Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2893

The Deathless Spirit towered above the shadow of the Wolf, and in the darkness of the night, he seemed like a black mountain that obscured the distant, radiant ocean of stars. He might not have been stronger than the Sacred shade, but his Will was far superior...

Sunny was not even sure that calling it superior would be the right word. The difference between his own Will and that of the Archon was like the difference between a clear brook and a vast sea. Like the difference between a stone fortress and the boundless expanse of the wide world that surrounded it.

The Archon did not possess a weakness that Sunny could easily exploit, either.

In the battle against Abundance, Sunny had been able to lock it in space and slowly poison the enormous godworm with his Death Will — but the Archon was Deathless.

In the battle against the Rat King, Sunny had been able to destroy the single rat that was the source of the terrifying swarm, thus cutting its connection to the Puppeteer, and watched the rats devour each other to satiate their maddening hunger. But there was no single weak spot that could be used to destroy the Archon, and no one was in control of him.

In the battle against the Wolf, Sunny had been able to grasp the concept wielded by the enemy and personify its opposite. That allowed him to hold out long enough to use the Cursed Demon's own terrifying power to fuel the grand spell he had woven in advance, thus destroying it. But there was no spell that could help Sunny against the Archon...

And the Archon did not seem to wield any concept, either.

Or rather, it did, but it was of no help to Sunny.

After exchanging the first blows with the Deathless Spirit, Sunny had gotten a better taste of his Will. And what he found was that the ancient horror seemed similar to Azarax, the Plague of Steel, in some regard. There was almost nothing common between them, except for one thing that mattered most.

Azarax was Supreme, and therefore, his Will had an innate affinity — just like Sunny's Will was innately tied to death, while Neph's was connected to desire and longing. What of the Plague of Steel, then? What affinity did his Will possess? What concept did he personify, or at least would grow to personify if he ever underwent Apotheosis?

Sunny had racked his brain about it for a while, observing the ancient tyrant closely in the ferocious battles they fought. The answer he eventually arrived at was, needless to say, quite surprising.

The Deathless Sovereign's Will expressed only one concept, and that concept was... himself. The natural affinity of Azarax, the Plague of Steel, was to nothing more and nothing less than Azarax himself.

Perhaps he was too arrogant and full of deadly ambition to tie the concept of himself to any greater force — after all, as far as Azarax was concerned, there was no force and no element that was greater than him. In the end, all of existence, including all the elements and forces contained within it, was meant to submit and bow down before him.

The Archon was very similar, albeit for a different reason. The Deathless Spirit was not overcome by an insatiable lust for conquest, but whatever it had been, whatever concept he had personified, whatever kind of Apotheosis he had undergone was washed away by the curse of Shadow God and the merciless passage of years.

Now, he was an empty, fallen deity that personified nothing but himself. Whatever made him the Wandering Archon had been erased and swallowed by oblivion, and so, he wielded no power but the power of godhood itself — the power to reshape the world according to his Will.

On one hand, it was a great relief. After all, Sunny still remembered his terrifying experiences in Ariel's Game, especially the days that were mysteriously missing from his memory — the days of the battle against the eerie Snow Demon that had infected their minds. He also remembered the Cursed Demon Abjuration, which had come close to wiping out all of humanity during its battle against Nephis.

So, it was a boon that the Archon did not remember how to wield his powers, whatever those powers might have been. At the same time, it put Sunny at a disadvantage, because there was no concept for him to counteract or channel the opposite of. There was nothing for him to exploit, and so, all he could do was try to match the Deathless Spirit in a contest of brute force.

Luckily, the Wolf was not helpless in the fight against an overwhelmingly strong enemy. Yes, the Archon was far greater than it, towering above the giant beast like a dark mountain... but the Archon had been a human once, or at least a creature that resembled humans.

And there were very few things humans feared more than a predator stalking them in the night.

After that first clash, where the Wolf received a devastating blow, it changed tactics, channeling all the cunning and ferociousness of a primeval beast. At the same time, having become one with the Wolf, Sunny reshaped himself in the image of a wolf and sharpened his Will for a focused, singular purpose.

That purpose was to force a concept upon the hollow deity of Ariel's Hell, on the Spirit who had been the Wandering Archon once. The concept of prey.

When the Deathless Spirit and the Wolf clashed for the second time, the world rippled and twisted like a piece of crumpled paper. The Nightmare Desert shook.

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