Shadow Slave

Nephis had yet to rise from the ground, and now, countless black chains shot from the darkness to pull her down, pressing her into the shattered stone with terrifying force. The cold chains melted and vanished like ghostly fog as soon as they touched her brilliant radiance, but there were simply too many of them — even as some were destroyed, more piled on, covering her like a dark tide.

At the same time, myriad figures rose from the dark spaces that her light couldn't reach, surrounding her like an army of monsters. They were the profane copy of the Shadow Legion — a swarm of twisted, ghastly apparitions born from elemental darkness. Their claws, stingers, and mandibles reached toward Nephis, aiming to sink into the pure white flames of her radiant body.

And most deadly of all, the dark expanse of a flawlessly black odachi was already falling, aimed at her neck.

That was the danger Nephis faced. However, if anything, she was better off than Sunny. Because while Nephis faced his dark copy, he was facing the dark copy of Nephis. And fighting Nephis — copy or not — was a truly terrifying prospect.

‘How is this even possible?’

As the tip of the pure-black version of the Blessing aimed at Sunny once again, he cursed and dove into the shadows. In the next moment, another ray of annihilating darkness pierced the world, followed by a devastating explosion. Instead of heat and flame, a wave of obliterating cold and elemental darkness washed over the ancient city, swallowing both light and the shadows it cast.

Sunny would have been expelled from their embrace, but he had already escaped it himself. Appearing behind the eerie facsimile of Nephis, he brandished his odachi, severing one of her arms at the shoulder. A split second later, the blade of his sword flashed again, cleaving deep into her torso.

Sunny swiftly disengaged, twisting the odachi as he pulled it free. The wounds he had dealt to the dark apparition were ghastly — more than enough to debilitate any enemy, if not outright kill them.

But the dark copy of Nephis did not seem to care at all. It turned, the eerie smile still playing on her lips. As she did, tendrils of impenetrable darkness shot from her severed shoulder, fusing with her falling arm; at the same time, the deep gash in her torso disappeared without a trace, washed away by the wave of dark flames.

A moment later, her flawlessly black body was whole and pristine once more, not a scratch on it. Even the rift on her tunic was gone.

Sunny stared at the black fabric, his expression dim.

‘Well that's just... cheating.'

He was suddenly covered in cold sweat — and it wasn't because of the aftershock of receiving soul damage.

It was simply because he knew what it meant to face Nephis on the battlefield. Nephis — Changing Star, the Star of Ruin — was a walking, breathing engine of mass destruction. Her powers were indescribably annihilating, capable of annihilating entire cities in one fell swoop. Worse than that, Sunny had personally armed her with a terrifying weapon that allowed her to focus that widespread destruction and channel it with pinpoint accuracy.

And if that was not enough, Nephis was also nearly indestructible, capable of recovering from any damage in a matter of moments. Her ability to heal herself was so potent that even she did not know its limits — nothing had managed to destroy her so far, at least. So how was Sunny supposed to fight that?

Actually, he knew perfectly well how. After all, in the past, he had spent countless hours thinking about that exact scenario — back when competing with Nephis had been an integral part of his world. And what he came up with was that if the two of them ever fought, trying to kill her would be a fool's errand. Instead, Nephis — like other beings who were functionally immortal or close to it — had to be restrained and contained, not destroyed.

Granted, he had imagined facing Nephis while wielding most, if not all, of his powers. But now, the Shadow Legion was engaged in a war against the Barrow Wraiths on the Forgotten Shore, while his other incarnations and Shadows were scattered across the Dream Realm, entangled in various conflicts to protect humanity against the encroaching apocalypse.

All he had was this one shadow.

‘That's... not good at all.'

At that moment, some distance away, a blinding flash illuminated the world. A roaring ring of white flame exploded from the real Nephis, consuming the chains that bound her and devastating the dark reflection of the Shadow Legion. The copy of Sunny, meanwhile, escaped destruction by stepping into the darkness.

A moment later, he reappeared, delivering a deadly strike. The dark blade of his odachi collided with the Blessing, and he was pushed back.

Before Nephis could counterattack, though, a second version of Sunny appeared from the dancing flames behind her, running her through with his sword.

The first one was already launching another attack.

‘There are only two.’

Lunging forward to prevent the dark copy of Nephis from unleashing another annihilation ray — and inwardly preparing to escape a wide-area explosion of black flames — Sunny frowned in concentration. His mind returned to the moment when the eerie thing mended her wounds. In particular, he remembered how the cut on her tunic had disappeared, as well.

That little detail was the most important, despite seeming like the most insignificant. That was because it revealed a hidden truth about these dark clones, as well as about the frightening being that had created them. It proved that these copies were merely approximations of what the creature believed Sunny and Nephis to be, not exact replicas.

Nephis could heal her body, but she could not repair her clothes. The Creature of Darkness did not seem to know that — in fact, it might not have understood the concept of clothes at all. Similarly, it must have observed Sunny manifesting two incarnations, but it did not know that he could summon seven of them.

Which meant that the dark clones it had created did not really possess the same powers Sunny and Nephis possessed. They merely wielded a facsimile of what they could do — it was the creature's own power shaped to resemble that of its enemies. That was, without a doubt, an important distinction.

Whether Sunny would be able to make use of it, though, was still a question.