Time was moving very slowly…
No, it was Sunny who was moving too fast. It almost felt as if the world had frozen.
The rain was suspended in the air, the fountains of mud had grown still, the distant figures of dying Awakened were like grotesque statues.
In this nearly static world, only two things seemed unbound by paralysis — the monstrous Saint in front of him, who was no slower than Sunny himself, and a bolt of lightning that was crawling across the sky, extending toward the ground as it forked and illuminated the bloody battlefield.
'Faster!'
Suddenly, a deafening roar exploded from Dire Fang's mouth, strangely distorted and haunting. It would have hit Sunny like a wall…
But he was prepared.
The [Silenced] enchantment of the emerald bone flute activated, creating a dome of absolute silence around him. Sunny passed through the sorcerous roar without being struck by its crushing power… however, behind him, Nephis had to endure its full weight without the protection of her flames.
Stripped of their augmentation, she couldn't resist it like she had before.
Erasing the image of her falling figure from his mind, Sunny concentrated on the task.
If anything, the importance of success had only become more stark now that his partner was debilitated. If he failed, both of them were going to die.
But he had already rejected the possibility of failure.
He was going to win. He was going to do what he promised to do. He was going to kill a damned Saint!
At that moment, Dire Fang was more than a chance adversary to Sunny. He was the embodiment of everything Sunny wanted to destroy — the rotten authority of the great clans, the vile curse of the Chain of Nightmares, the torturous brand of powerlessness that he bore on his soul ever since Falcon Scott.
The inescapable shackles of fate.
He was the enemy. A terrifying enemy, an overwhelmingly powerful enemy, an enemy that was nearly impossible to defeat.
But…
If Sunny somehow did manage to defeat him…
Then maybe he would be able to overcome the other impossible obstacles that pressed him into the ground, one day.
Sunny was tired of losing. He had lost in the Antarctic Center, and now, because of Mordret and his cursed schemes, he was on the verge of losing here in East Antarctica, as well. And so, he was willing to bet everything on this one strike.
He had no choice but to finish it all with one strike — not only because Nephis was weakened and vulnerable right now, but also because of the nature of the Aspect powers Dire Fang possessed.
The Saint's already terrifying physical might was augmented by rage and pain. If Sunny delivered him a serious wound but failed to make it fatal, then that augmentation would only explode further, turning his enemy into a truly unstoppable monster.
He only had one chance.
Sunny had already accomplished three incredible feats to earn that single chance. He had learned the secrets of Dire Fang's Aspect, deciphered the battle style of the Transcendent monster, and found a way to counteract his debilitating sonic attack. Now, all that remained was to cut him down with a sword.
Not that it would be easy.
The Saint was not waiting passively to be killed. He was already moving, rushing forward with speed that exceeded all reason. His claws were ready to tear Sunny apart, and his fangs were ready to sink into Sunny's flesh. Even though the gap of power between them had narrowed tremendously, Dire Fang still had an edge in terms of strength, weight, and sheer size.
But that was alright.
As a survivor of the Forgotten Shore, Sunny was a master of killing things that were larger and more powerful than him.
And while he had absorbed the essence of Dire Fang's battle style into Shadow Dance, the Saint had not gotten a firm grasp of his own technique yet.
How could he, when Sunny's technique was as formless and shapeless as shadows?
All Dire Fang could do was try and predict how his enemy would act based on his formidable experience of participating in countless battles. However, there was a problem with that approach, too.
That was because the Saint had never fought a shadow spawn before. He was still judging Sunny as if Sunny was a mere human.
But while Sunny still considered himself a human, he was also a bit more.
As the two of them closed the distance, prepared to strike, Sunny used the inherent flexibility of a Shadow Dance practitioner to bend his body in an extreme and almost unnatural way. At the same time, he used the physical characteristics of his fiendish shell to switch from running on two feet to a low, beast-like gait.
As a result, the Saint's claws tore through the raindrops above his head, while his momentum remained the same.
Sunny gritted his teeth and let out a bestial growl as he used all his prodigious strength to push himself off the ground and leap into the air.
Dire Fang was too fast and skilled to allow the unexpected attack to reach its mark, though.
A split second before Sunny could bring his sword down on the Saint's neck…
A massive clawed hand pushed forward, catching him in the chest.
The power of that blow was too terrible.
The onyx of the Mantle cracked and exploded, as if struck by five Transcendent swords. The manifested shadows comprising the shadow fiend shell were instantly sliced and torn apart.
In an instant, the shadowspawn was mutilated beyond recognition. The upper portion of his torso was entirely destroyed, exploding into a fountain of darkness. His horned head was severed and flew into the air. Two of his four arms were ripped off.
The entire mangled carcass was thrown back.
The Sin of Solace slipped from his fingers.
That was the thing, though…
The shell of the shadow fiend was a towering monstrosity that stood at almost three meters of height.
Sunny, meanwhile, was a young man of a rather modest stature.
So, he could easily change the internal structure of the shell in a way that would allow him to sacrifice the upper portion of it while remaining perfectly unscathed.
...Almost at the same time as Dire Fang's claws tore through the upper chest and neck of the shadow fiend, the whole shell suddenly lost its coherence, starting to dissolve back into the ethereal shadows.
And, just below the harrowing cut, the top of Sunny's head was revealed.
The dissipating shell was thrown back by the strike, but his own body, freed from its embrace, continued to fly forward like a bullet.
Time stood still.
Catching the hilt of the Sin of Solace with his own human hand, Sunny used the tremendous augmentation of shadow and flame to fill his muscles with dreadful strength…
And drove the tip of his sword into the Saint's bestial eye.
