Shadow Slave

By the time Sunny flew close enough to distinguish the source of the white spark, it had already disappeared. However, finding the source was not too hard - there were not a lot of things that could be distinguished from the empty expanse of flowing water on the Great River, after all.

By then, it was already morning. The suns were slowly rising from below, and the world was enveloped in the dim glow of twilight. The soft radiance of the shimmering water had dissipated, making it easier for Sunny to see colors.

Hovering high above the current, he froze. There was a stunned expression on his face.

'...How is this possible?'

Far below him, a vast span of the Great River was painted red. Blood was clouding the clear water, and the polluted patch of it was at least half a dozen kilometers across. From high up, it looked as if a bloody flower was slowly blooming in the middle of the river.

At the center of the red patch... a familiar Great Monster was floating lifelessly, the silver bands encasing its neck broken and bent.

The black turtle was dead.

There was a vicious wound at the spot where its neck met its body. The wound was large enough to be a tunnel, with rivers of blood still flowing out of it into the water. The equally gruesome exit wound was all the way across the monster's massive body, just below one of its armored flippers.

Shaken, Sunny lingered for a while, and then looked down, at the spot where his pursuer was hiding beneath the water. At that moment, the azure serpent rose its head above the surface and stared at Sunny with mad fury burning in its cloudy eyes.

The Great Beast looked battered and maimed, with several huge chunks of flesh missing from its long neck... but it was undeniably alive.

He had thought once that the azure serpent was like a little snake in front of the colossal turtle. But from the looks of it, that little snake had managed to burrow into the body of the larger monster, tear it from the inside, and escape back into the river to catch up to Sunny.

'The old snake must be a queen... king?... of Beasts. It actually took down a Monster...'

He was slightly impressed.

But mostly, he was disturbed. Being pursued by a Great Beast was already bad enough, but now that he knew that the azure serpent was a fearsome existence among the creatures of its Class, the situation seemed even worse.

'Damnation...'

Sunny and the ancient leviathan stared at each other some more, and then he turned back to the island-sized corpse of the black turtle.

In any case, now that he saw the result of the battle between the two great abominations, he had to admit that the source of the white spark had to be hidden somewhere on the dead turtle's shell. There was simply no other place anywhere around that could have produced it.

Sunny observed the carcass of the Great Monster for a while, not daring to descend yet. After thinking for a while, he summoned Morgan's Warbow and made a black arrow appear on its string.

Then, he ordered one of his shadows to wrap itself around the arrow, drew the string, and released it.

The arrow shot through the air and struck the green moss covering the monster's shell. Piercing the layer of soft moss, it then hit the weathered black rock and splintered without leaving even a scratch on its surface.

The arrow was destroyed, but the shadow had already been transported on the dark island.

The gloomy guy looked around, shivered, and then glanced at the sky with a resigned expression. His resentful gaze seemed to deal damage directly to Sunny's conscience.

Sunny shifted a little.

'What are you staring at? I have a very clear conscience! The clearest conscience in two worlds...it's a flaw of mine...'

The Sin of Solace, who was standing by his side, quietly chuckled.

Ignoring the apparition, Sunny commanded the gloomy shadow to go and explore. Then, he looked at the world through its eyes.

The surface of the black turtle's shell was indeed like an island. There were patches of moss covering the weathered rock, while the rock itself was rough and uneven. It was littered with mounds, deep gorges, and even depressions filled with water that looked like small lakes.

Here and there, jagged pieces of tarnished silver could be seen. From what Sunny could tell, the Great Monster had been somehow fashioned with a battle armor of sublime silver in the past... perhaps thousands of years ago. Now, the silver armor was dull and covered with a dark patina.

Most of it was gone, at least on the surface - only the edges of the shell, the neck, the head, and the flippers were still encased in vast bands of the precious metal. The huge chains Sunny had seen before served to fasten the armor to the creature's shell.

He did not want to study the nature of the dead abomination in detail right now, though. First, he wanted to find out where the white light had come from.

Soon, the shadow noticed something.

In the middle of a large patch of moss, there was a spot where it had been burned away, revealing the rock surface beneath. The rock itself was covered by ash and soot.

Most importantly... there was a palm print in the ash. A human palm print.

Sunny's heart suddenly started to beat faster.

The gloomy shadow seemed excited, too. It sped up, gliding across the dark island and diving into the deep fissures in the rock shell from time to time.

And after diving into one of the more shallow gorges, it saw something that made it freeze.

Out there in the shade of the fissure, leaning her back on the uneven black rock...

A young woman with silver hair was sitting on the ground. Her black clothes were singed and torn, and there was a wild look in her striking grey eyes. She was holding a piece of strange-looking roasted meat in her hands, sinking her teeth into it with a determined expression.

Both her fingers and lips were covered in grease.

It was Nephis.

As Sunny and the gloomy shadow were staring at her in stunned silence, she suddenly shifted, raised her head and looked directly at the shadow.

Her eyes widened a little.

Forgetting to chew, Neph lingered for a moment...

And then awkwardly waved at the shadow with a greasy hand.