Shadow Slave novel Chapter 3068

It all happened quickly.

One moment, the children of Nether were motionless. The next moment, the square exploded in a storm of violence, its silence torn apart and swallowed by the deafening thunder of breaking stone.

Six of the fallen Stone Saints attacked. The seventh — their leader — remained motionless, still leaning on his greatsword. The darkness hiding behind the visor of his helmet was cold and boundless, full of chilling malice.

The power of nothingness he wielded washed over Sunny and Nephis, sapping them of strength.

Saint, meanwhile, seemed unaffected. She activated the [Shield of Nothing], stealing power from her fallen kin as well.

Her power was similar to that of the Great Devil, but there was a distinction between them. The enemy seemed to harbor a far greater amount of nothingness, and therefore, the effect of his nullification was more potent. He was capable of using it with greater precision, as well — after all, he had suppressed Sunny and Nephis without affecting his own companions.

Saint's field of annulment, however, did not make a distinction between friend or foe. So, when the [Shield of Nothing] activated, Sunny and Nephis fell victim to its denial, too.

Needless to say, it was an unpleasant experience.

But Sunny understood her logic. Their powers were already being suppressed, so adding more pressure was not going to make that large a difference. More than that, there were only three members in their small and daring expedition force — so two-thirds of it was being suppressed.

There were seven fallen Stone Saints attacking them, though, so when Saint activated the [Shield of Nothing], six-sevenths of the enemy force suffered from being denied their power... the math worked, even if it was counterintuitive. More importantly, there was a very practical reason why Saint needed to call upon nothingness — it was the swiftest of the seven Great abominations. Each of them wielded power over a single source element, and this one seemed to control time itself. He forced time to flow faster around him, while at the same time slowing its current around Saint.

As a result, in the blink of an eye, his spear was already a split second away from slipping into the thin crack between her helmet and her gorget, plunging straight into her neck.

When the field of annulment washed over the world, that power was denied — not entirely suppressed, perhaps, but definitely made weaker.

That slowed the swift abomination just enough for Saint to lean to the side and avoid the tip of the spear, then push it away with her shield.

At the same time, her sword lashed forward.

Saint used the enemy's speed against him, leveraging it to increase the deadly force of her tenebrous blade. In the next moment, something soared into the air in a swiftly expanding cloud of ruby dust — it was a spinning helmet with a narrow visor, its plume trailing behind like a torrent of darkness.

She had beheaded one of the seven fallen Stone Saints.

The Spell whispered into Sunny's ear:

[You have slain a Great Demon, Saint of Tainted Jade.]

Just like that, the seven enemies had become six.

The remaining six, though... dealing with them was not going to be easy.

One of the Great abominations seemed to wield a spatial power, having used it to instantly appear behind Nephis and Sunny. His war hammer was already falling down, threatening to squash Nephis like a bug — the size difference between them was vast, after all.

The fallen Stone Saint was almost ten meters tall, while Nephis was merely a human. On top of that, the attack had come unexpectedly and from behind her, leaving her little time to react.

She still sensed it, though.

‘Should I just die? Hell, why not...'

Sunny probably had a second before the same war hammer that had broken Nephis like a doll and sent her flying across the square came down on his head. Of course, unlike Nephis, he was wearing armor — and a dreadfully tough one, at that.

But that was the thing about war hammers. Their whole purpose was to deal with heavily armored opponents, and their beaks were designed to break through things that swords and spears could not pierce.

If Saint turned her head, Sunny would be able to see his enemy through her eyes and dodge, but considering how deftly the bastard twisted space, he doubted that dodging the incoming blow would be easy — or even possible.

Usually, Sunny would use Shadow Step in such a situation. But there were no shadows around him, so he couldn't.

He could not use Shadow Manifestation, either.

Even his most fundamental powers were weakened and suppressed by nothingness.

‘Half a second left...’

Sunny raised his head, staring blindly in the direction where he thought the fallen Stone Saint was looming above him.

At that moment, a bold idea surfaced in his mind.

'...Yeah. Let's try that.'