What is the nature of life?
It is a question that has flowed through the hollow halls of time, asked by scholar and slave alike across every age. It remains the central, agonizing pivot of the soul.
What is considered "life," and why is that life deemed to possess value? What makes one flickering flame more precious than another, and what substance gives that existence worth?
Is it found in the quiet, visceral affection of a mother gazing upon her newborn? To know that a child was born of love, and that the sheer act of being born was enough to grant it an inherent sanctity.
Perhaps that is all it takes — to simply exist is to be special.
Yet, that conclusion feels hollow. There are lives that are not valued; there are lives that begin as a curse upon others.
Perhaps the answer lies elsewhere.
Once, the Demon of Destiny stood before the Storm God and asked the same question. The ever-wise deity answered with her enthralling voice.
"Life is desire. It is a desire to be alive."
Was that it? To simply possess a yearning? Or was it the yearning itself that made the value?
There is no difference in the scales between a babe and a man, or between a mortal and a god. An insect is as capable of poisoning a beast as that beast is of crushing the insect into the dust. A mother might perish bringing life into the world, just as a womb might become a tomb for the child within it.
The coin has only one side. In this, Nokstella spoke the truth.
Life is simply the desperate, unyielding desire to remain.
That was the answer that crystallized within a nameless fable as she drifted through the voices of others. She was a story drowned in the ink of shadows, a narrative devoured by a much greater, much darker fable — the story of her lord.
She existed as a complex layer of runes. They were indecipherable to those who did not master the language of the Fable, yet their meaning was as plain as the sun. They described the shape of a woman.
But… who?
The Fable did not remember her own name.
She held her breath, feeling as though her heart might stop — and indeed, it had been stilled for a very long time. It was impossible to tell when the color had drained from the black brilliance of her being. Little by little, particles broke away from that darkness, condensing and taking form before a presence that felt heart-achingly familiar.
She was familiar with only one: the vast, suffocating story of shadows.
This Fable, which had once moved only at the command of the Prince of the Underworld, now listened to a different authority.
Her... her Lord?
But the name was a ghost, slipping through her fingers. She squirmed and cried out in the silence of her mind, furious at her own failure to remember. Even his face remained a blur, even as he held her in a tender, desperate embrace.
She did not shy away from the despair she found there. The Lord's Fable was overflowing with it — a crushing weight of torment and hopelessness.
She wanted to console him, but she was a part of him, bound to his silliness and his breaking heart. Her Lord believed he had made a terrible mistake. He wished for tears he could not shed as he chose to devour his own shadows.
But was that not his right?
The Fable did not mind. If the Lord she loved required her essence for sustenance, then it was just. He loved her in his own, fading way.
How could he not? His Fable was created in an eternal hell, a cycle where she had seen him reach for the light over nine hundred and ninety times. She was the one who had recognized the regressions, the one whose actions proved she understood the hell he was going through. She had wanted to ease that weight, and she deemed herself a failure because she could not.
She had been reborn from him, fought beside him, and walked into the jaws of death time and again as he began to lose himself. And lose himself he did. That must have been why he consumed her — he needed a power that she, in her old form, could no longer provide. What use is a Shadow to a man who becomes a God?
So, she felt no bitterness. Her loyalty remained a steady flame. Her love was an unmoving mountain. Her happiness at having stood by his side, even as he grew hollow, was absolute.
These were the flickers of thought that passed through her as she fell into a deep slumber. The alterations performed by the Four — Destiny, Imagination, Oblivion, and Possibility — had been successful.
The Fable, who had never once complained of the chains that bound her, finally felt the links grow weaker.
She was constrained no longer.
The weave within her, which held her true might and potential, felt restrained no longer.
Her thoughts, which had always possessed a layer of black fog clinging to their edges, were no longer constrained. The Fable felt free. It was not a total, boundless liberation, but she was certainly no longer caged within the narrow confines of a mindless servant.
What followed was a blur of shifting states. The last clear perception the Fable held was that of being placed into a profound slumber. She had watched her Lord gathering with his fellow Demons to confront a towering, terrible Angel. After that, silence.
She began to change in the silence of her isolation. She felt her essence tumble into a deep, black sea — a sensation that was nothing short of sublime.
Hope stirred within her, though its origin remained a mystery. Perhaps it was because in this dark expanse, she could feel every fiber that made her intrinsically, insuperably linked to him. They were of the same source. Her body, her essence, and her lethal arts were being mended together in the cold depths. This insight did not strike like a sudden bolt from the heavens; it was simply there, as if it had always been part of her nature.
