on its deck, but most of those were gone now — torn from the deck and tossed overboard or utterly broken by the very Nightmare Butterflies they were meant to bring down.

The hull was not breached yet, but it was already covered in scars. Several sections of the deck were damaged severely enough to be on the verge of crumbling. One of the masts was broken now, and the rest… Sunny did not know how much longer they would last.

He struggled against the overwhelming desire to tear the blindfold off his eyes and look ahead…

But he knew that he couldn’t.

The bestial panic that had usurped his heart was telling him not to.

‘Damn it!’

They were so close.

They were almost there…

But also infinitely far away.

So far away that there seemed to be no hope of ever making it to their goal.

‘This can’t…’

Before Sunny could finish the thought, an ominous sensation briefly overwhelmed him. It was the familiar sensation of a shade being drawn back into the dark abyss of his soul — of a shade that was not supposed to fall so soon.

‘No, not yet!’

But there was no point in denying the inevitable.

Far away, the Puppeteer finally succumbed to its wounds. One of its wings was damaged too severely, so it broke, failing to support the great weight of the Sacred shade in the devastating maelstrom of hurricane winds. Then, it was torn off completely, disappearing into the mass of Nightmare Butterflies.

Having lost a wing, the Puppeteer could not control its flight anymore, so it could not defend itself against the abominations, either. In a matter of seconds, its body was riddled with innumerable wounds and torn open, releasing a vast, billowing cloud of ghostly grey smoke into the lightless sky. Then, its silhouette grew indistinct, and it burst into a flood of darkness that washed over the heavens, flowing back into the vast and harrowing night.

With the fall of the Puppeteer, their defenses collapsed.

A pillar of roaring white flame broke through the rustling mass of the Nightmare Swarm, preventing the abominations that the Sacred shade had been holding back from descending upon the Chain Breaker immediately. Nephis moved closer to the ship, attempting to challenge twice as many enemies as she had been before — but it was of little use.

She couldn’t contain them all.

‘This is bad…’

Sunny and his Shadow Butterflies were suddenly faced with many times more Great abominations than they had already been struggling to keep away. The shades were being eviscerated at a frightening pace now — far faster than new shades were flowing into his soul.

The two incarnations of Sunny who had been firing arrows from the deck of the flying ship took to the sky, as well, but even their presence was not enough to change the outcome.

The defensive barrier around the Chain Breaker was dwindling and growing weaker with each moment. More and more Great abominations made it to the flying ship, and even if Saint and Serpent slaughtered them promptly, the damage dealt to the graceful vessel slowly mounted.

In the distance, Slayer was on the verge of being destroyed. Her obsidian scales were broken, and a torrent of ghostly smoke flowed out of her lethal maw instead of the merciless black flame — that was because her throat was torn wide open, more smoke spilling from the horrid wound.

She was still full of bloodlust and malice, ready and willing to continue the slaughter…

But Sunny did not want to see her destroyed. So, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and dismiss the malevolent Shadow, sending her into the nurturing dark flames of his soul to be mended and restored.

‘Rest well, Slayer…’

That left the avatars who had been augmenting Slayer alone in the depths of the Nightmare Swarm. Sunny attempted to make it back to the Chain Breaker by fusing the two incarnations into one… but in the end, he was a mangled wreck by the time he fell onto the fractured deck, shattered and broken so thoroughly that it seemed unnatural for him to still be alive.

The agony of it all made the other incarnations tremble.

These avatars, too, had to return to their natural state — the form of shadows.

With both Slayer and Puppeteer gone, and the number of Sunny’s incarnations still in the fight reduced to four, the fate of the Chain Breaker was all but sealed. Even Nephis couldn’t contain the harrowing swarm alone, and so…

It wasn’t long before she crashed into the deck and fell to her knees, her radiant wings shrouding her graceful figure like a tattered white cloak.

The brilliant radiance of her skin was now weak and dim, and Sunny could see awful wounds that littered her body closing slowly as she drew in a shaking breath and turned her gaze to him — much slower than they usually would.

Her essence was all but exhausted.

He tried to compose himself for a moment, pushed the pain that consumed his whole being down, and then rolled one of the golden fruits toward her.

Sunny forced out a pale smile.

“Not that satisfying, as far as last meals go, but… I hear these things are delicious.”

Nephis studied him for a moment, then nodded, picked up the fruit, and bit into it. By the time she stood up, her wounds were noticeably smaller, and a white tunic had already formed around her body from the sparks of light.

Above them, three incarnations of Sunny and the remaining shades were making their last stand. Serpent and Saint were still defending the deck, which was now littered with the towering, severed corpses of the Nightmare Butterflies.

The sail that had been connected to the shattered mast was fluttering in the wind, torn and tattered.

Nephis turned to the bow of the ship and leaned forward to keep balance on the inclined deck, resting one hand on the slick wood.

She remained silent for a short moment, and then said in a hoarse, emotionless voice:

“I see the breach.”