Shadow Slave

Sunny once again found himself laying on the smooth, cold surface of the obsidian sphere… only, this time, it wasn't so smooth, covered by a net of deep cracks.

Time and space were convulsing all around him, making it feel as if the world itself was falling apart. High above, the shimmering clouds of black dust were boiling. The vast expanse of darkness was in a state of flux, flowing in a raging current. The frozen glimmers of distant light were being extinguished one by one.

The drifting slabs of obsidian were colliding and shattering, turning into violently expanding clouds of stone shards.

He was in no state to pay attention to the cosmic cataclysm, however, because the state of his own body and soul was just as terrible.

'Aaah…'

Sunny did not feel too well.

Worst of all… while he possessed seven bodies, he only had one soul. And due to its current pitiful state, the Lord of Shadow wasn't feeling too hot either, out there in the Hollows. His other incarnation, hidden in the camp of the Song Army, was suffering as well.

Luckily, he had somehow managed to hide his weakened state from those around him. The last avatar was currently alone in the basement of the Marvelous Mimic, at least…

But those three weren't his concern right now. It was his original body, which was in danger of being destroyed, that was in trouble.

Groaning, Sunny tried to stand up.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

But as he did, the obsidian sphere shuddered and split apart, throwing him down again.

Down, down, down…

After a few moments of falling, the word lost its meaning, since all directions became one.

What the hell was happening?

Something was wrong with the shadow of Condemnation. An infinite expanse of blinding silver radiance was enveloping the vast darkness of its nebulous body, and somewhere out there, the endless expanse of rolling black hills was far closer than it was supposed to be, moving as it slowly fell behind.

As if the dead god was not walking anymore, but crawling instead.

The world became smaller and smaller…

Until everything turned dark.

And then, Sunny could suddenly feel his weight once again.

He was thrown violently into the cold air, the wind assaulting him with cruel force. Down became down again, and up became up. At the same time, he found himself falling once more, plummeting from a great height.

He was surrounded by shadows, too.

Sunny only paid attention to one of the changes that had happened to the world, however — it was that the insidious pull of Condemnation's will, which had been attempting to consume him all this time, was suddenly gone.

'...I am outside the shadow of Condemnation.'

No sooner than Sunny realized that, his battered body crashed violently into something hard. He bounced off the tough surface with a stifled scream, then fell again and rolled down the slope of a tall dune, throwing a cloud of dust into the air.

Slamming into something at the foot of the dune, Sunny groaned and opened his eyes, seeing the black sky of the Shadow Realm above him.

…Black sky?

There were no silver clouds of raging essence neither above nor around him, meaning that he was outside the essence storm, as well.

He was safe.

Well… safe from the storm, at least.

His whole existence, however, was nothing but agony. His body was in excruciating pain, and his soul was too. Even his mind was utterly exhausted and reeling, barely able to function.

Ignoring all that, Sunny muttered a breathless curse and slowly pushed himself off the ground, standing up with a stagger.

Then, he looked around to assess the situation.

At first, he struggled to understand what he was seeing and sensing.

The familiar landscape of the Shadow Realm — the desolate expanse of dark hills — had disappeared. Instead, massive, strangely shaped white ridges were stretching into the distance as far as the eye could see. All around him, narrow boulders were strewn about in long clusters, some small, some towering at hundreds of meters in height.

Ahead of him, the radiant white wall of the swirling essence was slowly moving away.

Looking at it, Sunny realized that he was on the other side of the soul storm. The shadow of Condemnation… must have torn through it, after all, only collapsing when the danger had passed.

Then, he shivered as he recognized the nature of the strange boulders around him.

Those weren't boulders… they were bones. They were the remains of Soul Serpents, forming a vast field. Most were much smaller than the colossal skeleton he had seen before, though.

Which was not to say that they were small.

The hard surface that had arrested his fall was the spine of a dead Soul Serpent.

He was in a vast graveyard where countless bones lay, towering above the black dust.

Looking down, Sunny even noticed a human skull laying among the shattered bones.

Then, he was distracted by a sudden noise.

Turning around, Sunny saw two things at the same time.

Hundreds of meters away, a vague shadow was struggling to coalesce into a solid shape, writing on the ground. The damned archer seemed to have survived, as well.

And between them…

The remains of the shadow of Condemnation lay.

The dark colossus was gone, and all that was left of its great obsidian body was a tall hill of fine black dust, no different from all the others.

However, something was moving in the air above the obsidian dune.

At first, it looked like a small twister — a mere gust of wind that spun weakly, sucking up black dust and tiny stones as it moved.

But then, Sunny saw a shard of bone being absorbed into its twisting mass, rising high into the air and then freezing in place at the heart of the strange anomaly. A moment later, a larger piece of bone

flew up, and not too far away, a giant skull of a dead serpent trembled, rising a few centimeters above the ground.

The whirlwind was slowly growing larger… and stronger. Consuming more and more of what was around it.

It was then that Sunny understood what he was looking at.

The body of the shadow of Condemnation might have been gone, but the invisible force that had built it from usurped parts of the world — the dead deity itself — was not.

In fact, it was already starting to build a new vessel for itself.

The shadow of Condemnation was right in front of him, intact.

Which meant…

Sunny glanced at the splinter of the ivory fang in his hand, then at the murderous archer who was slowly rising to their feet in the distance.

Then, he pushed his battered body forward with a greedy grin.