Ranobes » Shadow Slave » Chapter 1652: Terrible Challenger
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Chapter 1652: Terrible Challenger
Shadow Slave

Two weeks after Sunny had returned to Antarctica, he stood on a cliff overseeing a vast scene of devastation. In front of him, a great valley was formed from collapsed mountains and stone debris, the ruinous landscape now covered in ice and snow.

This was the place where Sky Tide, Wake of Ruín, and Dire Fang had battled the three emerged Titans - Whispering Legion, Goliath, and Winter Beast. The Whispering Legion had been slain, while the other two calamitous abominations drove the Saints away. An entire span of the mountain range had been demolished in the process.

There were Nightmare Gates hidden under the crushed stone, without a doubt, or maybe above it.

Sunny could not see, because most of the valley was hidden by a raging blizzard. This blizzard was the very same that had once enveloped Falcon Scott, sapping the lives of all its remaining inhabitants.

It was the manifestation of the Winter Beast's authority,

The air was so cold that each breath Sunny took felt like he was swallowing a scattering of sharp knives,

Not paying it any attention, he was gazing down with an expressionless face, his eyes drowning in deep darkness. His gaunt body was encased in fearsome onyx armor, and that armor was shrouded in darkness.

Out there in the valley, far below, a long line of Nightmare Creatures was advancing into the blizzard. Their movements were still and unnatural, as if they were corpses animated by some unknown force. But, at the same time, none of them showed any fear or hesitation. Neither did they show the demented frenzy inherent to most abominations.

They just slowly marched into the snow, stretching into a wide line that seemed to encompass the front of the blizzard.

A few moments later, the first of the Nightmare Creatures collapsed, its corpse swiftly becoming encased in ice.

Standing on the tall cliff, Sunny pursed his lips in disdain.

‘Weak.'

Not that he needed these useless things to be strong. No, their purpose was different... it was to show him which type of Nightmare Creature was the most resistant to the Winter Beast's cold.

From what he could tell, the cursed thing was not that powerful physically... at least as far as Titans went. It did not rule a legion of powerful minions, either, What made the Winter Beast so lethal was its uncanny ability to freeze everything around it to death - corporeal or incorporeal, weak or strong, pure or corrupted.

Close to the heart of the blizzard, even time itself seemed slower, as if the chilling cold could freeze the very laws of existence.

Sunny might have been burning with murderous hatred, but he had not lost his reason. if he wanted to kill this Corrupted Titan, he needed to understand It first. Only after dismantling the secrets of the Winter Beast's power would he be able to slay it.

And these thralls were the sacrifice he had prepared to throw into the deathly cold to comprehend it.

Soon, they disappeared from sight. Sunny could not see his sacrificial pawns anymore, but Soul Serpent still shared a connection with them. Therefore, he could know if the Larvae were still moving or had fallen still.

There were all kinds of Nightmare Creatures under his command, and by studying which ones lasted longer, he would be able to determine a few things about the lethal cold.

'Come on. Die for me.’

And yet, in the end, Sunny was disappointed.

Because none of them lasted long.

The small army of thralls he had so laboriously created in the past few weeks was obliterated in mere minutes, none of them making it that far into the snowstorm. The cold did not differentiate between large monsters or small, those with affinity to ice or those without. All of them were drained of warmth or frozen solid, dying a meaningless death in the embrace of the Winter Beast's unholy power.

Sunny cursed, then sighed with regret.

'No matter

The absence of a result was a result in and of itself. The fact that there did not seem to be a kind of resistance effective against the authority of the Winter Beast's profane domain told Sunny a lot, as well.

He had contemplated several strategies for just that kind of outcome. These strategies were risky, yes... but, actually, he did not feel regretful. Because they were also much more direct and brutal.

Killing the wretched Titan in such a fashion was bound to be much more satisfying.

Down in the crumbled valley, the blizzard suddenly expanded, as if coming to life. A terrible wind blew, crushing into Sunny with a chilling force. The wall of swirling snow and ice particles slowly advanced, moving in his direction.

A dark smile split his face in half.

"Look at that, Serpent. We seem to have been spotted."

