Shadow Slave

Nightware was flying across the twilight plain, ignoring all obstacles. He cut through the snow, maneuvered between giant boulders, crested hills, and jumped across deep canyons, his steel hooves sending sparks flying from the weathered stone. The dark destrier was swift like a shadow, moving with innate grace and incredible speed.

Sunny was sitting in the saddle, holding Jet. She was basically in his embrace... in the past, being so close to her would have made his blood boil, but right now, he did not feel anything. Not just because Soul Reaper was cold and lifeless like a corpse, but also because his heart was just as cold, and just as lifeless.

He did not feel much of anything right now, except for deep, dark rancor. There was no time to, either. Sunny might have joked about how this journey would be akin to a picnic, but in truth, their situation was still dire. East Antarctica was teeming with Nightmare Creatures, and he was not conceited enough to think himself capable of slaughtering entire hordes of them.

Sunny knew that he was strong, but he also knew the limitations of his strength. He had just been taught a bitter lesson on that topic by the Winter Beast, after all. Right now, his best friends were caution and speed.

His shadows were scouting ahead, searching for Nightmare Creatures that lay in wait. Some he would avoid, some he would escape from by relying on how swift Nightmare was. Steering clear of the migrating hordes was not too hard, but the smaller swarms and solitary abominations were a challenge. Still, Sunny had not been forced to summon Saint yet, let alone enter battle himself.

They traversed a good distance, then hid in a deep ravine, waiting for a large horde to move away. After the river of monsters was gone, Nightmare dashed forward once again. Rinse and repeat.

Finding a safe spot to enter the Dream Realm was proving to be more difficult than he had thought. There were places where the pull of the Call was not strong enough to disrupt their anchors, but all of them were crawling with the Nightmare Creatures. Slaying the abominations was not out of the question, but Sunny felt reluctant to create a lot of noise. Who knew what else would be attracted by the sounds of a battle?

And so, further and further they went.

Eventually, he had to admit that solving their problem was not going to be a fast affair. As such, Sunny had to change his tactics.

He had not eaten in a long time, and Jet was losing essence. They had to hunt.

Sunny spent some time finding a swarm of Nightmare Creatures that was sufficiently small and isolated. After that, he commanded Saint to put an arrow into each abomination and slow them down with the [Burden of Peace] enchantment of the black bow.

Then, Sunny set Soul Reaper on the beasts and watched from the shadows as she butchered them.

Jet was still weak and low on essence. However, the creatures were merely Awakened, and weighed down by the soul arrows on top of that. He was there to interfere should something go wrong, as well. Sunny was confident that his dead companion would be able to handle the swarm.

And, indeed, she did.

To conserve her essence, Jet shunned summoning any Memories and attacked the abominations with her bare hands. However, as Sunny quickly found out, Soul Reaper was a terror to behold even while weakened and unarmed.

When she struck the abominations, her hands simply passed through their flesh, directly shattering the soul cores. But more than that, Jet was already dead - her body could still be damaged, and she would perish if it was entirely destroyed, but she was also not plagued by many of the weaknesses that most living beings shared.

She could not bleed to death, but could ignore wounds that would cripple or kill any human. Jet was able to dismiss even the most severe internal injuries, continuing to fight without ever slowing down. Even if her lungs were crushed and her heart was pierced, she would simply continue to kill.

Not even crushing Soul Reaper's skull would stop her. As long as she absorbed enough essence, her dead body would eventually heal, or rather, restore itself.

Faced with such an unstoppable monster... even Sunny would feel a hint of dread.

'Good thing we're on the same side.'

In the end, it did not take long for Jet to slaughter the small swarm of Awakened abominations. She killed them with her bare hands, regaining a little strength with each kill. Throughout all of this, her face remained unnervingly calm, like that of someone focused on a boring chore. Then, a disturbing little smile appeared on it.

Sunny was forced to remember his first conversation with Teacher Julius. Back then, the old man had called Jet a murderous savage and a psychopathic killer. Sunny used to think that people were prejudiced against Jet because of her background, but now, knowing what he knew... He could see how strangers could have come to the conclusion that Soul Reaper enjoyed killing simply for the sake of killing. Very few people knew that she needed to constantly absorb essence to survive, after all. And who wouldn't be unsettled after witnessing something like this?

When the last of the Nightmare Creatures fell to the ground, Jet straightened and closed her eyes for a moment, exhaling with satisfaction. She looked like a fiend that had just crawled from the depths of hell - awash in blood, body riddled with ghastly wounds, and eerily beautiful despite all that.

Shaking his head, Sunny emerged from the shadows and went about dressing down some of the abominations to collect meat. At the same time, Saint started salvaging soul shards.

Jet remained motionless for a while, then looked at him. There was some vitality now in her eyes.

She smiled, and said:

"What are we doing now?"

Sunny looked at her somberly.

"Now, go wash yourself. You might be dead, but I'm not. I can still smell things..."