Shadow Slave

Sunny bit into the spine of the Azure Serpent, igniting what little strength he had left into a violent and furious blaze. Billowing, shadows and flame rose from his onyx scales and wreathed him like a burial shroud. His eyes shone with mad, morbid, murderous malice and chillingly cold killing intent.

His jaw pressed down with enough force to shatter mountains.

...But the spine of a Great Beast was much stronger than a mountain chain. It resisted his obsidian fangs, refusing to be broken, cracked, or even scratched.

'Die! Die!'

Drowning in fury, Sunny put all of his resolve, all of his hatred, and all of his desire into crushing the indestructible bone. He violently jerked his head left and right, gnawing on the spine like a rabid dog. If he could not bite through it, he would saw through it. If he could not saw through it, he would grind it down...

The Azure Serpent was going to die, no matter what. It was already half-dead, anyway...

However, so was Sunny.

He sensed the gargantuan body of the ancient leviathan moving, and coldly refused to pay it any attention. It did not matter how the mad beast would try to destroy him, or if it would succeed. Sunny had already discarded his survival instinct. The mad beast could not reach him with its harrowing maw, which meant that it was not going to be able to kill him instantly.

That was all he needed to know.

As his fangs scraped against the spine of the Azure Serpent in a frenzy, the abomination's mangled body rose and ensnared Sunny like a crushing vice. Once he was caught in the coils, there would be no escape... he knew it, but he did not care.

All he cared about was the feeling of a thin, shallow crack finally appearing under one of his fangs. The leviathan's spine... was giving.

'Die!'

As dark glee washed over his heart, the coils tensed, crushing his ravaged shell. The strength contained within them was unlike anything Sunny had experienced before. It was truly, and utterly, harrowing.

Pressing down with harrowing strength, the Azure Serpent turned the marble carapace of the Mantle into stone dust. The serpentine body beneath it was instantly broken, the onyx scales shattering, sharp edges of broken bones piercing the skin and protruding from the horrid wounds.

There was blinding pain... but Sunny did not care.

More cracks appeared on the abomination's spine now, spreading and merging with each other, and he could feel the giant body of his enemy twitching in pain. He could also feel fragments of bone sinking beneath his fangs.

Instead of struggling to save himself, Sunny ferociously bit down on the damaged spine of the leviathan and persisted in his frenzied attempts to break and mutilate it.

'Let's see which one of us dies first, old snake... as long... as you die first... I don't mind dying second...'

The dorsal fin of the Great Beast effortlessly cut into his shell, slicing it open like a saw. Instead of blood, darkness flowed out of the vivisected serpent, only to dissolve and disappear in the soft radiance of the glowing water.

Sunny pressed his jaws together in all-consuming fury... and finally felt the bone crumble beneath his bite.

'Will my incarnation be destroyed? Or won't it?'

Not that it mattered too much...

Killing the enemy was the only thing that mattered. There was nothing else!

A strange sound that was half a deranged roar and half a wail of agony escaped from his maw. His jaws started to slowly move toward each other.

At the same time, the damage his body had received was nearing the level of being catastrophic. By all accounts, his shell should have already come undone - but Sunny had submerged so deeply into the sensation of being a serpent that his absolute belief held it together, still.

He felt the shadows part before the sharp blade of the leviathan's fin, opening a straight path to the tiny incarnation hidden within them. Death was swiftly approaching...

But, at the same time, he felt the spine of the Azure Serpent shattering as his fangs sank into the sweet marrow.

The mad beast convulsed and let out a roar of blind agony. However, just like Sunny, it did not know surrender. It only had murder on its mind, and so, the vice of its coils only grew stronger, crushing and slicing the hateful worm with unquenchable wrath.

It was only a matter of moments now before Sunny's defenseless shadow form would be destroyed.

'Death!'

He did not know if he had called upon his enemy's death, or greeted his own.

For a split second, the shadow flame billowing from his mangled body ignited with startling intensity. In Sunny's mind, everything disappeared. The only thing that remained was an imperative resolve to kill the enemy.

His jaw snapped shut with a deafening clap.

...In the next moment, there was nothing but pain.

Sunny lost his sight, his hearing, his smell, his sense of touch... even shadow sense was gone, leaving him in an empty abyss where the only thing that existed was agony.

All his thoughts were incinerated, and all his awareness was banished by torment.

'Ah... ah...'

He couldn't even scream, because he had forgotten how.

But, despite all that...

He was satisfied. He was thrilled.

He was happy.

'I... I... I... killed it. Right?'

There was no way to know.

But then...

As if to answer his faint plea, a familiar voice whispered:

[You have slain a Great Beast, Daeron of the Twilight Sea.]

[You have received a Memory.]

The whispers flowed into his soul as darkness encroached on his mind.

[...Your shadow grows stronger.]

***

As the dark island swayed under the assault of furious waves, two broken silhouettes could be seen in the raging water, slowly drifting apart.

One, much larger one, had a harrowing wound on its neck. Its spine was entirely snapped, and it was partially beheaded. A fire of indescribable madness was slowly fading away from the leviathan's damaged eye, which was locked on the unmoving figure of the enemy even in death.

The body of the Azure Serpent was slowly disappearing in the beautiful shine of the glowing waters as it fell into the depths.

The other, smaller silhouette, was torn and ravaged beyond recognition. The serpentine body of the onyx beast was cut and broken, with harrowing wounds gaping across its entire length. It seemed to be on the verge of dissolving into a swarm of intangible shadows...

Before it did, however, a graceful figure in a fluttering white tunic dove from the high slope of the island and plunged into the raging waves.

Struggling against the furious current, Nephis endured the pain of her Flaw and swam toward the onyx serpent.