Shadow Slave

Somewhat surprised, Sunny struggled to open his eyes. As his vision slowly focused, he saw Neph’s pale face looming above him. Her short silver hair was wet, sticking close to her skin.

She was standing on her knees beside his broken body, caressing his face with her hands. In her eyes, there was a strange expression.

It was as though she was frightened, but resigned to something.

Her pupils were wide and dark.

‘Wh—what?’

Greeting her teeth, Nephis moved her hands to his collapsed chest and pressed them lightly against it, causing a pulse of pain to radiate through Sunny’s body.

Then, a soft, radiant brilliance suddenly ignited beneath the skin of her palms, reflecting in her grey eyes like two dancing white sparks.

Almost immediately, Changing Star’s face contorted in a grimace of excruciating agony, and she let out a terrible, muffled scream.

Her skin became white as a sheet of paper, and as she bit her lower lip, drops of blood soon rolled to her chin.

As the radiance grew in intensity, Nephis shut her eyes tightly, tears streaming down her tortured, bloodless face.

Sunny, on the contrary, felt like he was in heaven. All pain disappeared from his body, replaced by gentle, all-encompassing warmth. He felt as though he was being cleansed by something pure and sacred.

By a white, pristine, purifying flame.

Under the influence of the flame, his dying body began to repair itself. His shattered bones were reassembled from the shards. His torn flesh regenerated and became whole again. His collapsed lungs and damaged heart were brought back to life and rejuvenated, instantly turning strong and healthy.

Suddenly, he could breathe again.

As his chest moved, drawing in a new breath, Nephis flinched away with a harrowing moan. The white radiance beneath her skin dimmed and disappeared, letting the darkness return to its rightful place.

Crawling away a few steps, Changing Star stopped, standing on her knees and hands, and violently vomited. Her whole body was shivering uncontrollably, as though on the verge of a seizure.

As the shivers died down, she slowly lowered herself to the ground and lay there motionlessly, catching the raindrops with her mouth.

Sunny, meanwhile, raised his hands and carefully explored his body.

To his surprise, nothing really hurt. It was as though he was never wounded in the first place, let alone almost died.

With the help of Nephis and her mysterious Aspect Ability, he was completely healed.

It was a miracle.

***

night. Sunny, Nephis and Cassie huddled together for warmth and slept

were to happen, the shadow would probably alarm them in

so be it. They were

the night

make any plans or suggest leaving the cliffs. They just gathered some meat from the dead carapace centurion and the scavengers, collected the

they were right. Not long after the group left the place of the battle, a dark spot appeared in the sky. Soon, it became larger and

Its body was white as a corpse and muscular, like that of a lion. It had two mighty paws in the back and

in long black feathers, as well as its enormous wings. Its head resembled that of a raven, with large round eyes and

centurion, easily breaking its carapace apart with its talons and beak. Then, satisfied, it grabbed a few scavenger carcasses with its paws and rose back into the air, creating a small hurricane with

and

It was moving west.

it disappeared into

you

sky. After a few seconds, she lowered

“I have no idea.”

nodded and went about his business. He still had to

making a fire, they roasted the centurion’s meat and had a delicious, hefty breakfast. Then, stuffed, the three of

running away and barely surviving the sudden flood, climbing tall cliffs in the middle of a storm and battling an awakened monster — all done in a

Truth be

reason for this was not his traumatic near-death experience, although it had a lot to do with it. The thing was that, after the unexpected epiphany he had while trying to fight against the deathly mind fog, Sunny felt as though he

the clarity he

center of his being. He felt as though his very way of thinking and perceiving the world was

he had become calmer. He was now able to think much faster and act without hesitation. Many things

as though he had discovered an underlying order to the world that wasn’t there before.

the transformation of his body at the end of the First Nightmare. He felt that he had made a

if this

of the body, mastery of

But it felt as though he was on

***

time later, Sunny approached the western edge of the

over the edge. She was looking west, lost

sat down beside the silver-haired girl and followed her gaze, trying to guess

always, he failed. Changing Star was hard to

Finally,

my life twice

him

“I did.”