In this moment, the Lord belonged to her, and she belonged to the Lord.
As even more time passed, her ethereal form grew denser, more physical, as she relinquished her dominion over it. She felt the force that had always stood by her side — her Lord — reaching in to repair something broken within her core. She offered no resistance; why would she ever deny him?
Motes of pure gold and white lifeforce floated from the Lord, adhering to her until her entire being glowed from the inside out.
She could still sense his pain. His body had been shattered recently by an otherworldly force — an Archangel, if her instincts were correct. Her Lord was dying, and she was trapped in the stasis of her own refinement, unable to move or act. Once again, she felt the bitterness of failure.
However, the sensation shifted as the presence of two Great Old Ones descended to intercept the Archangel. The details of the clash were lost to her, but she felt a lingering warmth. Something had caught her as she tumbled alongside another.
But a deviation occurred — a shift in the alignment of reality.
She felt an irresistible force tugging at her consciousness, dragging her in two conflicting directions at once. The universe expanded into a galaxy of racing colors. Suns ignited, faltered, and blazed anew. Constellations formed and collapsed in an eye-blink. People flickered in and out of existence too fast for her to register their faces.
She was a shooting star plunging through the sky, awestruck and alienated from her own perspective. The expanding universe narrowed into a tunnel of light so brilliant it scorched her spirit. She was racing toward a distant gravity while simultaneously falling into a calm, dreamless sleep.
The light eventually faded. She began to dream.
—
In one vision, she was clad in lusterless black armor, two ruby flames burning in the shadows of her visor. The scene was odd, draped in a strange fog. Her sentience was a low flame, hardly flickering in the depths of her soul.
From what she could perceive, she was walking beside her Lord and five other souls whom she felt she knew.
'These are… the catacombs?'
Her spectral body gave a sudden jump. She realized she was observing this dream from a third-person perspective, an external viewer of her own history. She watched herself and the other dreamers navigating the subterranean darkness.
Why were they here? Her memory flickered — they were seeking something left behind by a Bright Lord of the past. The specifics were elusive, so she ceased her efforts to remember and simply watched as the dream shifted through impressions.
She watched her body in a land of harrowing ice and wind. She questioned why these visions were being paraded before her. She saw herself drink from a Heart of Darkness. She watched as she engaged three Saints in combat while her Lord faced seven alone.
She felt the echo of an internal laugh at something her Lord had said. She watched him place his own life on the line to shield her, reversing the roles they were meant to play.
The Fable, in her spectral form, realized she could manipulate these dreams. She began to swim through these recollections — events that belonged to her and yet did not.
'These are… of another World?'
These were the manifestations of Fables from the Nightmare of the Original Worldline. She realized these were memories of a version of herself manifested by the Nightmare Spell — a construct that was not "real" by conventional standards. Yet, what was the difference between truth and falsehood within the logic of a nightmare?
There was no difference at all.
If shadows could be gained a second time within a trial, then there were no lies in one's existence. This was the conclusion she reached regarding the value of a life and the nature of truth.
The Fable looked at her shimmering hands and asked a final question.
'What am I, then?'
Then she answered the question herself. The answer materialized as she recalled the links of her own name and the name of her lord. She watched the most significant fragments of these visions coalesce, regaining the certainty she had always possessed.
She was… Saint.
At various points in history, she had been the Stone Saint, the Marble Saint, and the Onyx Saint. In a time yet to come, she would be the Jade Saint.
That specific memory felt more vital than all the others — that stolen moment in Mirage City where her lord had conveyed his gratitude with a rare sincerity.
In that dream, she had voiced a question.
"So, in that supposedly real world… did you mention that I serve you? I am a servant?"
And her lord had answered.
"Well... no? Not exactly. I am the Lord of Shadows, and you are one of my Shadows — the very first Shadow I created, actually. It is the nature of a shadow to be cast by someone, and in your case, I guess you are cast by me. You are not a servant, though. More of… a champion, a companion, and the general of my legion."
She remembered his reaction as the realization of his own ignorance struck him. He had felt inadequate, realizing he did not truly understand how his shadows thought, or what drove their silent spirits.
Yet, if she were given the choice across a billion different worldlines to become a Shadow again, she knew her answer. She would choose him. Sunny was her lord, and he would be forever. She felt a profound constellation of emotions: affection, loyalty, gratitude, devotion, camaraderie, and an unshakeable sense of belonging.
That was why she spoke the words into the void of the dream.