He had hoped that hiding in the shadows on top of a distant mountain would be enough to throw the Titan off his scent, but he had been wrong. Perhaps the creature had been aware of his presence all along, but did not bother to react until he dared to challenge it directly.

In any case, the Corrupted Titan, Winter Best, was finally rising to deal with the Transcendent Terror, Sunless.

Sunny let out a sigh, then moved his shoulders to stretch his stiff muscles.

"I guess I'll have to finish the preparations faster.”

With that, he glanced at the towering figure of the Mountain King that stood in the darkness behind him.

Under his gaze, the tyrant suddenly turned into a torrent of black liquid, which then reformed itself into a different, equally ghastly abomination.

A Spire Messenger now stood on the edge of the cliff, its terrifying black beak cutting the wind like a dark blade. The creature's pale body was utterly black, and its many powerful limbs pierced the ice with long, sharp talons.

Throwing one last look at the approaching snowstorm, Sunny jumped onto its back. In the next moment, the mighty wings of the creature raised a hurricane, and it shot into the air, carrying him back in the direction of Erebus Field.

The snowstorm followed.

Shadow Slave
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Comments 10

  1. Offline
    Dummybaron
    Dummybaron
    10 ⋅ 0
    Damn, I really want Sunny to make an Artificial Echo of Winter Beast and then turn him into the Shadow, Winter Beast's powers are just too good.
    Read more
    1. Offline
      GoodKnight_
      GoodKnight_
      2 ⋅ 0
      Seria interessante, mas teria aquele negocio do fogo amigo também que seria bem irritante de ler. E aquele negocio, se Sunny evoluir para um titã a serpente vai poder virar a besta de gelo.
      Read more
  2. Offline
    keyleur
    keyleur
    7 ⋅ 3
    1653 Erebus

    The monstrous Spire Messenger tore apart the gelid wind as it raced across the frigid vastness of the twilight sky. Behind it, a churning wall of dancing snow crawled slowly, devouring the world like a hungry beast.

    There was a gaunt figure kneeling on the back of the flying monster, clutching at its black feathers with an onyx gauntlet.

    Sunny did not look back, knowing that Serpent was much faster than the pursuing titan. In that, at least, they held an advantage.

    'It will catch up soon enough, though.’

    He was contemplating the results of sacrificing his swarm of thralls.

    None of them had been able to withstand the lethal cold of the Winter Beast's domain for long, which meant that there was no type of resistance that could help Sunny survive there - at least none he could find in a short amount of time.

    The thralls had perished swiftly, sapped of warmth of life. Their bodies fell into the snow, slowly turning into ice sculptures.

    The conclusion, then... was that Sunny had to use something other than a living being to reach the heart of the snowstorm. That would suggest that an undead creature would fare better, but that was not true, There had been a few ghouls among the thralls, and they died just the same.

    'But there is a much simpler solution.’

    He didn't have to enter the heart of the sinister blizzard himself or send one of his Shadows. He could simply... use an Inanimate object.

    A projectile.

    Indeed, the simplest solution was most often the correct one. The best way to kill the Winter Beast was to simply bring down a deluge of ranged attacks on its head... or whatever it was that it had instead of a head.

    Sunny had not been able to do something like that in the past because there was no telling where the titan's actual manifestation hid within the vast snowstorm. Now, however... his shadow sense could extend across many kilometers. Even if he failed to find the Winter Beast's precise location, he could at least pinpoint the general area.

    ‘That is if that thing even has a physical body. For all I know, it could be a sentient storm.’

    That was one of the risks he had to face. The other problem was actually delivering a ranged attack across such a vast distance. Not only was it physically hard, but the fatal cold and the hurricane wind raging within the snowstorm would become an obstacle... the closer one got to its heart, the worse they became,

    But where there was a will, there was a way

    And if that will was killing intent..., someone was going to die by the end of their battle, one way or another.

    Leaning forward to resist the frigid wind, Sunny smiled.

    ***

    Some time later, he was sitting on the snow, shielded from the wind by a wall of onyx scales. That wall, of course, was Serpent's side - his Shadow's Soul Beast form had grown truly Immense now that it was a Transcendent Terror.

    Serpent was still far from reaching Daeron's size, of course, but it was rather daunting nevertheless. Its maw looked like it could swallow an entire military APC whole.

