Shadow Slave

Turning in the direction of the thundering noise, many slaves rose their heads — only to see rocks and heavy shards of ice raining on them from above. They instantly panicked, lurching away in a cacophony of screams. Shadows happily danced on black stones as, entangled by the thick chain, those slaves fell to the ground and pulled others with them.

Sunny was one of the few that remained upright, mostly because he was ready for something like this to happen. Calm and collected, he gazed at the night sky, his Attribute-enhanced eyes piercing the darkness, and took one measured step back. In the next second, a piece of ice the size of a man’s torso hit the ground right in front of him and exploded, showering everything around with sharp shards.

Others weren’t that quick. As ice and stones continued to rain, many were wounded, and a few even lost their lives. Agonizing wails filled the air.

“On your feet, fools! Get to the wall!”

The veteran soldier — the one who had whipped Sunny a few hours before — was shouting angrily, trying to get the slaves to move towards the relative safety of the mountain slope. However, before anyone could heed his command, something massive came crashing down, sending a tremor through the stones beneath their feet. It fell right between the caravan and the mountain wall, plunging everything into silence for a few seconds.

At first, it looked like a lump of dirty snow, roughly round in shape and as tall as a mounted horseman. However, once the creature unfurled its long limbs and rose, it towered over the stone platform like a nightmarish omen of death.

‘That thing must be at least four meters tall,’ Sunny thought, a bit stunned.

The creature had two stumpy legs, an emaciated, hunched torso and disproportionately long, multijointed hands — two of them, each ending with a set of horrifying bone claws, and another two, these ones shorter, ending with almost human-like fingers. The thing that at first glance looked like dirty snow turned out to be its fur, yellowish-grey and ragged, thick enough to stop arrows and swords.

On its head, five milky, white eyes regarded the slaves with insect-like indifference. Beneath them, a terrible maw crowding with razor-sharp teeth was half-open, as though in anticipation. Viscous drool was running down the creature’s chin and dripping into the snow.

What unnerved Sunny the most, though, were the strange shapes endlessly moving, worm-like, under the creature’s skin. He could see them clearly because, unfortunately, he was one of those unlucky souls closest to the monstrosity, getting a nauseating first-row view.

‘Well, that is just… too much,’ he thought, stupefied.

As soon as Sunny finished that thought, all hell broke loose. The creature moved, slashing its claws in his general direction. But Sunny was one step ahead: without wasting a single moment, he jumped sideways — as far as the chain allowed — conveniently placing the broad-shouldered slave between himself and the monster.

His quick reaction saved his life, as those sharp claws, each as long as a sword, sliced through the broad-shouldered man a fraction of a second later and sent streams of blood flying through the air. Drenched in the hot liquid, Sunny hit the ground, and his fellow slave — now simply a corpse — fell on him from above.

‘Damn! Why are you so heavy!’

Temporarily blinded, Sunny heard a chilling howl and felt an enormous shadow passing over him. Immediately after, a deafening chorus of screams filled the night. Not paying it any attention, he tried to roll the corpse to the side, but was stopped by a forceful lurch of the chain that twisted his wrists and filled his mind with white-hot pain. Disoriented, he felt himself being dragged a few steps, but then the chain suddenly slackened, and he was able to control his hands again.

‘See, things could have been worse…’

his attempts, but then finally fell sideways, setting Sunny free. However, he didn’t get to celebrate this newly found freedom, as his blood

broad-shouldered slave’s bleeding body,

get worse, right, you idiot?’

from it as he could — which was about a meter and a half, thanks to the ever-present chain. He quickly glanced around, noticing a mass of dancing shadows and the silhouette of the monster rampaging amidst the screaming slaves on the opposite end of the stone platform. Then he concentrated on the dead body,

side of the corpse, the shifty slave was looking at it with slackened jaw and a

at?! Move away

but immediately fell down. The chain was twisted between the three of them, pinned down under by the broad-shouldered man’s

Sunny clenched his teeth.

pierced its skin, extending like spikes. The muscles bulged and wriggled, as though trying to change shape. The fingernails were turning into

‘This is not right.’

a strong urge to empty

“Th— the chain!”

a ghost. That remark was far from helpful, but given the circumstances, his shock was understandable. Being shackled was bad enough, but being

things weren’t right did not come from self-pity. He just meant that this whole situation was literally not right: the Spell, mysterious as it was, had its own set of rules.

mindless Beasts to Monsters, followed by Demons, Devils, Tyrants, Terrors and, finally, mythical Titans, also known as Calamities. The First Nightmare was almost always populated by beasts and monsters, rarely with a demon mixed in. And Sunny had never, ever heard

a lesser version of itself — an ability that belonged exclusively to tyrants, the

tyrant even doing in a First

that

no time

there was only one person now who could save

giving him time to fully come to his

now fully equipped with five jagged claws, shot forward to meet him, but Sunny sidestepped

time was not quick reaction, but simple presence of mind. Sunny might not have learned any fancy combat techniques, since his childhood was spent on the streets instead of a school. But the streets, too, were a kind of teacher. He had spent his whole life fighting for survival, quite often literally. That

of freezing or being consumed by fear and

its hands to its body. Before the creature, still slow and groggy from its transformation, could properly react, Sunny wrapped the chain around

good thing was, the monster couldn’t move its hands

was, the length of the chain he used to immobilize it was gone, leaving almost