"Even if I can't remember it all… I'll do it."
In that moment, she was violently uprooted. Years seemed to flicker past as she witnessed a new, far more harrowing dream of Sunny's journey.
Incorporeal and sleepless, empty of all desire save for her vigil, Saint experienced a fragment of the boy's personal hell. She stood by his side as he descended into the madness of self-blame and as he elevated his skills in the complexities of Spellweave. She felt his grim joy when he fought his own shadows, and his resolve as he waged war against Avarice, knowing death was the only certain outcome.
She did not look away. Even when he appeared diminished in her arms, struggling to maintain the spark that had driven him into the Nightmare, she remained. He was a soul floundering in a world that did not deserve the god he was becoming. These trials — the successes and the crushing failures — were the necessary forge. Without them, the sad king would never have ascended to his throne.
But he had not suffered alone. From the moment his eyes first opened in that place, a single unholy thread had connected them. She had been there for the end of his path as the Demon of Possibility.
The passage of time — meaningless to a being who has no need for sleep or breath — came to a thundering halt. She felt his essence as a pulse in her own throat. Like a dark claw reaching out from the abyss, his essence touched her in a desperate call for aid.
Saint found herself currently powerless, a spirit lacking substance, yet the touch of his soul drew her upward. The blinding light of incarnation loomed above.
She felt it then — the ability to move. Her various senses began to fire all at once. Her spectral form, which had been drifting through the archives of memory, began to fade. She was waking up, choosing to abandon the dream to grasp the hand that touched her.
It was instinct — a primal drive engraved upon her soul. Her lord, Lost from Light, required her presence at this very moment.
She did not look back. That dream was a life yet to occur and a death already passed. It was a beginning after the end.
Clinging to the trembling connection, she dragged her consciousness through the dark sea and left the dream behind. Space and time fractured before her.
The material world revealed itself as a place of flickering torches and cold stone. It was a reality already manifested, though she had not yet fully awoken within it.
The focus became difficult to maintain. A muffled song seemed to call her home. She felt herself drowning in the black sea, only for something to intervene.
Something feathered and vast grabbed her, pulling her toward the surface. She did not see her savior, only felt the rush of ascent.
Until...
Saint woke suddenly, the transition from the ethereal to the material striking her with the force of a physical blow. She lay upon the cold floor, the boundary between the vivid memories of her dream and the stark reality of the room blurred and uncertain.
Her body, once unmoving, began to shake and shudder with a violent newfound vitality. Liquid-like eyes snapped open as she forced herself to her knees. Her throat felt pristine yet dry, and her limbs, though rejuvenated by the transformation, carried the heavy ache of sudden existence.
She breathed hoarsely, the rhythm of her lungs unfamiliar and strange.
Despite the lack of her former stone composition — having been replaced by the phantasm of flesh that every human possessed — Saint felt far stronger. A subtle weave seemed to flow through her muscles, granting her a resilience that defied her lithe appearance. She was almost certain of it.
'What was that feeling?'
She was entirely alone in the dim room, and thus felt no embarrassment at her nakedness. Instead, she turned her focus inward, attempting to catalog the sensory data crashing into her consciousness. Her instincts, sharp and efficient, aligned the new sensations with practiced ease.
Slowly, she tested her voice.
"Ha… just what is this place? So unfamiliar…"
The sound startled her. It was enthralling and pleasant, a voice far too perfect for the grim basement that housed her.
She shook her head, dismissing the thought. Such matters could be addressed later. Saint stood, her joints popping and muscles stretching as she adjusted to the sensation of gravity upon a body of flesh.
She reached deep into herself, seeking the Shell.
At once, sublime black silk unraveled from the air, wrapping around her lithe body. The coat formed first, long sleeves snaking down her arms while the body of the garment tumbled past her knees in a shade of deep, absolute black. Where the fabric met her collarbone, a white lining flashed once before settling into place.
Beneath the coat, more black silk wound itself around her waist, tightening with a refined pressure against her ribs. It was soft against her skin, yet unyielding beneath the surface.
Her high collar rose next, framing her throat. She reached up to touch the fabric and found the "armor" there felt warm and living against her fingertips. White vine-work and silver-white sigils — language she understood as innately as her own name — traced themselves along the hem and cuffs.
Trousers formed, fitted perfectly to her legs, followed by boots that climbed her calves. They were flat-soled and solid, built for battle.
Her hair spilled down over the shoulders of the coat, unbound and proving itself alive by catching the light.
'This is… me?'
