Shadow Slave

Chapter 51

Monsters did possess some rudimentary intelligence, however, they could not compare to humans. Attheir core, they were still predators who acted mostly on instinct. Their cunning was beastly in natureand was not that hard to overcome. That gave the three Sleepers a chance to leverage theiradvantage.

After finalizing the plan, they made some preparations.

While Changing Star was getting ready, Sunny had retrieved the soul shards from the eight deadscavengers. After delivering them to the silver-haired girl, he watched as she brought them to her chestand crushed them in her fist one after another, absorbing the essence of each shard into her soul core.After a few minutes, when the changes caused by the absorption were over, Nephis opened her eyesand slowly inhaled.

To a Sleeper, consuming the shards of eight awakened beasts was equivalent to slaying sixteendormant creatures. While not tremendous, it was still a significant boost in physical ability. Her bodyhad become stronger, faster, enhanced in every way.

They were going to need every bit of that strength to survive.

Because of how attuned Nephis was to her physicality, getting accustomed to her new limits did nottake long. Very soon, she looked at him and asked:

“Are you ready?”

Sunny sighed glanced at his shadow, hoping to get some moral support.

The shadow pretended to not notice and ignored him.

‘Disloyal bastard!’

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Nephis nodded and turned to Cassie.

There was nothing really to say. They had already discussed everything there was to discuss, andempty words could not make the blind girl worry any less. Come to think of it, Sunny wouldn’t havewanted to trade places with her, even though out of the three of them she was the only one who didn’thave to risk her life in combat.

Facing the enemy, no matter how terrifying, was better than waiting powerlessly for the outcome,knowing that there’s nothing you can do to change it. From that point of view, he was actually the luckyone.

Cassie tried to put on a brave face. She turned to Nephis and forced a smile:

“Go and kill that thing. Maybe you’ll finally get something decent to wear and stop making me feel soguilty.”

A corner of Changing Star’s lip curled up.

“Okay.”

After that, she turned to Sunny and returned to her usual serious self.

“Let’s go.”

… A few minutes later, he was standing on top of the rocky ridge, looking down at the deadly monster.The shadow was wrapped around his body, enhancing Sunny’s physical abilities. Their plan was prettysolid and had a high chance of working.

However, he still couldn’t get rid of the ominous feeling that this was not going to end well.

‘I don’t like this.’

With a sigh, Sunny raised his hand and summoned the silver bell.

Then, he lightly shook it, causing the clear melodic ringing to resound amidst the storm.

***

Immediately, the monster below moved, turning its massive torso around and looking for the source ofthe sudden noise. As he saw Sunny, a mad crimson flame ignited in its eyes.

However, Sunny did not see any of this, because he was already facing the other way. As soon as thebell rang, he turned around and jumped down from the ridge without a second of hesitation.

The ridge wasn’t very tall, but there was still a considerable distance to the ground. Sunny hit the rockshard and rolled, trying to disperse the force of the impact. As soon as he got back to his feet, he ran,trying to get as far away as possible.

A moment later, the ridge exploded behind his back. The monster simply crashed into it with its hulkingbody, breaking through the layers of rocks as though they were paper. Simultaneously, there was aflash of lightning and a thunderclap, drowning the loud rumble of the falling debris.

The creature locked onto retreating Sunny and lunged forward, trying to pierce his body with one of itsscythes. Shards of rock were flowing like a torrent from its spiked carapace.

Luckily, Sunny was already far enough. Without slowing down, he lowered his body, ran for severalmore meters, and then turned around.

The picture of the monster, who was more than three meters tall, rushing at him like a speeding trainwas enough to make any person falter. However, Sunny stood his ground, raising the Azure Bladeabove his head.

After all, he was the bait.

Half a dozen meters away from him, the monster finally reached their trap.

Almost unnoticeable in the darkness and the pouring rain, the golden rope was strung between twomassive boulders at the height of the creature’s leg joints. Earlier, Sunny had lowered his body to runbeneath it.

Overwhelmed by bloodlust, the monster did not notice the tautly drawn rope and ran into it at fullspeed. If it was a normal rope, it would, without a doubt, immediately snap. However, the golden ropewas a Memory, and being incredibly sturdy was one of its attributes.

The rocks it was tied to, unfortunately, were quite mundane. They shattered almost immediately.

