Shadow Slave

After finding a good hiding spot for Cassie, Sunny and Nephis proceeded forward to face the scavengers. Soon, they saw two hulking silhouettes in the distance.

With her lips pursed together, Nephis threw over her shoulder:

“Keep up.”

Then, like a runner preparing for a race, she got down on one knee, inhaled deeply… and lunged forward.

‘Damn!’

Sunny dove into the deep shadow cast by the wall of the labyrinth and followed, running as fast as he could. However, the distance between them kept growing.

Suddenly, he remembered walking behind Nephis as they crossed the bridge to the Academy. Was it his fate to always follow behind her?

Changing Star’s running speed was incredibly fast. She was practically flying through the air, like an arrow let loose from a bow. One of her arms was stretched backward, holding the sword with its point to the ground. The other was cutting the air with each stride.

It took the two scavengers a couple of seconds to realize what was happening after noticing her. By that time, she was almost upon them.

With madness burning in their eyes and viscous saliva dripping from their mandibles, the monsters screeched and charged forward. Nephis did not slow down, as though planning to ram them with her body. Sunny’s heart skipped a bit.

Four terrifying pincers shot through the air.

At the last moment, Nephis fell backward, falling on her side. The inertia carried her forward as she slid through the mud, passing between the scavengers. Then, she twisted her body and stopped herself by plunging the sword into the ground.

A bit slower, and she would have been impaled by one of the scavengers’ legs.

‘Crazy! She’s crazy!’

By the time Changing Star got back to her feet, one of the scavengers had already turned around. However, Sunny couldn’t see what was going on as his sight was blocked by the bulky carapace creatures. He only heard the sound of chitin striking against steel.

There was no time to worry about that anyway, since he had his own problems to solve.

Due to the insane maneuver that Nephis had pulled off, the second scavenger lagged a little behind the first one. It was just about to turn around when Sunny finally got close enough to launch an attack.

Silently cursing, he ran up a narrow protrusion on the coral wall and jumped, aiming to pierce the weak point at the scavenger’s back from above. His shadow was already wrapped around the Azure Blade.

But at the last moment, the scavenger suddenly moved, slightly turning its torso to the right. The blade missed the concave spot where the armor plates connected and instead hit one of them square in the center, sliding helplessly across adamantine chitin.

‘Crap!’

Instead of killing the beast with one decisive blow, Sunny ended up dealing no damage at all. What’s worse, he landed right on top of the scavenger, practically hugging it from behind. In the next moment, the scavenger shook its carapace, throwing the irritating human off.

Sunny flew sideways and crashed into the labyrinth wall, feeling breath being knocked out of him. Suffocating and disoriented, he fell gracelessly into the mud.

‘Not good.’

hit the wall, sending pieces of

that time, however, he

take a few steps back without falling. In the next second, his sword was in front of him, held in both hands just like Nephis

him with a menacing fire

‘Repetition. Experience…’

from the Azure Blade to his hand, then spread to his arm, shoulder, and then finally covered

No. To survive, he would definitely also

from the right, the other from the left. There was no time to retreat or dodge sideways. So, instead, Sunny did something

monster. The pincers clashed together with a loud crack behind

it was the only logical step. After all, the attack range of his sword was much shorter than that of the scavenger. He could only fight back by getting

he had recently done thousands of times. His muscles moved even before his mind gave the

and slashed downward, pushing with one hand while pulling with the other. His whole body moved in concert to

Then, it hit the joint of one of the scavenger’s front legs and cleaved

less than a second to

‘I actually did it?’

leg, the scavenger lost balance for a moment, careening forward and

his other front leg slid in the mud, bringing the monster even

not

pushing it into the scavenger’s mouth. A severed mandible fell

of the Nightmare Creature convulsed before falling

It was dead.

back of his head. He

‘At least I’m alive.’

have slain an awakened beast, Carapace

[You shadow grows stronger.]

[You have…]

Sunny tugged on the sword to dislodge it from the monster’s head and hurried

it was too

delivered just moments ago. It seemed like Nephis had managed to sever its spine by piercing the weak spot at the base of the

As Sunny approached it, he heard the sound of rugged,

don’t come

silence of the battle’s aftermath, Changing Star’s voice sounded strange and subdued. Sunny suddenly felt as though someone had squeezed his heart in a fist. Steeling himself, he

breath after the intense fight. There was a bloody gash on

instantly

top came apart, leaving her naked

though someone had stung him and hurriedly turned around. His face was