Shadow Slave

It all happened quickly.

One moment, the children of Nether were motionless. The next moment, the square exploded in a storm of violence, its silence torn apart and swallowed by the deafening thunder of breaking stone.

Six of the fallen Stone Saints attacked. The seventh — their leader — remained motionless, still leaning on his greatsword. The darkness hiding behind the visor of his helmet was cold and boundless, full of chilling malice.

The power of nothingness he wielded washed over Sunny and Nephis, sapping them of strength.

Saint, meanwhile, seemed unaffected. She activated the [Shield of Nothing], stealing power from her fallen kin as well.

Her power was similar to that of the Great Devil, but there was a distinction between them. The enemy seemed to harbor a far greater amount of nothingness, and therefore, the effect of his nullification was more potent. He was capable of using it with greater precision, as well — after all, he had suppressed Sunny and Nephis without affecting his own companions.

Saint's field of annulment, however, did not make a distinction between friend or foe. So, when the [Shield of Nothing] activated, Sunny and Nephis fell victim to its denial, too.

Needless to say, it was an unpleasant experience.

But Sunny understood her logic. Their powers were already being suppressed, so adding more pressure was not going to make that large a difference. More than that, there were only three members in their small and daring expedition force — so two-thirds of it was being suppressed.

There were seven fallen Stone Saints attacking them, though, so when Saint activated the [Shield of Nothing], six-sevenths of the enemy force suffered from being denied their power... the math worked, even if it was counterintuitive. More importantly, there was a very practical reason why Saint needed to call upon nothingness — it was the swiftest of the seven Great abominations. Each of them wielded power over a single source element, and this one seemed to control time itself. He forced time to flow faster around him, while at the same time slowing its current around Saint.

As a result, in the blink of an eye, his spear was already a split second away from slipping into the thin crack between her helmet and her gorget, plunging straight into her neck.

When the field of annulment washed over the world, that power was denied — not entirely suppressed, perhaps, but definitely made weaker.

That slowed the swift abomination just enough for Saint to lean to the side and avoid the tip of the spear, then push it away with her shield.

At the same time, her sword lashed forward.

Saint used the enemy's speed against him, leveraging it to increase the deadly force of her tenebrous blade. In the next moment, something soared into the air in a swiftly expanding cloud of ruby dust — it was a spinning helmet with a narrow visor, its plume trailing behind like a torrent of darkness.

She had beheaded one of the seven fallen Stone Saints.

The Spell whispered into Sunny's ear:

[You have slain a Great Demon, Saint of Tainted Jade.]

Just like that, the seven enemies had become six.

The remaining six, though... dealing with them was not going to be easy.

One of the Great abominations seemed to wield a spatial power, having used it to instantly appear behind Nephis and Sunny. His war hammer was already falling down, threatening to squash Nephis like a bug — the size difference between them was vast, after all.

The fallen Stone Saint was almost ten meters tall, while Nephis was merely a human. On top of that, the attack had come unexpectedly and from behind her, leaving her little time to react.

She still sensed it, though.

No matter how strong and fast the fallen Stone Saints were, Nephis was stronger and faster — she was a Supreme Titan, after all, augmented by the full power of her Aspect. So, she managed to turn around and raise the radiant blade of the Blessing to block the obliterating blow of the abomination's war hammer.

Then, however, something strange happened.

Space seemed to ripple, and the abomination's weapon bypassed the Blessing entirely. It did not break it, and neither did it pass through it — instead, the black war hammer simply danced through twisted space, avoiding Neph's block and landing squarely on her chest.

The power of that blow was so devastating that she was flung hundreds of meters away, landing in a bloody mess of broken bones on the other end of the square. Neph's body slid across the cold stones, leaving a bloody trail in its wake...

Then, however, white flames blazed from her ghastly wounds, washing over her, and she began to rise.

Sunny could not observe that, though, because he found himself in a precarious situation.

He had been intending to turn into a shadow and wrap himself around Nephis, empowering her, but the attack of the space-bending abomination came too swiftly. Now, not only was he too far away to augment her, but when Nephis was flung away, her radiance also disappeared, plunging his surroundings into complete darkness.

Sunny was suddenly blind, his powers utterly stifled.

And surrounded by immensely powerful Great Nightmare Creatures, to boot.

He cursed inwardly.

‘Well, great...’

What was he supposed to do now?

‘Should I just die? Hell, why not...'

Sunny probably had a second before the same war hammer that had broken Nephis like a doll and sent her flying across the square came down on his head. Of course, unlike Nephis, he was wearing armor — and a dreadfully tough one, at that.

But that was the thing about war hammers. Their whole purpose was to deal with heavily armored opponents, and their beaks were designed to break through things that swords and spears could not pierce.

If Saint turned her head, Sunny would be able to see his enemy through her eyes and dodge, but considering how deftly the bastard twisted space, he doubted that dodging the incoming blow would be easy — or even possible.

Usually, Sunny would use Shadow Step in such a situation. But there were no shadows around him, so he couldn't.

He could not use Shadow Manifestation, either.

Even his most fundamental powers were weakened and suppressed by nothingness.

‘Half a second left...’

Sunny raised his head, staring blindly in the direction where he thought the fallen Stone Saint was looming above him.

At that moment, a bold idea surfaced in his mind.

'...Yeah. Let's try that.'