She had expected the familiar, rigid black armor of her past. She was aware that the Prince of the Underworld had once crafted her form, yet this was the manifestation that came forth now.
She let out a quiet sigh. The runes remained inaccessible, the Nightmare Spell mocking her with the same brief message of maintenance it had given within the Reverse Side of the World.
But her concern shifted instantly as the basement quaked.
The tremors originated from above. Saint tilted her head, realizing why her senses had been so overwhelmed.
She… possessed Shadow Sense now.
It was the exact ability that Sunny possessed, a flood of details that she struggled to categorize. However, she could clearly distinguish two shadows clashing on the floor above.
One was significantly larger than the other. A shadow belonged to a knight, two meters tall, radiating a lethal intent that Saint could feel in the marrow of her new bones.
The other...
'Milord!'
It was Sunny.
Saint rushed toward the stairs, but she froze halfway up the ascent.
'What… is… that…?'
Sunny's shadows — four of them — did not resemble him in the slightest. What she perceived was a presence too grand for a Dormant-Devil, and far too incomprehensible for any standard classification. She could not tell if the force she felt was that of a Dormant or a Fallen. The details were obscured by her lack of experience with this expanded sense.
She summoned her weapon. The familiar black long blade materialized in her hand, a weapon of the Awakened Rank, 2nd Tier.
She looked at the blade and frowned. Compared to the Midnight Shard, the steel seemed lackluster. It only appeared formidable because of the intent she breathed into it.
Another quake erupted. She sensed Sunny's grand shadow being thrown through a pillar, causing the entire structure to rattle and moan under the stress.
'I had better get to the surface before this entire underground structure caves in…'
Saint dashed forward, ascending the stairs and bursting into the nave, only to be greeted by a strange and surprising sight.
—
Inside the tenebrous grand hall of the majestic cathedral, darkness reigned unopposed. It drowned the vast hall, clinging to its walls and tall columns. The rare beams of light falling through the narrow windows only served to make the shadows seem deeper, more visceral.
However, what should have been a straightforward contest of strength between two opponents was anything but. Saint bore witness to the cataclysm occurring before her.
"What the… hell?"
Before her, two beings stood on opposite ends of the ruined cathedral.
The Forsaken Knight's armor was a map of cracks, and its blade — the very core of its life — bore deep fractures as well. Saint watched as those wounds rapidly mended, drawn from the True Darkness the creature called home.
She noted that she must have retained her own affinities from the original Worldline — Nothingness and True Darkness — because the True Darkness was as clear to her as day.
On the other side laid Sunny. He was still adorned the Puppeteer's Shroud, though the majority of its upper set was torn to shreds, exposing his torso. Or rather, it would have, had his midsection not been a ruin of viscera and blood.
His right arm was gone. Dried blood stained his mouth. However, in the next moment, the impossible occurred.
Saint watched as he picked himself up from the rubble, walking toward the Forsaken Knight with calm, measured steps. A sudden black radiance enveloped him.
'That's… that's Soul Flame!?'
He healed in seconds. His arm blazed and regenerated; his waist knit back together, drawing in his intestines until his skin was once again pristine. The blood burned away.
In moments, he was whole.
Yet, a shiver traveled down Saint's spine. It was not just his healing — it was his appearance.
Sunny did not seem like himself. He appeared entirely unconscious of his actions, moved by a deeper, more primal will. His hair was a striking, light blonde with gold-tinged shades, though it still held strands of black as well. His eyes, which should have possessed the white sclera of a human, were as black as the abyss itself.
His pupils were not irises, but sigils — runes of an unknown tongue. They glowed with an eerie purple light, and something seemed to writhe within that darkness.
Saint did not have the luxury to catalog more. She ducked instinctively as the Forsaken Knight's greatsword slashed through the air, carrying a devastating shockwave. She leapt away, finding her new body far more resilient and faster than her previous one. She landed several meters back, still unaccustomed to the lightness of her limbs and the soft touch of pristine, armor-lined silk instead of cold metal.
The Forsaken Knight, however, was not concerned with her.
It was swinging at Sunny. Saint blinked, astonished; she had not even seen him move. Sunny was suddenly directly in front of the Devil, a crackling flame of shadow dancing in his palm.
He was not using a memory, it seemed. The Midnight Shard was nowhere to be seen. The wounds the knight had suffered were delivered by Sunny's bare hands — or rather, by the power manifesting through his physical form.
'Just what is that transformation?!'