    The two of them were in the middle of the icy plain that had been Erebus Field once. Most of the destroyed siege capital was buried under lava rock and snow, with only a few ravaged structures protruding above it like skeletal remains.

    Sunny was sitting with the tall peak of Mount Erebus behind him. In front of him, far in the distance, the world was slowly disappearing beneath a veil of swirling snow.

    The already dismal temperature was dropping by the minute, and the winds were growing more violent.

    He looked disinterested, staring at the snow with a frozen expression. The deep darkness of his eyes was cold and placid... like the surface of an ocean ready to explode into a raging storm.

    "It has finally arrived, huh?"

    Sunny took a deep breath and finally looked up, studying the distant snowstorm. Its approach was deceptively slow, but he knew that the wall of snow would consume everything around him very soon.

    Serpent hissed, the deep sound of its voice reverberating across the Icy plain.

    “...It's time to start, then."

    Sunny's words hung in the frigid air for a moment and were swiftly swallowed by the howling of the wind.

    As split second later, though...

    The world shook.

    Cracks formed on the vast field of snow, and far behind him, the mouth of Mount Erebus suddenly exploded with a gargantuan pillar of ash. A terrifying gust of hot wind rolled across the desolate landscape, pushing back the cold for a moment. Then, the volcano shone with an angry red glow, and a fountain of incandescent lava shot skyward with a deafening roar.

    Mount Erebus was erupting.

    Of course, it did not just happen to erupt precisely when Sunny needed it. Instead, he had sent Fiend into its depths to find a ripe magma chamber and cause an eruption when the time was right.

    With Goliath having already destabilized the entire region, doing so was not too hard. And with Fiend's robust steel carapace and fire affinity, he could survive inside a volcanic explosion without much trouble, Granted... the little hoodlum would not be happy with its master once he returned.

    If both of them survived what was coming next, of course.

    As the wall of swirling snow approached Sunny from the front, devouring the world, a rolling cloud of ash spread from Mount Erebus behind him. The stench of sulfur permeated the frigid air, cold wind crashing into a wave of heat in an invisible collision. Sunny's hair danced as a vast darkness swallowed the sky, plunging the icy plain in its shadow.

    As everything around him became enveloped in shadows, a sinister smile appeared on Sunny's pale face.

    He stretched, and then slowly rose to his feet.

    The cold darkness dwelling in his eyes finally exploded, turning into vicious glee.

    Looking at the approaching storm, Sunny raised his fist and said, his voice trembling with barely suppressed rage:

    "Hey, Winter Beast... do you remember me?"

    Then, his voice grew calmer, and colder, full of murderous wrath.

    "...Probably not, But I remember you.”
    Read more
    1. Offline
      keyleur
      keyleur
      8 ⋅ 3
      1654 Opening Salvo

      As ash rained from the sky and the ground quaked, Sunny inhaled deeply and extended his shadow sense as far as he could. Soon, his mind was flooded with an avalanche of sensory data, almost making him dizzy.

      He was still unaccustomed to how vast his sight was now. Of course, he didn't actually see anything... but after years of perceiving the shapes and movements of the shadows, it was not much different. Sunny had tested his limits while relying on his shadow sense to stay alive in the ocean, but the dark depths were different from land. They were unfathomable and empty, with nothing but the cold currents to see.

      Here in the Antarctic Center, though, there was almost too much to sense.

      Further, further, and further still... Sunny filtered out the useless data to keep his Transcendent mind from overloading and reached across many kilometers of cracking ice toward the approaching snowstorm.

      Soon, he sensed the shadows trembling from the lethal cold. Even they were not spared from the cruel tyranny of the Winter Beast.

      'Somewhere between forty and fifty kilometers.... this is as far as I can reach.’

      His shadow sense reached further than his actual sight, which was limited due to the curvature of Earth. And yet, it wasn't enough to find the heart of the vast blizzard - at least not until it got closer and enveloped him.

      'Still, it is already close enough for the initial greeting.’

      Sunny extended a hand. A thin pillar of darkness rose from the ground, growing to stand at almost twice his height. Then, it solidified, turning into a inky-black javelin with a needle-sharp tip. He grasped and weighed it, looking at the towering wall of swirling snow with a cold expression.

