Shadow Slave novel Chapter 1018

1018 The Fall of Falcon Scott (36)

Sunny and Naeve fought against the drowned guardians of the Terror, while Bloodwave assaulted the eerie flower of white cloth itself.

From what Sunny could see — and he rarely got the chance to glance in that direction, embroiled in a furious and lethally dangerous battle of his own — the Corrupted creature and the Saint were at an impasse of sorts.

The Terror did not seem to have a lot of physical power. His graceful petals possessed a harrowing strength, of course, but not enough to threaten the Transcendent in his bestial form. Not all Saint transformations were those of beasts, and out of the ones that were, not all possessed overwhelming physical might.

But Bloodwave certainly did.

The monstrous killer whale attacked again and again, and the pallid blossom avoided his teeth and fangs again and again. Its shorter petals danced, making the Terror glide away, moving in irrational and mesmerizing patterns. The sight of it was eerily beautiful.

Its longer petals, though — some of them hundreds of meters long — slithered through the crimson darkness like white tentacles, battering the great predator and trying to wrap themselves around his enormous body. Nevertheless, Bloodwave did not seem hindered.

A few of them were already torn apart, swathes of billowing white cloth drifting silently into the dark depths.

...Some distance away from the two clashing giants, Sunny and Naeve were feverishly battling the legion of hollow-eyed thralls. The cold abyss was littered with blooming clouds of blood and sliced remnants that floated around them like a morbid veil. Almost a hundred abominations had already been slain, but twice as many still remained.

'Curse it...'

The Nightwalker was a good partner in this battle, perhaps even the best Sunny could have hoped for. And yet, he still missed his Shadows... granted, neither would have been of much help in the depths of the ocean. Stone knights were not exactly the best divers, and neither were horses, as far as he knew.

Sunny, meanwhile, had grown somewhat confident about fighting underwater. He had managed to learn a few things by observing Naeve, and understood how to deal with the unbearable pressure by borrowing from his experiences with the Crushing.

Everything was going well...

Sunny decapitated another thrall, then spun, bringing the Sin of Solace in front of him. A creature that had been hidden by a cloud of blood suddenly lunged forward, only to impale itself on the jade jian — he had sensed its shadow long before the abomination appeared in view.

His lungs were burning, which was a concerning thing when one was deep, deep below the surface of the ocean. However, Sunny knew that it was just a sign of physical exertion. The Essence Pearl was still supplying him with a steady stream of air to breathe, and although he felt tired, that tiredness was nowhere near being debilitating.

With every kill they made, the number of thralls attacking Sunny and Naeve diminished. They had already survived the assault of the full three hundred, so fighting against the remaining two was much more manageable, and it would only grow more manageable soon.

'So why do I feel so uneasy?' _{freewёbnoνel.com}

Sunny shivered, allowing himself to drift down for a brief moment.

Indeed, despite the fact that they seemed to be prevailing, his heart was growing heavier with each kill. It did not make any logical sense, but nevertheless, Sunny's intuition seemed to be telling him that he was missing something.

But what?

There was not much time to think between the clashes with the abominable thralls, mostly because Sunny had to spend that time observing the dark waters around him and frantically calculating how and where to move in order to survive, as well as put himself in position for the next attack.

And yet, the longer the battle went on, the more it felt as though something was not right.

'What is it?'

He would have said that it was too easy, but it was not — fighting hundreds of menacing thralls underwater was one of the hardest and most demanding battles he had the misfortune of going through in the Southern Quadrant. Sunny was not only pushing his limits, he had ventured well past them, going so far as to learn an entirely new dimension of combat. Even then, it was barely enough to keep him alive.

Perhaps... perhaps it was the fact that the Terror of LO49 had yet to launch a devastating mental assault on them, or pull some other diabolical trick.