Shadow Slave

The three of them were like an obliterating hurricane. The bloody fight between Dire Fang, Sunny, and Nephis was no less furious and destructive than the clashes between the other Saints that were happening on the battlefield... or maybe even more so.

Any Awakened, Echo, or enthralled abomination that dared to enter the sphere of destruction created by their fight was instantly torn apart, and so, soon, no one dared to anymore.

All the soldiers could see were dark shapes moving with dreadful speed within the rain, and billowing clouds of scalding steam that were sometimes illuminated by bright flashes of beautiful white radiance.

Maybe only Kai could make out what was happening inside, due to his Awakened Aspect Ability.

'I hope the fool does not rush here to help us...'

Sunny was trying to dismantle Dire Fang's battle style to shadow him, but his progress was too slow.

Every second they spent fighting against the terrifying Saint threatened to be their last, and even if they continued to remain alive, their fates would be sealed due to simple exhaustion - both of their bodies and their souls.

Sunny and Nephis possessed astonishing endurance, and their pools of essence were many times larger than those of ordinary Masters. However, they still could not compete with a Saint.

Saints were monstrous not only because of their power and Aspect Abilities, but also because of how potent and vast their reserves of essence were. To Masters like them, these reserves appeared nearly inexhaustible.

Especially to Sunny, who was burning through his essence fast due to the Shadow Shell. He was never going to win the war of attrition against Dire Fang.

So, he had to dismantle the Saint's battle style faster... much faster... even though he could not concentrate on this task since simply staying alive demanded almost all of his attention.

'Not good...'

He grunted as Dire Fang delivered a powerful backward kick with his wolf-like hind leg, almost ripping Sunny's shell to pieces. He managed to deflect the blow, and even tried to scratch the Saint with the Sin of Solace - but the jade blade got tangled in the thick fur, shearing some of it off, but leaving no trace on the enemy's skin.

Sunny had already delivered a shallow cut to Dire Fang before, so the [Sinister Whisper] was supposed to be driving the Saint mad... however, he showed no sign of being affected by the curse.

It seemed that breaking the mind of a Transcendent, which was the sharpest of weapons in and of itself, would not be easy, or possible at all.

'Mind, mind... the mind of a Transcendent...'

Sunny possessed a powerful mind himself. His cognitive ability and willpower were both abnormal. There was the blessing bestowed upon him by the Shroud of Dusk, as well.

And yet, it was not enough.

'Well, then...'

Suddenly, he thought of something very simple.

If his mind was not enough... wait, why the hell was he trying to solve the problem with only his own efforts, anyway?

He had a perfectly fine partner right there.

Summoning chains of shadow to try and bind the savage Saint, he saw most of them miss the mark, while the rest were easily torn apart and destroyed.

At the same time, he sent Nephis a mental message through the [Blessing of Dusk].

The message contained no words - there was no time for that. Instead, it was a much more crude, but also faster form of communication containing a mix of images, half-formed thoughts, and emotions.

For anyone else, it would have appeared as pure chaos, but Nephis knew him too well. They were so familiar with each other that even such an unadulterated stream of concepts was enough to form an understanding.

It was a bit like finishing each other's sentences or guessing each other's feelings from body language, but elevated to a completely different level.

And yet, it worked.

Nephis seemed to understand his intention instantly, and reciprocated.

A flood of concepts and images poured into his head.

Sunny's intention, of course, was very simple - since his own mind was not enough to dismantle Dire Fang's battle style fast enough, he wanted to join their minds together to accomplish that task faster. Mostly metaphorically, but also a bit literally.

Nephis might not have possessed the unnatural ability to peer into the very essence of a being through Shadow Dance, but she had been doing the same thing as Sunny this whole time, without a doubt - she had been studying the enemy, trying to discern the patterns of his battle technique to circumvent them. More than that, her insight, while not supernatural, was in no way lacking in value.

It was absolutely the opposite. Neph was a genius of combat, after all - she was born and bred for battle, and there were very few people in the world who possessed the same chilling level of affinity to bloodshed and destruction as her.

Sunny had his own insights about the way Dire Fang fought, and she had hers. By combining them, they would be able to enhance each other's understanding of the enemy in the same way that their powers were augmenting each other beyond the usual limits of their Aspects.

Hopefully.

Sunny growled and continued to fight. The shadow fiend sometimes moved like a human, and sometimes like the creature that he was. He bent in strange ways, used his long arms to dash on all fours like a wild animal, and delivered attacks with the onyx spike at the end of his tail.

His sword, his claws, his teeth, and his horns were all weapons, so he used them all in tandem.

When that was not enough, he summoned shadows or stepped through them to attack the Saint from an unexpected angle.

Nephis was pushing her body to the limit, as well. Her flames burned and danced, trying to envelop their enemy or coalescing into incinerating jets that could cut through flesh and bone with frightening ease. She seemed to possess an authority over the battlefield that was almost frightening.

And while they did that, they also exchanged a torrent of thoughts and concepts at tremendous speed.

Sunny was sharing his knowledge, while Nephis was sharing hers.

The pieces of the puzzle were flying into his head, slotting into the grand picture with satisfying clicks.

Some of them he had figured out himself, but some were new and unexpected. It seemed that Nephis possessed a perspective that was both similar and different from his own, but no less keen. She paid attention to things that Sunny would have never thought about, and arrived at conclusions that he might have missed.

The same was true in reverse.

But together... together, they missed nothing. They saw everything.

It was as though they were omniscient.

And with that omniscience...

Everything clicked in place, and the essence of Saint Dire Fang was revealed to Sunny.

He hesitated for a moment, and then sent actual words to Nephis for the first time.

He said... or rather, thought.

[...Do you trust me?]