Shadow Slave

The spiders were about the size of a human, incredibly fast, and had plates of something that resembled iron covering parts of their repulsive bodies. They looked like armored battle machines created for the sole purpose of slaughtering living things.

They also looked strangely familiar. With a little effort, Sunny realized that these abominations looked a lot like lesser, much smaller versions of the giant Fallen Beasts that had destroyed the original Stone Saint and her kin.

It's just that their size and armor weren't nearly as formidable.

If so…

'I have bad news for you, fools.'

As soon as the spiders attacked, the members of the cohort reacted with the deadly calmness of experienced Dark City hunters. Weapons flashed in the air, severing limbs and piercing through iron as though it was paper. Effie straight up flattened one of the creatures with a devastating strike of her battered shield. The poor beast didn't even have time to understand what a huge mistake it had made.

The others were no less efficient. Sunny himself threw the Prowling Thorn and pulled on the invisible string as soon as it sunk into the flesh of one of the spiders, bringing its jump to an abrupt end and sending it crashing to the ground. Before the beast could stand up, Quiet Dancer streaked through the air and pierced its head clean through.

Just a few short seconds after the spiders had tried to ambush the group of humans, the battle was over. Three dead Nightmare Creatures were sprawled in the mud, while the fourth one ended up pinned to a coral wall with several arrows.

They could have even shaved a second or two if it weren't for the need to look out for the spiderwebs.

Sunny shook his head.

'Disappointing.'

Wait.. why was he disappointed? Great! This was great! Not every victory had to almost cost him his life.

If there was one thing to feel disappointed about, it was that this one was so swift that he had not even gotten the chance to finish any of the enemies himself, thus not receiving any rewards from the Spell. But even then, he would be glad to only fight easy battles like this in the future.

Nephis cleaned the blade of her sword with a piece of cloth, listened to the silence for a few moments to make sure that nothing else was going to attack them, and then gave the cohort a go-ahead to start dressing the monsters down.

Soon, soul shards, strips of meat and other useful parts were cut, cleaned, and put into Effie's enchanted bag. Everything was done with efficient speed and professionalism that could only come from a lot of experience.

Sunny could only shake his head again.

They were able to dispose of the iron spiders with such ease because of two reasons. First, as far as Nightmare Creatures went, these ones were not on the same level as, for example, carapace scavengers. They had a slight advantage in speed, but were not nearly as strong, agile, and ridiculously tough.

If Sunny could guess, he would say that the iron spiders relied heavily on their webs and battlefield advantage to defeat the prey. Because the cohort had destroyed the webs in advance, their main advantage was gone.

The second reason was the cohort itself. They were some of the deadliest humans on the Forgotten Shore. Sunny was sure that at least four of them could kill a Pathfinder of the Host in single combat… if not one of the lieutenants themselves.

They were the best and the brightest the outer settlement could offer, after all. Effie had been right when she said that there had never been such a powerful cohort outside the walls of the Bright Castle before.

All in all, the six of them were more than equipped to handle just three awakened beasts. The Labyrinth was going to really try harder if it wished to see them dead.

Sunny chuckled.

"Just" three awakened beasts… yeah. How crazy did this sound?

And yet, it was true.

Finishing up with the dead spiders, the cohort indifferently left their eviscerated bodies behind and continued on their way.

***

After several more minor skirmishes with the iron spiders, they had finally reached their destination. Not too far away from them, colored pink by the evening sun, a magnificent arch of white marble rose high above the sea of crimson coral.

The giant structure was clearly created by the same people who had built the Bright Castle, and made from the same stone. It looked like a much larger sibling of the pristine arch that guarded the entrance to the white road which climbed all the way to the outer settlement.

Only this one was much more weathered, bleak, and damaged. Signs of corrosion and deep cracks covered its surface, with one of its sides being partially collapsed.

Sunny studied the arch and looked at Nephis:

"This is our stop for the night?"

She gave him a simple nod and said after a short pause:

"We need to pick up our pace. The night is close, and we might have to fight to clear the top of it."

Sunny sighed. Fighting again… when would they finally be able to rest? It had been such a long day.

However, he kept his mouth shut. Changing Star was the most tired out of all of them… due to healing all their wounds, no less. And he didn't see her complaining.

So it wasn't his place.

To his left, Effie suddenly cursed and groaned:

"More fighting? Come on! When are we finally going to eat?"

Sunny blinked.

'Well… that works, too, I guess.'

Staring at the huntress, Nephis shook her head and silently walked forward.

Soon, they reached the giant arch. Kai summoned his bow and flew up, only to return a few minutes later and report that no terrible monster was nesting on top of the ancient structure.

With sighs of relief, the members of the cohort climbed the golden rope one after another and were soon standing far above the Labyrinth, silently watching as the flood of black water drowned it in the lightless depths.

As the sun disappeared beyond the horizon, they were left on a rectangular island made out of white marble. All around it, there was nothing but the undulating waves of the dark sea.

Sunny was once again surrounded from all sides by nothing but darkness and black water. He did not like the feeling.