Shadow Slave

Sunny had never been that happy to see anyone in his entire life. Master Jet arrived just in the nick of time, saving him from having to regret the decision to send Saint to aid Rain.

…Not to mention that she was really pleasant to look at.

More importantly — taking off a Fallen Tyrant's arm with one strike! Even for an Ascended, this was an incredible feat. Tyrants were not creatures one usually dared to challenge alone. Instead, they were dreaded horrors that were capable of decimating whole cohorts of experienced, battle-hardened fighters.

Masters rarely worked together, simply for the fact that there were too few of them and too much for each one to do. But facing a tyrant was one of the things that pushed them to band together. And even then, not everyone was guaranteed to return from the fight.

Truly, Teacher Julius had not been exaggerating when he said that even Saints were wary of Soul Reaper Jet.

And yet… although her entrance was spectacular, would she be able to battle the tyrant and survive? Even though the chieftain was seriously wounded, that wound came from a surprise attack. Now that she lost the advantage, things could change really fast.

As if answering his thoughts, Master Jet glanced at him.

Despite the fact that they were surrounded by piles of corpses, the terrifying giant looming above them like an omen of doom, an unexpected smile suddenly appeared on her cold face.

"...Cool mask."

With that, Soul Reaper sprung forward, turning into a blue blur. Her movements were so fast that Sunny had only been able to perceive them because he was an Awakened, his senses vastly superior to that of a mundane human.

Several things happened at the same time.

The somber glaive flew away as it spun fast enough to appear as a blurry circle. It cut a bloody swath in the mass of abominations, eviscerating dozen in a matter of a second as it moved in a wide arc.

At the same time, Master Jet streaked across the bloodied, broken asphalt and appeared behind the tyrant, then caught the glaive and immediately lunged forward in a devastating thrust.

The chieftain was much faster, though.

His spear seemed to almost teleport into the path of the glaive, positioned for an indomitable block.

Something weird happened then.

Master Jet's weapons suddenly turned ghostly and eerily luminous, and simply passed through the shaft to the spear, then effortlessly pierced… no, phased through the creature's armor, burying itself deep in his chest.

Right where one of the soul cores should have been.

'What the…'

Things didn't go as she had planned, though. Sunny got that suspicion because of a slight frown that appeared on Jet's face, and the fact that the tyrant did not slow down even one bit.

Instead of having its soul damaged or one of his cores destroyed, the bastard simply took a step forward and raised his spear, which suddenly ignited with blinding light and flooded the area directly in front of the Gate with menacing red radiance.

Sunny sighed.

"Well… that's my cue to get the hell out of here."

This was not a battle he could handle, at least not in his current state. Master Jet seemed to have the situation under control — even if she ended up as no match for the Barrow Chieftain, she would at least be able to stall him until the rest of the government forces arrived.

Sunny, on the other hand, would probably just be erased from existence by the destructive fallout their battle was bound to produce.

Since Saint was doing fine in the gymnasium of the school, protecting both the children and the teachers, he didn't have to worry about Rain, as well.

All that was left was to do…

Was to get more shadow fragments and, hopefully, an additional Memory or two while Soul Reaper was doing the heavy lifting, of course!

'It's a good thing she arrived way faster than thirteen minutes, though… what an exemplary employee! I am starting to understand why Master Jet always seems sleep deprived. I hope the government gives her a raise…'

With that, Sunny picked himself off the ground and used Shadow Step to appear near the six Awakened, who were on the verge of being overrun by the advancing Nightmare Creatures.

Honestly, it was a miracle that all of them were still alive.

Summoning the odachi once again, Sunny cut down a hunter who had been aiming at the familiar young woman with a bow, and gave her a cursory glance.

Something exploded behind him, in the direction where Master Jet was fighting the tyrant, painting him with shades of deep red.

"L—lord Mongrel! What should we do?!"

Wasn't that obvious?

'Run, you idiots!'

Grimacing behind the fearsome black mask, Sunny opened his mouth and said, his voice full of resentment toward the fact that he had to tell such an obnoxious lie:

"Stand and fight."

The girl stared at him, a sudden expression of shame clearly written on her face.

"Of course… of course… that is what an Awakened ought to do…"

Suppressing an infuriated groan, Sunny strained his aching muscled and raised the Soul Serpent.

'What a joke! I better not see that quote going viral on the network…'

***

In the end, the Gate was contained with, miraculously, no civilian casualties.

Soon after Master Jet appeared, the government strike force finally arrived. Several swift air carriers descended from the skies in the howling of jet engines, and dozens of Awakened jumped down, all clad in high-quality armor and wielding powerful weapons.

Almost at the same time, armored vehicles appeared on the road and opened fire on the mass of Nightmare Creatures, their spelltech cannons managing to obliterate the weaker abominations and herd the more powerful ones away from the city streets. Operated by mundane humans, these machines were meant to control the battlefield and make it easier for the Awakened to eliminate those creatures too tough for human weapons to destroy reliably.

More cohorts, machines, and mundane soldiers followed.

Master Jet, unbelievably, ended up actually killing the tyrant. The break in their battle came when she suddenly shifted from attacking the chieftain himself to aiming for the three-eyed skull he wore as a helmet.

As soon as she managed to crack the skull, the red flames burning in the eyes of the wraiths were extinguished, leaving them disoriented and weakened. Many simply fell to the ground, losing their perverted unlives.

The tyrant staggered, and then collapsed in a hip of rotten fur and desiccated flesh, sending a tremor through the bloody battlefield. This time, he was truly and utterly dead.

After that, the scales of the battle tilted drastically in the favor of humans.

Noticing a dedicated team of Awakened enter the school to secure the students, Sunny dismissed Saint and glanced at the scene of slaughter one last time.

His heart was in agony.

…Not because of the havoc and destruction that seemed to envelop once peaceful streets, but because of all the soul shards and contribution points he was going to miss out on.

'Such cruelty! Such injustice!'

Well, at least he received a very large number of shadow fragments, several Memories, and even learned a new, profound and deviously deadly battle style.

This thought did not console him very much, though.

Almost on the verge of crying, Sunny sighed…

And dissolved into the shadows.

Without saying anything or demanding any credit, Mongrel was gone just as suddenly as he had appeared. All that was left behind were scores of dead Nightmare Creatures and the memories of those who saw him fight.

And some time later, in a dark and empty alley, Awakened Sunless, who avoided the summons to defend the Gate, walked toward an especially remote corner and bent down to pick up the Covetous Coffer, which was furtively looking out from behind a big garbage container.

Taking his communicator, Sunny patted the box on the lid and dismissed it, then stared at the screen with a dark expression.

A heavy sigh escaped from his lips.

"Ah, it's good to be a coward…"