But the damage was already done.

With its front legs suddenly jerked backward, the scythe slayer lost its balance and crashed into theground face-first, sliding forward on wet stone and leaving behind a shallow trench. Sunny jumpedaway.

The monster was unperturbed. Almost immediately, two bone scythes pierced the ground, jerking itsmassive body to a stop. In the next moment, unexpectedly swift and nimble for its size, it was alreadybeginning to rise.

If it was allowed to stand up, their fates would be sealed.

Fortunately, Sunny’s Echo was faster.

The moment the monster fell, it stopped pretending to be one of the dead scavengers, got up anddashed forward. Just as their enemy was about to rise, it jumped on its carapace from behind, pinning

the creature down with its weight, and locked its pincers on the creature’s arms just beneath the pointwhere the bone scythes began.

Despite the fact that the Echo was wounded by the spikes growing from the monster’s carapace, itsucceeded in immobilizing it, at least for a second.

A second was enough.

As though out of nowhere, Nephis, who was lying in ambush, appeared in front of the monster. Dartingbetween its terrifying scythes, she leaned forward and delivered a devastating thrust with herlongsword, putting her whole weight behind it.

They didn’t know if the awakened monster had the same weak spot on its back as its lesser relatives,the scavengers, had. However, there was no reason to assume that there was no gap between itscarapace and torso armor. It was a mechanical issue.

Anything that had to be flexible could not be too rigid.

The tip of Changing Star’s sword plunged into the narrow gap. Then, the sword disappeared into themonster’s body, penetrating so deep that its hilt ended up brushing against the chitin.

‘Hell yes!’ Sunny thought, triumphant.

However, in the next second, his expression dimmed.

Because the creature didn’t even seem to notice the wound that was supposed to be if not fatal, then atleast heavily debilitating. Straining its body a little, it suddenly twisted, throwing the Echo off itscarapace, and rose to its feet. The bone scythes scraped against the rock as it pulled them out from theground.

Defenseless, Nephis was right in front of it, her sword still stuck in the monster’s flesh.

‘Oh no!’

Sunny was too far away to do anything, circling around the massive creature to attack it from behind.The Echo was on the ground, still reeling from being thrown off the enemy’s back. It didn’t seem like itcould help either.

For the moment, Changing Star was on her own.novelbin

The scythes pierced the air, aiming for her flesh. At the last moment, however, a pair of pincers lockedone of them into an iron grip. That gave Nephis another fraction of a second to react.

Letting go of the sword, she dove under the creature’s body, hiding in the blind spot of the remainingscythe’s attack range. As far as hiding places went, this one wasn’t optimal, since all the monster hadto do to crush her into a bloody pulp was to lie down. However, in that moment, Nephis had no otherchoice.

‘This is bad, this bad…’

By then, Sunny was already behind the creature. Hoping to buy Neph some time, he brandished theAzure Blade and slashed down. The sword connected with the joint of one of the monster’s rear legs,drawing azure blood. However, unlike how it was in the battle against a scavenger, he failed tocompletely sever the limb. It was too tough and thick.

In the next moment, the leg disappeared from Sunny’s field of vision.

‘Crap.’

As that thought appeared in his mind, Sunny raised his head and looked at the monster. Somehow, ithad already turned around and was now facing him, two crimson flames burning with bloodlust in its

eyes.

Before Sunny could properly react, the sharp tip of a bone scythe hit him in the chest with the force of asiege ram. The only thing he managed to do was to transfer the shadow from his body to thePuppeteer’s Shroud.

Because of this lightning-fast decision, the armor held. He wasn’t pierced through the heart andimpaled on the scythe.

However, it was a small consolation.

The force of the blow was still enough to make his ribcage cave in and send his body flying through theair like a rag doll.

… Somehow, Sunny found himself lying on the ground. His body felt weird, and he couldn’t breathe.Something bitter was flowing from his mouth, making him choke.

It was blood. He was drowning in his own blood.

Weakly, Sunny tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t listen to him. Only the shadow listened, envelopinghis body and delaying the inevitable a little.

‘I’m hurt…’

With his thoughts moving slower and slower, as though submerged in a dense fog, he looked up,hoping to see the stars.

Instead, he saw two burning crimson eyes approaching him from the darkness.