The thought screamed in her mind as a terrible shockwave erupted. Sunny had outstretched his hand, forcing the black flame to coil around his limb like a localized tornado, before abruptly shifting the hue to a cold, brilliant sky blue. The characteristic of the flame changed instantly; it grew heavy, possessing a density that should have been impossible for fire.
He unleashed it upon the knight just as the greatsword came down.
Saint, caught in the wake of the collision, was sent flying dozens of meters. She collided with a pillar but regained her footing quickly, shielding her eyes as waves of raw shadow essence flooded the hall.
It was clear she needed time to recuperate and discern what she was capable of. Ahead, the Knight and Sunny were engaged in a lethal dance, weaving through the dark and delivering attacks in a blur of motion.
While the Forsaken Knight held the advantage in every physical parameter — defense, raw attack, and mass — Sunny was moving at speeds far beyond that of a Dormant-Devil, or even an Awakened, landing three strikes for every one he parried.
The sky flames were destructive, carrying weight, mass, and literally pulverizing the stone floor with every discharge.
Saint retreated to the far side of the nave, putting distance between herself and the two Devils. She was not waiting for an opening.
Instead, she had moved because she heard a familiar, chilling voice.
The Spell had spoken to her.
[Your Runes have been updated.]
[Your evolution has been halted.]
The maintenance on Sunny's Path of Corruption was still underway, but Saint's transition was finished, or rather, halted for now.
She summoned her runes.
In the dark of the hall, she was greeted by the shimmering, unfamiliar script. As a Shadow, she had never before possessed the capacity to view her own status—she was certain such a thing was only possible now that she had become something akin to human.
But… she blinked.
And blinked again.
And then blinked once more.
Her jaw dropped as her eyes traversed the shimmering runes.
'I…'
Suffice to say, her status was… a little absurd.
Shadow Name: Phantasmal Saint.
Shadow Rank: Awakened.
Shadow Class: Monster.
Shadow Attributes: [Battle Master], [Marble Shell], [Flame of Divinity], [Inheritance], [Heart of Darkness], [Vessel of Nothing], [Living Phantasm], [Diamond Weave], [Shadow's Grace], [Dyad of Shadow].
Shadow Abilities: [Awakened], [Shadow Control].
Shadow Description: [Shadow Saint was created by the treacherous Lost From Light in the cursed darkness of the Forgotten Shore.]
Shadow Fragments: [200/200.]
'Just what did they do to me in that Nightmare?'
She shook her head and ducked as a jagged shard of stone whistled over her head. Across the nave, she saw Sunny weave past the knight's black blade with an oily, fluid motion. He delivered a kick wreathed in blue light — a strike that sent the massive knight crashing through the remnants of a wooden pew.
'I had better read these quickly!'
She prioritized the attributes she didn't recognize, skimming over the familiar ones.
Attribute: [Inheritance]
Attribute Description: [A bridge has been built between who you were and who you are. You have reclaimed every skill from your past life.]
This was the anchor. It allowed her to retain the affinities and skills she possessed in the Nightmare, despite the regression of her physical rank.
Attribute: [Living Phantasm]
Attribute Description: [You are an illusion of the Demon of Imagination. An illusion granted life and breath, death and rebirth. You are an illusion true and yet not, flourishing with the abundance of a great Miracle. Are you not as real as any other?]
A faint, fond smile touched her lips. It was this miracle that allowed her to feel the air on her skin and the pulse in her veins.
However, the next Attribute was extraordinary.
Attribute: [Diamond Weave]
Attribute Description: [You have inherited a Weave of Destiny, crafted by your master in the image of Weaver's forbidden lineage. Your biology has been altered and imbued with multifaceted resilience. This weave was built for the clarity of will, granting its bearer seven distinct paths to define their own destiny.]
Saint finally understood the strange, crystalline presence she had been sensing within her biology. It was the source of her unnatural resilience. However—
'S-Seven…?'
The number staggered her. In her original existence, she could only possess two affinities — two paths.
She had absorbed True Darkness and Nothingness, reaching her limit. But here, those two paths were already established, and five more lay open like a vast, empty canvas. The potential to possess seven distinct affinities was mind-boggling, even for a being of her caliber.
She did not linger on the wonder for more than a second. Her primary goal remained the protection of the boy currently locked in a death-match with the Forsaken Knight.
Looking back up, she saw the two devils circling one another once more. She frowned at the unsettling, jerky motions Sunny was making.
'He really is unconscious.'
Sunny was not awake — not at all. His body — or the Unholy shadow currently puppeteering it — was moving on pure, autonomous instinct.