      He had created the javelin in the image of the Siege Souvenir - a similar weapon he had once fashioned to slay Goliath. The original Souvenir had been made from the quill of a Corrupted abomination, while this one was merely a manifested shadow. However, that shadow had been suffused with his Transcendent essence, and was thus equal to a Transcendent weapon.

      A uniquely powerful one at that, due to the fact that his soul had been altered by Soul Weave.

      Sadly, the shadow javelin lacked the powerful enchantments that the real Siege Souvenir had possessed. Still... it was not bad for an opening salvo,

      Exhaling slowly, Sunny took a step forward. Using the full augmentation of his five shadows, he infused a torrent of essence into his muscles and tendons, pushed against the ground with his feet, and strained his entire body to whip his hand forward and send the javelin into the dark sky.

      The moment he threw it, the world quaked again.

      A cloud of ashen snow exploded from under his feet, and a thunderous boom tore through the roaring of the eruption. There was an invisible shockwave that pushed the snow and the falling ash away, creating a sphere of clarity around his ominous onyx figure for a few fleeting moments.

      The javelin was like a black comet as it shot across the lightless sky, Its speed immeasurable.

      However... the actual process was rather dull. It actually took it an entire minute to reach the wall of snow and disappear into it. Twenty or so seconds later, Sunny felt his connection to the infused essence disappear.

      At the same time, he sensed the javelin plummet into the snow and shatter into countless shards of ice, which then dissolved into an intangible shadow.

      The corner of his mouth twitched.

      ‘...Not enough.’

      With the volcano erupting behind him and the gargantuan wall of snow that connected heavens and earth racing to swallow him from the front, Sunny stared forward with a dark expression and did some mental calculation.

      'I am no better than an artillery cannon, distance-wise, Granted, that javelin of mine was about twenty-five times heavier than an average artillery shell, Still, I would need to be inside the storm to reach its eye.’

      He grimaced with displeasure. All these mathematics... was not exactly what he had wanted. What he had wanted was to get up close and personal with the Winter Beast, and feel its blood flow down his hands. However, reality was never what one wanted.

      Well... maybe not, considering that Sunny had gotten exactly what he wanted. He had gotten his freedom. And everything else that had come with it.

      In any case, the distance was not that important. Much more important was the fact that the javelin had been able to survive for more than twenty seconds in the outer reaches of the snowstorm. That... was something Sunny could work with.

      Of course, he still did not know how long his missiles would last in the inner hell of the Winter Beast's domain.

      He shook his head, let out a resentful sigh, and glanced at his Shadow.

      "...War is a boring affair, isn't it, Serpent?"

      Serpent raised its gargantuan head into the air and hissed, perhaps expressing its solidarity.

      Sunny smiled.

      "Let's make it a bit more exciting, then."

      As the first torrents of snow swirled around him and plunged the world into unbearable cold, Sunny raised his head to the dark sky and laughed.

      A few moments later, his laughter disappeared abruptly, and his face suddenly turned still, Only his eyes gleamed with a strange, dark excitement.

      Something stirred in their depths...

      And at the same time, the darkness around Sunny stirred, as well.

      Dozens of inky-black pillars rose from the ground, followed by dozens more. They rose into the swirling stow like the fangs of a dragon, their needle-sharp points parting the wind with shrill whistles.

      Then, just as many tendrils of darkness wrapped around the shadow javelins, turning into inky-black hands. Each hand had seven fingers, ending with sharp claws.

      Sunny raised a hand, and at the same time, the shadow hands raised the great javelins.

      He stared into the swirling snow with a cold smile.

      He was not satisfied with being a Transcendent siege engine. To welcome the Winter Beast, he was prepared to summon forth an entire division's worth of devastating artillery.

      "I'm going to drown you, bastard."

      Letting out a low growl, he waved his hand forward.

      The world seemed to shatter from the thunderous roar when countless black javelins tore the swirling snow apart and shot into the depths of the raging blizzard.
      Read more
  3. Offline
    ZEXOS
    ZEXOS
    25 ⋅ 0
    1653. Erebus


    The monstrous Spire Messenger tore apart the gelid wind as it raced across the frigid vastness of the twilight sky. Behind it, a churning wall of dancing snow crawled slowly, devouring the world like a hungry beast.

