Shadow Slave

On the last day they would spend in the Dark City, Nephis led a small group of her most powerful warriors on one last hunt.

The members of her cohort were all following behind her. Sunny, who stubbornly refused to accept his status as one of them, walked apart from the group, idly looking around and observing the ruins.

Gemma and Seishan were also with them, as well as ten or so of the most experienced hunters — some of them formerly from the Host, some formerly from the outer settlement. There was no difference between the two anymore.

All of them were simply Changing Star's people now.

As they were walking, Gemma approached Sunny and glanced at him with curiosity.

After Tessai had fallen to Neph's blade, the tall man seemed to have found some measure of peace. Somewhere deep in his eyes, however, there always was a hint of sorrow.

Sunny stared at him and raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

The hunter smiled slightly and asked in a friendly tone:

"You're Sunless, right?"

Sunny shrugged.

"Yeah, that's me."

Gemma silently measured him and then asked with interest:

"I've heard that you lived for months alone in the city. Is that true?"

'Ah, makes sense.'

The tall man was perhaps the most experienced hunter on the Forgotten Shore. He had survived countless battles on the streets of the cursed city. It was natural for him to be curious about this matter…

Sunny gave him a nod.

"Sure. A little over three months, I guess."

Gemma rubbed his chin, then asked bluntly:

"How did you survive?"

Sunny grinned.

How had he managed that, indeed?

"...Lots of hiding, lots of killing. A modicum of madness, and a little bit of luck."

Gemma stared at him for a bit, then chuckled.

"Sound about right, I guess."

After a while, he glanced forward at Changing Star and asked in a curious tone:

"Do you know what we are going to hunt today?"

Sunny looked at him with surprise:

"She didn't tell you?"

The tall man hesitated, then shook his head.

"She did. I'm just not sure that I believe it."

Sunny smiled and looked away.

"Ah, let me guess. Your first thought was that she had lost her mind. What can I say… get used to that feeling."

After a few moments of silence, Gemma sighed.

"But how can we kill it?"

'Poor guy…'

Sunny glanced at him, lingered for a bit, and then said:

"If my guess is correct, you know more about it than I do."

And just like that, their conversation ended.

By the middle of the day, they reached the eastern edges of the city and climbed the imposing monolith of the great wall. Standing on top of it, they saw the colossal crater and the headless statue that stood not too far away, its one remaining hand thrust toward the skies.

Their prey was hiding in a vast underground chamber beneath that statue.

Today, they were going to hunt the Lord of the Dead.

***

At the base of the statue, the second arm of the Priestess lay in the mud. Thousands of years ago, it had broken off and fell, crashing through the dome of the underground chamber. Now, there was a chasm in the ground that led into the lair of the Lord of the Dead.

Many months ago, Sunny and the rest had used that breach to escape from the catacombs. Now, they were going to use it to descend into that darkness, instead.

The ghastly master of the catacombs waited for them below. Sunny wasn't really surprised that Nephis had chosen to return to this place. After all, the mountainous abomination was most likely guarding the last of the seven Shard Memories.

However, he was really curious about how exactly she was planning to kill it.

Once everyone gathered around the hole in the mud, Changing Star glanced at him and said:

"Sunny, can your shadow take a look at the burial chamber?"

With a shrug, he sent the shadow into the breach. It slid on the mud and entered the dark hole, then hid in the palm of the giant stone hand and cautiously looked down.

The mountain of human bones was still there, in the middle of the vast circular chamber.

However, it looked very different from how it had been before.

Countless green vines were growing from the mass of bones, some of them comparatively thin, others as thick as a human body. They weren't growing just between the ancient remains: the vines were bursting through the bones, too. Almost as if feeding on them.

The Lord of the Dead seemed… weaker. More brittle. As though it was sick, sapped of its strength and infected by a terrible parasite.

Sunny commanded his shadow to look closer, and finally noticed the thing that he had expected to see.

A small wooden box lay on the floor of the underground chamber, open and empty. The exact same box Nephis had mysteriously entrusted to Caster as soon as they were back in the Dark City.

From the words the outer settlement hunter, that box had appeared on his pillow with a small note. That note had been written by Changing Star's spy — Seishan. And the contents of the box had been created for her by Kido, who was now dead.

Kido had been the leader of the Artisans. Her Aspect Ability allowed her to control and alter plants.

This bone-eating vine, as it turned out, was her last creation and final masterpiece.

Turning to Nephis, Sunny hesitated for a moment and then spoke, his words causing a subtle reaction in Gemma:

"The tyrant is heavily infected by Kido's vine. It seems to be considerably weakened."

Changing Star nodded and remained silent for a few moments. Then, she said:

"Once we enter the chamber, the Lord of the Dead will attack us. Now that its power is reduced, and with the help of the Dawn Shard, we should be able to survive the onslaught. We should also be able to wound, and eventually kill it."

Looking at the faces of everyone gathered in the shadow of the headless statue, she nodded and headed toward the breach.

"Let's go."

***

Soon, Sunny was trying to survive the fury of the Lord of the Dead once again. But this time, it was not as hard as it had been before.

He had become stronger, and the horrible creature had become weaker. His Memories were augmented by the Crown of Dawn, and Saint was now a demon.

There were also more humans resisting the tyrant today.

…That was not to say that the battle wasn't harrowing and perilous. In fact, it was utterly lethal.

The humans fighting the monumental Nightmare Creature were surrounding it, dodging the long limbs of the tyrant and trying to attack it when an opportunity presented itself. Kai was zipping in the air, providing support and bringing the wounded away from the fight.

They were only alive because the attacks of the Lord of the Dead were now slower and less devastating than before. With some preparation, both Effie and Saint could withstand one or two with the help of their shields. Caster was able to deliver several cuts to it with its ghostly blade, while Seishan had broken one limb completely with her graceful war hammer.

Each strike of the Sunlight Shard seemed to bring immense pain to the Lord of the Dead.

But nothing hurt it more, of course, than the incandescent blade of Changing Star.

Together, they dealt more and more damage to the terrible creature, despite the fact that many of them were now either severely wounded or dead. The tyrant was being consumed from within by the green vines, and broken from the outside by their weapons.

And then, after a long and arduous battle, a huge lair of bones fell from the body of the Lord of the Dead, revealing its inner core.

That core, which was made of human skulls and coagulated blood, was absolutely terrifying, malignant, and abhorrent. In its death, a shape of a fat white maggot could be seen, curled into a ball.

At that moment, Effie suddenly stepped forward, twisted her body… and threw the Dusk Shard as a discus with a deafening cry.

The shield that was said to contain the weight of the heavens streaked through the air with terrible speed and hit the inner core of the tyrant, crushing through it like a wrecking ball. It cut the maggot in half and exited the body of the Lord of the Dead from the other side in a torrent of broken bones. Then it fell to the ground, shattering the stone floor of the chamber and sending a net of cracks running through it from the point of impact.

The mountain of bones froze, the shuddered.

And then, it crumbled.

Everyone stared at Effie, shocked, hope burning in their eyes.

On her face, there was a dark, mournful expression. Belatedly, Sunny remembered that the members of the original cohort that the boisterous huntress had belonged to all perished here, killed either by the undead army or the Lord of the Dead itself.

A few moments later, Effie sighed and turned her face away, hiding it from everyone. Then, she raised a hand and made it into a fist.

That was her letting them know that she had received a Memory from the kill.

A Shard Memory.

The last one there was.