It made sense; the integration of a Mind Weave as a mere Dormant should have incapacitated a human for weeks. Due to his new, otherworldly nature, that process was likely accelerated, but he was still deep in the throes of a mental evolution.
Yet his shadows… his shadows were things of Divine and Unholy origin. Somewhere in his soul dwelled a profaned existence that was currently holding the reins. Thankfully, though it was an Unholy thing, it seemed to recognize the knight as an enemy of the same cloth and did not turn its sights on her.
Finally, Saint read the last of her new attributes — the ones most critical for the battle at hand.
Attribute: [Shadow's Grace]
Attribute Description: [You have been granted the Shadow of a Divine, bathed in the essence of your lord and bearing his mark. As his kindred, the link between you allows for the share of power. Shadows recognize you as one of their own, and the strength of the master is the strength of the shadow.]
Attribute: [Dyad of Shadow]
Attribute Description: [You are of your master and share his gifts. His soul is open to you as you are his. What is felt by one is known by the other, and as long as the master's flame burns, this shadow shall never feel lost.]
A time to gush at the sheer scale of the Attributes would have to come later. Saint shook her head, fighting back the incoming headache brought on by the sudden, massive influx of data.
It appeared that Shadow's Grace was intrinsically linked to Sunny's new abilities — whatever they had become.
It had granted her the shadow of a Divine.
'Is this why I possess Shadow Control?'
She looked down at her feet and confirmed it. She possessed two shadows. Despite being a shadow herself, the influence of [Living Phantasm] meant she no longer appeared as one; instead, her shadow was cast firmly upon the stone.
Due to her possession of two Soul Cores, she possessed double the shadows.
The reason why such a thing was possible could be deciphered once Sunny was awake. For now, she focused on bridging the two attributes.
One granted her Sunny's dormant ability. The only known instance of a being granting their specific Ability to another was Azarax — the Supreme Sunny had transformed into a Memory during the Nightmare.
It was evident that someone had repurposed Azarax's power to forge this new connection.
Upon her arm, the black ink of a Soul Serpent tattoo shimmered. This, too, originated from Shadow's Grace. It was no wonder she could feel her shadow essence moving with such fluidity, despite not consciously directing it.
And finally, through the [Dyad of Shadow], new runes began to glow. These were Sunny's own — possibly the only ones not currently locked behind the Spell's maintenance.
They read:
Divine Miracles: [Cernere Finem], [Y Distryw Gwyn], [Arweiniad y Tymestl], [Anadl y Môr], [Fundamentum Animae], [Nod y Blaidd], [Flos Vitae Bellicosae], [Nuntius Desiderii], [Llygad yr Arswyd], [Llwybr y Tynged], [Persistentia Phantasmatis], [Obscuratio Memoriae], [Iachâd y Gaeaf].
Saint understood the gravity of the script.
'The Language of Miracles, created by the Gods…'
She doubted she would ever truly decipher the full meaning of each, nor could she accurately assign every Miracle to its respective deity. However, because of the way she had been crafted, she felt a profound connection with two specific entries.
[Arweiniad y Tymestl] and [Anadl y Môr]. These were the Miracles of the Storm God.
She channeled the first. Instantly, an unnatural breeze coiled around her feet, taking the shimmering, shifting appearance of a small nebula.
Far across the hall, Sunny was still locked in combat with the Forsaken Knight. His body experienced a sudden, violent pulse the moment the Miracle was activated. His dark gaze flickered toward Saint for a fleeting second, but the distraction was costly; the Forsaken Knight struck him down once more, the impact rattling the cathedral grounds.
Saint was finished with her study. She wrapped her two shadows around her body, feeling her strength and amplify three times over.
Using the Shadow Ability [Awakened] in concert with the [Dyad of Shadows], she reached into the depths of Sunny's Soul Sea. With a mental tug, she drew forth the Midnight Shard.
If Sunny was not going to utilize the Awakened weapon, she certainly would.
She vaulted over a row of shattered pews, weaving through an incoming burst of black shadows that crackled like dark lightning. She rushed forward.
A small, grim smile touched her lips. She remembered how they had bested the Forsaken Knight in the previous Worldline, though she knew the same tactics might fail against the current variables. Sunny was channeling something unholy, something that changed the very laws of the engagement.
Regardless of that, Saint reached the edge of the conflict. She did not hesitate.
She summoned the Prowling Thorn…
Then, she called forth the Echo, [Silvershade Harrow].