Shadow Slave

...However, he had never experienced being the Shadow Devil as an Ascended.

Possessing the power of a Master and augmented by shadows, he exploded with truly terrifying might. At three meters of height, Sunny had suddenly turned into a vicious herald of destruction. He lunged into the mass of dark beetles, eviscerating hundreds of them in a split second.

He was holding a sword in each of his four hands — two of them were the Sin of Solace and the Midnight Shard, and two were shaped from shadows. Each moved with staggering speed, weaving a translucent sphere of devastation in the river of darkness.

Fighting with four swords was, perhaps, not the best idea against most opponents — however, Sunny did not need a lot of control and agility to deal with the beetles. All he needed was speed... more speed, more attacks, no matter how crude. With four swords and longer reach, the rate at which he destroyed the vile creatures increased tremendously.

He cut and crushed them with his four swords stomped them with his clawed feet... even his tail was swiping through the swarm, obliterating many beetles. For a few moments, the river of darkness seemed to slow its advance.

Sunny used those moments to slaughter even more, alleviating the pressure on his cohort and allowing Samara to renew her bombardment of charged essence.

The strangest thing about it... was how comfortable he felt.

Even while shaping the shadows into the form of the Shadow Devil, Sunny had no idea of how easy or hard it would be to control that shell. As it turned out, it felt almost indistinguishable from the real thing... all he needed to do was summon the memories of the Second Nightmare into his mind, and bring them to life with the help of Shadow Dance.

Like shadowing a memory of a creature instead of the creature itself.

Of course, the demands were high... he needed to know the shape of the shadow shell in startling detail. Sunny suspected that he would not have been able to turn himself into many other creatures, if any at all. However, his knowledge of the Shadowspawn was nothing short of instinctual — instead of controlling the construct consciously, he simply allowed himself to become it.

The other demand was essence. Sustaining the shadow shell burned through it with dire speed. His reserves were not exhausted yet... but he knew he wouldn\'t be able to keep being the Shadowspawn for long. He had to do a lot of other things, as well — like power his Memories and manifest more and more shadows to repair the tall dam.

...The situation had improved, but they were still on a timer. If nothing changed soon, the result would be disastrous. \'Don\'t think about it right now. Just... kill! Kill as many as you can! The damned. beetles have to have a breakpoint, too...\' Everything turned into pure chaos.

Sunny felt as though his physical power was almost uncontrollable now. He pushed and pushed himself, expecting to hit a limit, but that limit never came. His speed, his strength, his force... all of it had vastly increased, to the point where his thoughts were starting to fall behind his movements.

Countless thousands of beetles were destroyed. Faced with the hurricane of swords, claws, horns, and fangs, the river actually recoiled, giving up several meters of frozen soil. Sunny thrust one of the shadow swords forward and let go of it at some point

Instead, arcs of electricity appeared on his palm, and then formed into an arrow that seemed to be made of lightning. Sunny stabbed it into the mass of beetles, causing an incinerating chain reaction to destroy numerous creatures. He was hurt by the devastating current of electricity, as well, but due to the elemental resistance of the Marble Shell and the augmentation of the shadows, the damage was superficial and almost tolerable.

There was no time to think, only to fight.

Somehow, miraculously... Sunny was holding the swarm of the black beetles back. The Dying Wish was pulling them toward him like a magnet, but instead of washing the towering Shadow Devil away like a

dark tide, they were being constantly ground to dust cut to pieces, and incinerated by lightning as soon as they entered within his reach.

Those that flowed past Sunny were dealt with by the members of his cohort. Samara was causing one explosion after another to bloom amid the swarm, while Luster fed her a steady flow of essence. Both were nearing their limit... but they had not reached it yet. The same was true for Belle, Dorn, and Kim.

Sunny couldn\'t see Saint and Nightmare, but from the glimpses of how little progress the second swarm had made, he knew that they were doing their part, as well.

The third swarm, the Bloodwave was supposed to deal with, seemed the most damaged. The three Echoes were holding it back, but the fearsome Saint himself was nowhere to be seen. He was probably hidden somewhere within the river of darkness, fighting furiously... since the Echoes had not dissipated, he had to be alive, at least.

The only ones Sunny knew nothing ab

out were Soul Reaper and her cohort since they were too far away. Still... he believed that Master Jet would not go down easily.

\'Keep fighting... keep fighting...\'

Sunny could feel his shadow shell slowly coming undone.

After long minutes of rampaging within the dark river of vermin, it had sustained a lot of damage. He tried to repair the wound delivered to the towering Shadow Devil by summoning and manifesting more shadows, but many beetles were already crawling within. Their mandibles scraped against the silk of the Graceless Dusk or his skin from time to time. fruitlessly for now.

His every muscle was burning from strain, and his mind was becoming clouded from fatigue. It took a lot, to keep the shadow shell intact and moving... he had to let the dam crumble a couple of minutes ago, already, because the pressure of it all was just too demanding.

Nevertheless, Sunny kept fighting.

In fact, the more tired and fatigued he became, the fiercer his rampage grew, and the louder the Sin of Solace laughed, whispering ugly truths into his ears.

"You\'ll never make... give up... leave your soldiers to die and save yourself... come on! It\'s so easy... just turn into a shadow and slip away... no one will now... no one will tell... everyone will just die"

\'How irritating.\'

Sunny tossed the Strike of Thunder into

the surging mass of beetles once again, enduring the piercing pain of being electrocuted by its lightning, and felt one of his two shadow hands crumble down.

\'Ah... not good...\'

He prepared to summon a new shadow to reshape it... but then, something changed.

A strange ripple went through the river of darkness and it suddenly lost cohesion. The purposeful tide of black beetles grew discordant and shapeless, many of them simply growing still.

Some continued to throw themselves at Sunny, while others scurried away.

Nestled within the battered shadow shell, he blinked.

\'What... what just happened?\'