    There was a gaunt figure kneeling on the back of the flying monster, clutching at its black feathers with an onyx gauntlet.

    Sunny did not look back, knowing that Serpent was much faster than the pursuing titan. In that, at least, they held an advantage.

    'It will catch up soon enough, though.’

    He was contemplating the results of sacrificing his swarm of thralls.

    None of them had been able to withstand the lethal cold of the Winter Beast's domain for long, which meant that there was no type of resistance that could help Sunny survive there - at least none he could find in a short amount of time.

    The thralls had perished swiftly, sapped of warmth of life. Their bodies fell into the snow, slowly turning into ice sculptures.

    The conclusion, then... was that Sunny had to use something other than a living being to reach the heart of the snowstorm. That would suggest that an undead creature would fare better, but that was not true, There had been a few ghouls among the thralls, and they died just the same.

    'But there is a much simpler solution.’

    He didn't have to enter the heart of the sinister blizzard himself or send one of his Shadows. He could simply... use an Inanimate object.

    A projectile.

    Indeed, the simplest solution was most often the correct one. The best way to kill the Winter Beast was to simply bring down a deluge of ranged attacks on its head... or whatever it was that it had instead of a head.

    Sunny had not been able to do something like that in the past because there was no telling where the titan's actual manifestation hid within the vast snowstorm. Now, however... his shadow sense could extend across many kilometers. Even if he failed to find the Winter Beast's precise location, he could at least pinpoint the general area.

    ‘That is if that thing even has a physical body. For all I know, it could be a sentient storm.’

    That was one of the risks he had to face. The other problem was actually delivering a ranged attack across such a vast distance. Not only was it physically hard, but the fatal cold and the hurricane wind raging within the snowstorm would become an obstacle... the closer one got to its heart, the worse they became,

    But where there was a will, there was a way

    And if that will was killing intent..., someone was going to die by the end of their battle, one way or another.

    Leaning forward to resist the frigid wind, Sunny smiled.

    ***

    Some time later, he was sitting on the snow, shielded from the wind by a wall of onyx scales. That wall, of course, was Serpent's side - his Shadow's Soul Beast form had grown truly Immense now that it was a Transcendent Terror.

    Serpent was still far from reaching Daeron's size, of course, but it was rather daunting nevertheless. Its maw looked like it could swallow an entire military APC whole.

    The two of them were in the middle of the icy plain that had been Erebus Field once. Most of the destroyed siege capital was buried under lava rock and snow, with only a few ravaged structures protruding above it like skeletal remains.

    Sunny was sitting with the tall peak of Mount Erebus behind him. In front of him, far in the distance, the world was slowly disappearing beneath a veil of swirling snow.

    The already dismal temperature was dropping by the minute, and the winds were growing more violent.

    He looked disinterested, staring at the snow with a frozen expression. The deep darkness of his eyes was cold and placid... like the surface of an ocean ready to explode into a raging storm.

    "It has finally arrived, huh?"

    Sunny took a deep breath and finally looked up, studying the distant snowstorm. Its approach was deceptively slow, but he knew that the wall of snow would consume everything around him very soon.

    Serpent hissed, the deep sound of its voice reverberating across the Icy plain.

    “...It's time to start, then."

    Sunny's words hung in the frigid air for a moment and were swiftly swallowed by the howling of the wind.

    As split second later, though...

    The world shook.

    Cracks formed on the vast field of snow, and far behind him, the mouth of Mount Erebus suddenly exploded with a gargantuan pillar of ash. A terrifying gust of hot wind rolled across the desolate landscape, pushing back the cold for a moment. Then, the volcano shone with an angry red glow, and a fountain of incandescent lava shot skyward with a deafening roar.

    Mount Erebus was erupting.

    Of course, it did not just happen to erupt precisely when Sunny needed it. Instead, he had sent Fiend into its depths to find a ripe magma chamber and cause an eruption when the time was right.

    With Goliath having already destabilized the entire region, doing so was not too hard. And with Fiend's robust steel carapace and fire affinity, he could survive inside a volcanic explosion without much trouble, Granted... the little hoodlum would not be happy with its master once he returned.

