Shadow Slave

The Jade Titan had been liberated from the tendril of abyssal darkness, but instead of crumbling like an empty shell, he remained whole — apart from the damage his armor received in the explosion.

The cracks in the fearsome armor were already closing, being repaired by the same [Living Stone] enchantment Sunny’s own Jade Mantle possessed. The radiant glow suffusing the stonelike armor slowly dimmed as it was cooled by the cold currents of flowing darkness.

The ocean of the Great Titan’s vast Will had become even more oppressive, even more malevolent. It washed over the city, making the flames illuminating it tremble and dim. Far away, a second colossal tendril of darkness emerged from the great chasm. Somewhere behind, Saint and her legion were engaged in fierce battle against a vastly superior enemy.

Sunny gritted his teeth.

The situation did not look good.

The Jade Titan, the army of fallen Stone Saints, the eldritch horror of the Abyss... Any one of these forces was terrifying enough to pose an existential threat, but all of them combined together? There was no telling how the battle would end.

For now, all Sunny and Nephis could do was fight.

Her composed voice resounded in his mind, sounding more somber than usual.

[Sunny... I am going ahead.]

Her meaning was clear. Nephis was going to confront the Creature of Darkness and attempt to destroy it — or at least hold it back. That meant that Sunny had to handle the Jade Titan.

[Godspeed.]

A radiant figure flashed past him, moving with the speed of lightning toward the edge of the magnificent city. Sunny spread his scorched wings wide, hovering in the air as he threw a grim look at the abominable colossus below.

The Jade Titan was already rising from his knees, the chilling darkness nestled in the visor of his helmet boiling with malevolent will.

‘How the hell do I even kill that thing?’

Sunny frowned faintly, evaluating the situation.

The armored stone colossus was fearsome, emanating an almost palpable aura of dread and oppression. However, he was not the Great Titan Sunny had to destroy — he was merely the vessel that served as the confluence of the abomination’s titanic soul. The Titan’s avatar.

The Jade Titan himself was embodied by all the fallen Stone Saints in the city. So, to defeat him... Sunny would have to wipe out every single one of the Tainted Saints, including the abominable colossus.

Luckily, Sunny himself was far more than what met the eye when one looked at him. The Shadow Legion was an extension of his soul, and so were his Shadows — in fact, the forces he controlled were many times more fearsome than the fallen Stone Saints the Jade Titan commanded.

It was just that Sunny was fighting a dozen battles in other places at the same time, so he could not unleash the full force of the Shadow Legion in the Underworld. He had to win this battle with what he had at hand. The good news was that with every tainted Stone Saint he destroyed, a part of the Jade Titan would die, making the abomination weaker — while, at the same time, Sunny’s forces would grow. The bad news was that Saint and her army were fighting a losing battle against thousands of powerful Nightmare Creatures entrenched in formidable defensive fortifications.

So, it was difficult to predict which side would actually emerge victorious.

All Sunny could do was rely on Saint, knowing that she had never failed him before. His own job, meanwhile, was to confront the abominable colossus — the core of the Great Titan’s power — and prevent him from reaching the battlefront. As for Nephis, she had to contend against the abyssal horror. Each of them had a role to play, and if any one failed, the rest would fall like dominoes.

That was if the situation did not change, of course. If something went wrong, then even with all three of them performing flawlessly, they would still be doomed.

‘Let’s kill a Titan, then...’

Sunny eyes glinted darkly behind the visor of his helmet.

A Great Titan? Facing a creature like that was a deadly affair, sure. But Sunny also really, really wanted the shade of the Jade Titan to join the Shadow Legion — not only would that increase his overall power by quite a lot, but it would also allow Serpent to assume the same form. Currently, there were no shades among those Sunny ruled that Serpent could use to unleash its full potential.

Below, the Jade Titan had finally steadied himself and looked at Sunny, the darkness around him moving to devour all light. Sunny pursed his lips. The very nature of the enemy suppressed his powers, making the thought of fighting that thing seem suicidal. But then again, Sunny already had a solution for that particular problem.

Folding his wings, he plummeted toward the fractured floor of the great amphitheater. As Sunny fell, he turned into a shadow, and then released it from the narrow confines of a human form. The true extent of his lightless existence — vast and shapeless, deep like a sea — revealed itself, and then coalesced into a towering figure.

Just a few moments later, a second colossus landed on the shattered stones, making the whole immense stalagmite quake. He was just as towering as the Jade Titan, and wore a suit of fearsome black armor that looked almost exactly the same.

Two Jade Titans faced each other, looking like twin brothers. The only difference between them was that behind the visor of one, impenetrable darkness nestled. Behind the visor of another, though, there burned furious white flames, illuminating the ancient arena around them.

A colossal odachi formed in Sunny’s hand, its blade glistening in the darkness. As if to answer, cold darkness flowed from beneath the Jade Titan’s armor, coalescing into a menacing greatsword.

Raising the odachi, Sunny struck it twice against his right pauldron.

Instead of reciprocating the gesture, the Jade Titan moved forward like a walking mountain.