Shadow Slave

The [Death Wish] enchantment worked.

... In fact, it worked a little bit too well.

'Damn! Damn! Damn!'

Sunny was drowning in the tide of Nightmare Creatures. No matter how strong he was, no matter how fast he was, no matter how well he understood the attack patterns of the stone hive soldiers, there were just too many of them for him to handle without paying the price.

The Mantle of the Underworld sustained more and more hits. The onyx armor mostly held, for now, and what little damage it did sustain was swiftly mended by the [Living Stone] enchantment. His body beneath it, however, was hurting There were no holes in him yet, but it was just a matter of time.

If there was one good thing about the situation, however, it was that the Irregulars were completely safe from being attacked from the back. Sunny was holding the mass of abominations advancing from the rear single-handedly, killing more and more of them as he desperately tried to survive.

By now, all the snow around him had melted, and the rocks were covered by the viscous blue lymph.

Savaged carcasses of Nightmare Creatures littered the ground, and three shadow tentacles were rampaging among those that remained.

The fourth had been destroyed by another Fallen abomination, whom Sunny then finished off with the shining blade of the Cruel Sight.

The twilight enveloping the summit of the mountain was long gone. High above, a constant stream of lightning tore the darkness of the cold sky, and on the mountain slope itself, chaotic flashes of light produced by Winter and other Awakened ensnared in a bloody battle with the stone hive created a strange and beautiful illumination.

Sunny himself was surrounded by nothing except for darkness, however, since the Shadow Lantern devoured any light that reached him.

'I can't go on like this for much longer...'

His only solace was that he did not need to. Soon, help would arrive. Sunny just had to hold on long enough for Master Jet to finish off the Corrupted lieutenants of the hive and join the battle against the lesser abominations.

Slaying a score of Corrupted was not something an Ascended was supposed to be able to do... but he had faith in Soul Reaper's ability. After all, even Saints were wary of fighting her.

Speaking of Colonel Jet...

Killing a frenzied Fallen beast with a devastating slash of the Cruel Sight and at the same time piercing the head of an Awakened monster with the ghostly blade of the Moonlight Shard, Sunny used the carcasses of the dead creatures to buy himself a moment of respite and glanced higher up the slope, where Soul Reaper was in a similar position as him- drowning in abominations as she was trying to hunt down the strongest among them before they could hunt her.

Master Jet was moving with murderous purpose and terrifying speed, dodging the storm of attacks as she descended upon one Corrupted after another, the blade of her glaive ignoring all physical armor as it viciously struck directly at their darkness-infested soul cores.

All of it was very bizarre, and also gave him a better understanding of why Soul Reaper was so feared by other Awakened.

Very few humans possessed powerful means of defending themselves from soul attacks. However, she was not even delivering blows infused with soul damage... Instead, her glaive was somehow able to deliver physical damage directly to the souls of her enemies. More than that, it could bypass all forms of armor and strike at the vulnerable cores.

'Scary...'

But there was more strangeness about how Master Jet fought. She was just too fast, too strong... too deadly. Even knowing that her cohort was assembled based on their ability to augment the combat performance of their commanding officer, Sunny could not explain how Soul Reaper was so frighteningly powerful.

Just her physical prowess alone was almost on par with his own, which was not supposed to be possible. Not only did Sunny possess more cores, he also enjoyed the enhancement of shadows. And yet, he couldn't deny what he saw.

Her battle style, meanwhile, was brutal and domineering, honed and perfectly sharpened to achieve a single purpose - deliver swift death and utter devastation to her enemies. While it lacked flair and refinement, when Sunny looked at how Soul Reaper fought, he felt something that he had never felt before.

It was the lethal weight of thousands and thousands of deathly battles... he did not think he had ever encountered a human fighter that seemed to possess quite as much combat experience. Her technique possessed a dark depth to it that he had yet to sense from anyone else.

Not even Pierce and Welthe, two high-ranking Knights of Valor, could compare to Soul Reaper let. Not even the Saints he had met.

It made sense, in hindsight. Saints serving Legacy clans might have been more powerful, but they led a very different life than someone like Master Jet. The government was always short on personnel and resources, and so, every capable fighter serving them had to do more.

Considering that Soul Reaper was possibly the most capable of them, she had to also be one of the most active government operatives. What it meant was that while Master and Saints of the Legacy clans only undertook the most important combat missions and enjoyed sufficient rest between each battle. she had been sent to deal with emerging Gates, rampaging Nightmare Creatures, Awakened criminals, and other dangerous issues almost every single day.

No wonder Master Jet always seemed a bit sleep-deprived.

Battle after battle, day after day... considering that she had entered government service more than a decade ago, that would indeed make Soul Reaper the most seasoned human fighter Sunny had ever met, at least in terms of pure number of combat encounters and confirmed kills.

Strangely, not even the other Irregular captains seemed as accomplished in battle and slaughter, despite being older than Jet.

Suddenly, he was overcome by burning curiosity.

'I wonder if I can shadow her combat technique...'

At the level of Masters, a battle style was more than just a set of moves combined with a special mental framework. Due to how intricate their control of essence was, a style also included unique patterns of essence reinforcement.

Knowing that he only had a split second left before his own battle would continue, Sunny strained his eyes and peered beneath the surface of Master Jet's mortal shell.

After reaching the third step of Shadow Dance, his ability to observe and understand the flow of essence had vastly improved, and so...

However, what he saw left him shaken and disturbed.