    If both of them survived what was coming next, of course.

    As the wall of swirling snow approached Sunny from the front, devouring the world, a rolling cloud of ash spread from Mount Erebus behind him. The stench of sulfur permeated the frigid air, cold wind crashing into a wave of heat in an invisible collision. Sunny's hair danced as a vast darkness swallowed the sky, plunging the icy plain in its shadow.

    As everything around him became enveloped in shadows, a sinister smile appeared on Sunny's pale face.

    He stretched, and then slowly rose to his feet.

    The cold darkness dwelling in his eyes finally exploded, turning into vicious glee.

    Looking at the approaching storm, Sunny raised his fist and said, his voice trembling with barely suppressed rage:

    "Hey, Winter Beast... do you remember me?"

    Then, his voice grew calmer, and colder, full of murderous wrath.

    "...Probably not, But I remember you.”
    Read more
    1. Offline
      ZEXOS
      ZEXOS
      24 ⋅ 0
      1654. Opening Salvo


      As ash rained from the sky and the ground quaked, Sunny inhaled deeply and extended his shadow sense as far as he could. Soon, his mind was flooded with an avalanche of sensory data, almost making him dizzy.

      He was still unaccustomed to how vast his sight was now. Of course, he didn't actually see anything... but after years of perceiving the shapes and movements of the shadows, it was not much different. Sunny had tested his limits while relying on his shadow sense to stay alive in the ocean, but the dark depths were different from land. They were unfathomable and empty, with nothing but the cold currents to see.

      Here in the Antarctic Center, though, there was almost too much to sense.

      Further, further, and further still... Sunny filtered out the useless data to keep his Transcendent mind from overloading and reached across many kilometers of cracking ice toward the approaching snowstorm.

      Soon, he sensed the shadows trembling from the lethal cold. Even they were not spared from the cruel tyranny of the Winter Beast.

      'Somewhere between forty and fifty kilometers.... this is as far as I can reach.’

      His shadow sense reached further than his actual sight, which was limited due to the curvature of Earth. And yet, it wasn't enough to find the heart of the vast blizzard - at least not until it got closer and enveloped him.

      'Still, it is already close enough for the initial greeting.’

      Sunny extended a hand. A thin pillar of darkness rose from the ground, growing to stand at almost twice his height. Then, it solidified, turning into a inky-black javelin with a needle-sharp tip. He grasped and weighed it, looking at the towering wall of swirling snow with a cold expression.

      He had created the javelin in the image of the Siege Souvenir - a similar weapon he had once fashioned to slay Goliath. The original Souvenir had been made from the quill of a Corrupted abomination, while this one was merely a manifested shadow. However, that shadow had been suffused with his Transcendent essence, and was thus equal to a Transcendent weapon.

      A uniquely powerful one at that, due to the fact that his soul had been altered by Soul Weave.

      Sadly, the shadow javelin lacked the powerful enchantments that the real Siege Souvenir had possessed. Still... it was not bad for an opening salvo,

      Exhaling slowly, Sunny took a step forward. Using the full augmentation of his five shadows, he infused a torrent of essence into his muscles and tendons, pushed against the ground with his feet, and strained his entire body to whip his hand forward and send the javelin into the dark sky.

      The moment he threw it, the world quaked again.

      A cloud of ashen snow exploded from under his feet, and a thunderous boom tore through the roaring of the eruption. There was an invisible shockwave that pushed the snow and the falling ash away, creating a sphere of clarity around his ominous onyx figure for a few fleeting moments.

      The javelin was like a black comet as it shot across the lightless sky, Its speed immeasurable.

      However... the actual process was rather dull. It actually took it an entire minute to reach the wall of snow and disappear into it. Twenty or so seconds later, Sunny felt his connection to the infused essence disappear.

      At the same time, he sensed the javelin plummet into the snow and shatter into countless shards of ice, which then dissolved into an intangible shadow.

      The corner of his mouth twitched.

      ‘...Not enough.’

      With the volcano erupting behind him and the gargantuan wall of snow that connected heavens and earth racing to swallow him from the front, Sunny stared forward with a dark expression and did some mental calculation.

      'I am no better than an artillery cannon, distance-wise, Granted, that javelin of mine was about twenty-five times heavier than an average artillery shell, Still, I would need to be inside the storm to reach its eye.’

