Shadow Slave

Despite having spent more than a decade fighting side by side with Saint, Sunny did not have a reference for how powerful the Children of Nether were. Saint was merely one member of that fallen race, after all — judging all her kin based on her personal prowess would have been akin to evaluating the strength of an ordinary human based on what someone like Sunny could do.

But he suspected that the Children of Nether had been quite formidable. Just a handful of them had been able to withstand all the horrors of the Forgotten Shore for thousands of years before finally being defeated and destroyed by other Nightmare Creatures.

Even then, Sunny personally witnessed Saint slaying two abominations of a higher Rank. That was something of a habit for him and the rest of the cohort, which skewed his perception a bit, but most Awakened were different. So, he had known from the very start that Saint was exceptional.

And she had been a mere Awakened Monster.

The seven towering knights in front of them, though, were all abominations of the Great Rank — six of them were Demons, while the one wielding a greatsword was a Devil.

He did not know whether these fallen Stone Saints had all been Supreme once, or if they had risen in Rank over eons of defending the ruined settlement from the tides of darkness, but one thing was certain.

They were dangerous.

Dangerous enough for the Creature of Darkness that had attacked Sunny and Nephis at the pinnacle of the mountain to avoid disturbing these ancient warriors, at least.

‘Damn it.'

Sunny prepared for a fight. Nephis tensed, as well, regarding the stonelike abominations somberly.

Saint, meanwhile, raised her shield.

This time, too, she struck its rim twice, the solemn ringing echoing across the desolate square.

A few moments later, for the first time, her challenge — or perhaps her call — was answered.

The seven Great Ones remained motionless for a heartbeat, then moved their weapons in unison. Those who wielded shields struck their rims, while others struck their breastplates. Once, twice... the deep ringing sounded like thunder, banishing the silence that enveloped the ruined settlement.

Only the Great Devil remained still, observing Saint with a dull gaze. There was nothing but deep, impenetrable darkness hiding behind the visor of his helmet, slowly igniting with chilling malice.

"Nephis..."

“I know."

Knowing that just a few moments later there would be no time to say anything, Sunny wanted to remind her of the nature of the finely crafted armaments that the Stone Saints wielded. He was not sure if Saint's other traits were shared by her fallen kin, but he was pretty confident that they possessed an immensely high resistance to elemental attacks — including to fire. Saint's resistance to elemental attacks could only be compared to her physical defenses, which were simply unmatched. Additionally, she was immune to mental and soul attacks, and while that might have been her personal trait, these abominations would be at least highly resistant to those kinds of blows.

Stone Saints were resilient beings, and Neph's flames were not going to damage them easily. However, she already knew that — after all, she could and had read Saint's runes.

As for what precisely these abominations could do...

Luckily, they had Cassie, and unlike the Creature of Darkness, the fallen Stone Saints were like an open book to her.

It was just that relaying the information she glimpsed was going to take a few moments.

“Prepare to..."

Before Sunny could finish the sentence, he staggered.

A debilitating feeling of powerlessness suddenly overwhelmed him, making him feel like his soul had been thrown into a deep and dark well. He knew the feeling well — it was the same feeling he experienced every time he entered Saint's field of annulment, and his powers were suppressed as a result.

Only, this time, it was even more powerful.

‘Oh, come on!’

He was already more or less robbed of his Aspect. Was there really a need to hit him with the power of nothingness on top of that, too?!

Beside him, Nephis seemed affected as well, her brilliant radiance dimming. The sphere of light she emanated shrank, plunging the stele and the seven abominations surrounding it into impenetrable darkness. A split second later, the world quaked and exploded in a conflagration of violence as they moved to attack the invaders in unison. Sunny had been ready to face the two elements Saint commanded — elemental darkness and nothingness — but what assaulted them instead was a destructive combination of powers that enveloped them like a raging storm.

In a brilliant flash of explosion, he glimpsed the fallen Stone Saints rushing forward to attack, their towering figures obscured by Saint's own.

Behind the visor of one of them, orange flames danced, as if wishing to devour the world.

A chilling mist flowed from beneath the armor of another, the stones around him becoming covered by a layer of ice.

The third had turned into a towering wave, rushing forward like a devastating flood. The fourth commanded the stone plates of the square itself, turning them into a deadly mire.

One more seemed to have pierced space itself, appearing behind Sunny and Nephis in the blink of an eye.

And at the same moment, one of the Children of Nether had already reached Saint, as if time was flowing differently for him.

‘What...’

Each of the fallen Stone Saints wielded their own unique set of powers, relying on different source elements to destroy the enemy.

But only one of them seemed to embody nothingness.

It was the Great Devil who wielded the greatsword — the only one of the seven abominations who had not moved yet. Fighting these abominations was no different from fighting Awakened, each wielding a powerful Aspect despite their Classes.

And although those Aspects alone were deadly...

It was the physical might and martial prowess of the Children of Nether that had made them truly terrifying.

In the next moment, six of them descended upon Sunny, Nephis, and Saint in an obliterating whirlwind of stonelike metal.