Shadow Slave

Saint fought the towering abominations in the embrace of impenetrable darkness, while Nephis fought them in the light. Sunny, who shared the senses of both, felt almost dizzy due to the stark contrast between the two perspectives.

If there was one thing that united them, though, it was that the battle — the first skirmish of their Underworld expedition — was already more ferocious and perilous than almost any clash he had experienced before. Ariel’s Game, the Eternal City... even the Nightmare Desert. The scope of this battle was relatively minor, but the forces involved were simply terrifying.

By all accounts, Nephis and Saint — a Supreme Titan and a Supreme Devil, both supported by the power of shadows — should not have experienced much difficulty when facing opponents below the Cursed Rank. But the Dark Ones existed outside the familiar framework of Ranks and Classes, and their eerie assault was overwhelmingly deadly.

Space bent under the violent power of their movements. The vast chamber quaked. The bones of the fallen warriors who had presumably belonged to the Divine Host turned to dust under their feet, and the ceiling groaned precariously, as if ready to collapse.

Neither Nephis nor Saint was an easy opponent to deal with, and yet mere moments after the beginning of the battle, they both suffered.

In the darkness, Saint moved like a storm between the macabre abominations. Many of them had been crushed under her armored boots, and more had been destroyed by her sword — however, the dark blade of her sword had become unreliable, forcing her to exert conscious effort to keep it solid and sharp.

The same was happening to her armor, which seemed to have turned liquid and flowed down her graceful body, revealing glimpses of alabaster skin.

The enemy saw and used that vulnerability well.

Seconds after she clashed with the morbid creatures, a powerful blow broke through her defenses and landed on her side, sending a net of cracks running across the smooth surface of her abdomen. Ruby dust flowed through the cracks, marring the flawless white expanse of her jade skin.

The wound itself was not that grievous, especially because Saint could swiftly mend her body with the [Mantle of Darkness] Ability.

However, just as she effortlessly regained her balance and cut down the enemy who had dealt her a blow, another used the opportunity to strike the same place, causing an entire length of her side to shatter, a flood of ruby dust pouring from the harrowing wound in a rain of jade shards.

Nephis was not faring much better.

She had not unleashed her most powerful abilities yet, wanting to study the enemy first, but ended up paying for that dearly. The Dark Ones were simply too fast and too oppressive. She had deflected a dozen annihilating strikes in the blink of an eye, moving speedily to avoid being surrounded and buried under a crushing mass of animated stone, and destroyed half a dozen enemies.

Nephis made no mistake in her swordsmanship — but she was still pushed into a situation when even her power wasn’t enough to escape.

Almost at the same time as Saint suffered the first wound, the giant hand of a powerful abomination broke through the crumbling remains of an enemy she had just slain and brushed her shoulder.

Instantly, her skin and flesh were torn, her bones were shattered, and her entire shoulder was gruesomely cleaved apart, one of her arms barely hanging onto her body. Luckily, her other arm was still attached to her body quite firmly — so, changing her grip on the hilt of the Blessing, she severed the hand of the towering abomination and leapt back, studying the tide of enemies with an emotionless face.

These wounds were not fatal, of course. Neph’s horrid wound healed almost instantly, washed away by the pure white radiance, while Saint’s side was already mending itself, the flow of ruby dust having been stemmed.

But, still...

Sunny struggled to remember if they had ever participated in a battle where warriors of their Rank had received such grievous injuries so fast.

And they had only destroyed a small fraction of the enemies, at that. If things were already this dire, what would happen as the battle stretched?

Nephis and Saint dove back into the obliterating crucible of battle, adjusting their tactics as they learned more about the enemy. Both were focused on the flow and cadence of combat, while Sunny, in his passive state, had more time to observe and consider it.

He had already sent a mental message to Cassie, asking if she had any insight into the nature of their enemy. Cassie’s voice sounded distant and quiet, but they were still connected by the invisible web of her Aspect — sadly, she did not have much to share. The Dark Ones were just as mysterious to her as they were to them, their alien nature resisting even the keen power of her Dormant Ability.

So, Sunny could only rely on his own reason and intuition.

He considered using his own Abilities to assist Nephis and Saint in the fight. Due to how suppressed his Aspect was here in the Underworld, there was little he could do... which was not to say that he could do nothing.

In the vast circle of light created by Nephis, at least, there were shadows — so, he could manifest them, impeding the enemies. However, Sunny did not think that it would have much of an effect. It was not going to be a decisive shift, at the very least.

Then, he considered how Nephis could employ her own powers better. She could unleash a storm of white flames, invoke the Sorcery of Names, assume her true Transcendent form and flood the chamber with immolating fire... or even burn her soul cores to both increase the destructiveness of her Aspect explosively and benefit from the [Ruin] enchantment of the Blessing. The latter would probably annihilate the swarm of jigsaw abominations. However, destroying them would not grant her any soul fragments — which meant that the damage dealt to her cores would not be replenished. Sacrificing this much this early into their expedition was not at all reassuring regarding its overall success. So...

For some reason, Sunny’s thoughts kept wandering back to what Mordret had said before leaving.

Was the mist holding back the darkness, or was the darkness holding back the mist? Seeing that both Nephis and Saint were being pushed back, slowly losing ground and suffering more terrible wounds, he hesitated for a moment, and then asked:

”Nephis, do you want to try something risky?”

Deflecting an obliterating blow and piercing another Dark One, she answered in a slightly strained tone:

”I’m... open to suggestions.”

Saint suffered another blow back then, staggering back into the light.

Sunny took a deep breath.

”Then let’s switch places.”