      He grimaced with displeasure. All these mathematics... was not exactly what he had wanted. What he had wanted was to get up close and personal with the Winter Beast, and feel its blood flow down his hands. However, reality was never what one wanted.

      Well... maybe not, considering that Sunny had gotten exactly what he wanted. He had gotten his freedom. And everything else that had come with it.

      In any case, the distance was not that important. Much more important was the fact that the javelin had been able to survive for more than twenty seconds in the outer reaches of the snowstorm. That... was something Sunny could work with.

      Of course, he still did not know how long his missiles would last in the inner hell of the Winter Beast's domain.

      He shook his head, let out a resentful sigh, and glanced at his Shadow.

      "...War is a boring affair, isn't it, Serpent?"

      Serpent raised its gargantuan head into the air and hissed, perhaps expressing its solidarity.

      Sunny smiled.

      "Let's make it a bit more exciting, then."

      As the first torrents of snow swirled around him and plunged the world into unbearable cold, Sunny raised his head to the dark sky and laughed.

      A few moments later, his laughter disappeared abruptly, and his face suddenly turned still, Only his eyes gleamed with a strange, dark excitement.

      Something stirred in their depths...

      And at the same time, the darkness around Sunny stirred, as well.

      Dozens of inky-black pillars rose from the ground, followed by dozens more. They rose into the swirling stow like the fangs of a dragon, their needle-sharp points parting the wind with shrill whistles.

      Then, just as many tendrils of darkness wrapped around the shadow javelins, turning into inky-black hands. Each hand had seven fingers, ending with sharp claws.

      Sunny raised a hand, and at the same time, the shadow hands raised the great javelins.

      He stared into the swirling snow with a cold smile.

      He was not satisfied with being a Transcendent siege engine. To welcome the Winter Beast, he was prepared to summon forth an entire division's worth of devastating artillery.

      "I'm going to drown you, bastard."

      Letting out a low growl, he waved his hand forward.

      The world seemed to shatter from the thunderous roar when countless black javelins tore the swirling snow apart and shot into the depths of the raging blizzard.
      Read more
      1. Offline
        BlankDjinn
        BlankDjinn
        2 ⋅ 0
        Damn Sunny is really showing up today or I guess in the past him as a saint is epic and this is just him fresh he must be way stronger 😂 and he took out the winter beast as a pretty fresh one that’s insane!!!
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  4. Offline
    Dummybaron
    Dummybaron
    25 ⋅ 0
    What is weird about Winter Beast, is the fact that he is techencaly "Supreme". Well I know he is not, but his ability is technecaly Domain, It is manifistetion of "Idea of Cold and Frost", All things are affected by his Domain, non-living, living, Flesh, Mind, Soul even as Sunny says "Time itself feels slower, freezing" around Winter Beast, but he is Corrupted Titan, maybe Winter Beast is kind of between two Ranks, since he is Corrupted Titan he create impresion of a Supreme being. But what do you think?
    PS. I know he is not Supreme, I just saying it looks like manifistation of Domain.
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    1. Online Offline
      HeikyZX
      HeikyZX
      21 ⋅ 0
      Probably something around 'Half-Step' Supreme. Remember the 'Heart of Darkness' that Sunny and team found in the mine tunnel and the damned vermins that came out from it? If I recall correctly, it had been in an evolutionary transition before Sunny/Saint poked it for the laughs and survival, so maybe, the Winter Beast is all but Supreme but has yet to find the 'IT' to break through... dunno how it works for Nightmares.
      The Heart of Darkness had created something similar to Sunny's fragmented Shadow Domain from his Lineage but with raw darkness. The Winter Beast too, has something akin to a Domain but still lacking as it isn't 'fixed' or probably, lacks a 'foundation' of sorts.
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    2. Offline
      REN・DOVERঐ
      REN・DOVERঐ
      7 ⋅ 0
      If y'all remember the terror of the crimson spire in the forgotten shore arc, monsters evolve. Winter beast I think, doesn't have enough (for the lack of a better word) soul shards to evolve, so it's on the precipice of it's evolution. Half of the perks that come with being great but not actually great yet.
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