Shadow Slave

‘Smart...'

Sharing senses of both Nephis and Saint, Sunny could not help but concentrate more on the battle against the abyssal horror — after all, that was where most of his Will was focused, and that was where the puzzle he had to solve to stave off defeat was hidden.

But, naturally, he kept an eye on Saint as well.

Her actions just now were both daringly bold and deeply intelligent. Nothing of what had happened was a coincidence — it all transpired as she intended it to.

Since Saint could not contend against the Jade Titan in a physical battle, she wanted to challenge him on a different battlefield — she wanted to challenge his authority over true darkness, and crush it with her own. So, she used means available to her as a wielder of darkness to deal a grievous wound to the dark heart of the abominable colossus, thus forcing the Jade Titan to abandon his damaged shell. Then, she allowed herself to be invaded by the ocean of elemental darkness and contained it within herself, struggling to remain in control.

If Saint established her authority over the ocean of elemental darkness that the Jade Titan was composed of, she would vanquish the adversary — not only that, she would consume him, reaping a tremendous boon. But if she failed to shatter the Will of the loathsome creature with her own, she would be erased from existence, becoming its new vessel.

Needless to say, that was a risky strategy — deadly, even. After all, Saint was not a match for an ancient Great Titan, even if it had been wounded in a battle against Sunny. She was weaker, and her Will carried far less weight. Even if they were of the same Rank, the gap between them was as vast as a boundless abyss.

The measure of authority the Jade Titan wielded was insurmountable.

Or it was supposed to be, at least.

Saint naturally knew her own limits. However, she also knew something else — something that gave her a unique advantage in a battle of Will against the harrowing Nightmare Creature. It was that she not only carried authority over elemental darkness, but also had an affinity to nothingness, which true darkness was vulnerable to.

So, Saint evaluated the structural integrity of the crumbling stalagmite and delivered one last, targeted blow to its peak, causing it to collapse...

Collapse into the clouds of white mist swirling above the great river, thus pulling herself — and the Jade Titan that had usurped her body — into the insidious embrace of nothingness.

There, the Jade Titan was suppressed while she was empowered. And so, the playing field was leveled, giving her a chance to emerge victorious from their clash.

Sunny did not know if Saint would truly be able to usurp the dark essence of the Jade Titan. Would she win the desperate struggle, or would she perish? He could only lend her support to his taciturn Shadow and wait, knowing that the battle would be over soon.

In the meantime, he had to focus on another, no less desperate battle — the battle against the abyssal horror. If he and Nephis were defeated by the dark copy, then whether Saint won or not wouldn't matter. Even if she did, the eerie being of the Abyss would finish the Jade Titan's job.

‘How is this thing so strong?’

Nephis and her dark reflection were entangled in a dreadfully ruthless battle, both straining to deal the adversary more damage than their powers could heal. They cut and burned each other's bodies, and they cut and burned each other's souls as well. White flame and black flame fused in a harrowing conflagration, incinerating the very air around them.

Even the stones of the ancient city, which had withstood the endless tides of true darkness, were melting and flowing into the white mist as rivers of incandescent lava. At the same time, a dreadful cold encased the surrounding districts, making the magnificent buildings crowding them brittle like glass.

At the moment, the two radiant spirits — one woven out of pure light, the other from impenetrable darkness — seemed evenly matched. Their devastating power, their transcendent skill, their razor-sharp intent, and their miraculous ability to recover from the most terrifying wounds were almost exactly the same, preventing one of them from gaining an upper hand.

As a force of utter destruction, Nephis possessed few means of debilitating and containing her enemies instead of simply obliterating them. So, facing an adversary who could not be destroyed, she was temporarily driven into a dead end. Even if the dark copy could not annihilate her in turn, prolonging the battle was not in Neph's favor — after all, she was still a human, while the abyssal horror was not.

Neph's resilience seemed inexhaustible, but it wasn't. And while she showed no signs of being tortured by the agony of her Flaw, the pain was still putting a strain on her spirit. Even her uncompromising Will had a limit. Her dark copy, though? Neither Sunny nor Nephis knew what it truly was, and therefore what its limits were. It might not have possessed any limits at all. So, fighting it forever and grinding it down in a battle of pure resilience did not seem like a good option.

In fact, the dark copy was already putting immense pressure on Nephis through the sheer endlessness of its ability to endure punishment. At the moment, the amount of damage it had shrugged off was harrowing enough to turn an entire continent into an ashen wasteland — and yet, it showed no sign of slowing down, let alone of being shaken.

Nephis was able to hold her own because of two reasons. One was her mastery of Shaping, which the creature did not seem capable of replicating, and the other was her resolve. Having met the creature of her nightmares, she was more determined than ever to triumph over the adversary.

As for her Shaping, Nephis was primarily using it in two ways. She was using it to empower her attacks by invoking the Names that had to do with flames and destruction, and she was also using the Names having to do with passion to ignite and embolden her Will. In that way, and due to being augmented by Sunny, she could fight on a level that no other Supreme could achieve. Still, time wasn't on her side...

But it also was.

Because the more she fought the eerie apparition, the more time Sunny had to observe it and contemplate a solution. The more time the two of them had to adapt.

In the end, Sunny came to a simple realization.

It was that the dark copy was merely pretending to be a Sovereign, but didn't really possess a Domain. That was why the copy of the Shadow Legion it had summoned was composed of ghastly monstrosities instead of Sunny's actual shades.

Therefore, the abyssal horror was not only fighting Nephis.

It was fighting Nephis and all of humanity. And humanity had won countless weapons to fight against the horrors of the Dream Realm, conquering vast territories from them in a relatively short span of time.

At that moment, Sunny's mind turned to one particular tool serving humanity. The idea he came up with was so diabolical that even he was taken aback for a moment, frightened by his own imagination.

But after a few seconds of startled hesitation, Sunny regained his composure.

‘There is... no reason why it shouldn't work. Right? I don't think there is. So why not? Let's show this horrid hellspawn that there are deeper, far more terrifying layers of hell.'