Shadow Slave-Chapter 2287: Will to Kill

Slayer was a strange creature. She was a Shadow whose dark depths were illuminated by the silver light of pure soul essence. She wasn't exactly Supreme, but she wasn't exactly Transcendent either—and even though she fought under Sunny's dark banner, she wasn't loyal or devoted to him.

Her prey, the Great Tyrant controlling a huge portion of the hideous swarm, was also a rather strange creature.

At first, Sunny was sure that black centipedes were no different from a mindless crowd — they were not controlled by anyone and obeyed only by their animal instincts. It was only after suffering several crushing defeats that he realized that there was some kind of guiding force behind them. But even then, it took him a long time to discover the Tyrants...

too long, considering that he was almost omniscient when his sense of shadows extended in all directions.

As it turned out, the Great Tyrants of the Black Centipede Tribe were elusive creatures. It was difficult to make out their vague shapes, and it was even harder to catch them off guard — because they also existed in a transitional duality, divided into two states.

Only unlike the Slayer, who was torn between two ranks, the Centipede Queens seemed to exist in fleeting intervals between two moments. At least, that's the conclusion Sunny came to after several failed attempts to kill them.

These Great Tyrants did not exist in the present, remaining forever hidden in the past and the future. And since it was impossible to destroy something that did not exist, Sonny failed time after time.

This ability was, to put it mildly, strange and paradoxical. However, it was precisely this kind of unreasonable power that Sunny expected from creatures of Great rank.

Apart from the protective camouflage of time, the Centipede Queens were huge, encased in an intimidating shell of impenetrable chitin, capable of spawning an endless stream of lesser abominations and usually safely hidden in their fortress-like nests.

As far as Sonny could tell, there were seven of them, and today his goal was to kill at least one.

Dealing with six all-consuming swarms was no easier than dealing with seven, and the orphaned centipedes would most likely just join the armies of the remaining Queens, making them stronger. However, it would still be a turning point in his war with the Black Centipede tribe.

After all, as soon as one of the monstrous queens joins the Shadow Legion, she will be able to control the thousands of phantoms of her fallen descendants who were already there. Thus, his own growing swarm of hideous centipedes would become many times more deadly in an instant.

So being beaten up by a Murderer and feeding her his blood was a small price to pay.

While one incarnation of Sunny was distracting the Devils guarding the Queens, the Slayer was sitting in ambush. It wasn't easy to escape from the endless stream of Nightmarish Creatures, many of which possessed great strength and powerful sensory organs that people hadn't even heard of, but she managed to stay hidden even under their noses.

Or what the monstrous centipedes had instead of noses...

Anyway, the Slayer stepped out of the shadows and sent an arrow flying. She had always possessed a chilling power, and now she was being enhanced by Sonny. He shared the Slayer's feelings, sensing the deadly precision of her movements, her calm and ruthless determination to kill, the cold lethality of her willpower.

The Great Tyrant was a terrifying creature—one of them was enough to destroy an entire continent in the waking world, turn huge cities into ruins, and devour hundreds of millions of unfortunate souls in a matter of days or even hours.

Everything about them represented tyrannical might and inevitable terror. Their towering bodies could crush mountains, and their impenetrable armor easily deflected even the most terrifying attacks.

Still, the Assassin's arrow easily pierced through the Centipede Queen's head, as if it had encountered no resistance.

This was because her will was stronger than the will of the Great Tyrant. Not only was it stronger, but it was also sharper, being shaped like a penetrating blade rather than a falling hammer.

.. So it can be done like this...'

Even in the midst of a battle, Sunny didn't miss the chance to learn a new lesson.

He had already completed his Transcendent Martial Art. His swordsmanship didn't require any further breakthroughs—however, the Transcendent Martial Art as a whole could still be elevated to a Supreme Martial Art.

The difference between them was simple. The Supreme Martial Art contained a whole new dimension—invisible and abstract, but nevertheless vital. It was a dimension of will.

To master it, Sonny had to learn how to pour his will into every movement and blow, wielding it with the same subtlety and precision as with a sword. He had already made his first breakthrough in the battle with Anvil, having studied the Supreme Martial Art of the Sword King, and had made great progress in mastering the Will over the past year.

But he still had a lot to improve, and there was no better example to follow than the Killer.

After all, the Assassin was an ancient and highly skilled assassin. She has existed much longer than Sunny, hunted many more creatures than Sunny, and honed her Will to a much more deadly blade than Sunny.

Otherwise, she wouldn't have been able to survive in the Shadow Realm for thousands of years, refusing to succumb to death.

'...Interesting.'

The arrow pierced the Centipede Queen's head, but it did not kill the terrifying creature. Moreover, the damage caused by the arrow turned out to be much more modest than Sunny expected.

He thought for a split second.

'Ah, so that's why. Understood.'

In a battle of this level, the Will was both a weapon and an armor, playing a role no less important than the objects themselves. However, she did not exist on her own. The will needed a means of expression, and that means, naturally, was the person to whom it belonged.

But in reality, everything was a little more complicated...

It seems that the Will had to be expressed directly — the fewer intermediaries there were between the source and the target, and the closer the point of contact was, the more effective the result was.

In this case, the source of the Will was the Killer. Sunny was also involved in the process—not because he was strengthening her body, but because he created her bow and arrows, imprinting his Will on them.

However, the combination of their willpower that was supposed to crush the Centipede Queen only slightly injured the creature. This was because the Assassin did not express her Will directly—instead, her Will was transmitted by an arrow over a vast distance.

Her willpower seemed to dissipate due to the distance and the involvement of an intermediary.

In other words, if the Slayer had struck with her bare hands, then there would have been a maximum amount of Willpower in the attack. Using a sword would also be highly effective, as she would hold it in her hand, channeling her Will through it.

However, ranged weapons were an incomplete container of Will. The bow was somewhat better than other weapons in this respect, since it at least had to be pulled by the archer's hand, using the archer's strength. A crossbow would have performed worse, and a bullet would have contained very little Willpower—if it had at all.

Unsurprisingly, modern weapons lost most of their effectiveness when used against Nightmarish Creatures of Fallen Rank and above. Even at this level, Will already played an important role... Impersonal attacks couldn't penetrate the armor of latent Will that these creatures possessed.

But the sword that was used by the Awakened Warrior could.

Sonny whistled.

"This is quite interesting. And, of course, it's completely unscientific."

In addition, there was an interesting puzzle related to his will as a Shadow Lord, the manifested shadows, and their ability to direct his Will.

However, he would have to think about that later...

and right now, he still had to finish off the wounded Great Tyrant.

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Although ranged weapons seemed less effective against truly powerful creatures, that didn't mean they were useless. It was just that it required a lot of skill from whoever wielded it—skill that the Slayer possessed in abundance.

That was why her arrow easily pierced through the Centipede Queen's head. Even though she didn't do too much damage... That wasn't her goal.

The arrow that the Killer chose to start shooting was special: Sunny made it inspired by a Memory [In Case of Emergency] that belonged to Rain, a belt that could fix her position in space and was supposed to save her life in case the Cloud Curtain in God's Grave ruptured without warning.

The purpose of the arrow was similar — it was supposed to root the enemy in place.

Of course, the Centipede Queen was too powerful and possessed too terrifying a Will to be slowed down by enchantment for a long time. In fact, she was freed from the enchantment a moment later.…

But in that short moment, the Great Tyrant was completely revealed, rooted not only in space but also in time, and therefore stripped of his strange camouflage.

At the same moment, three more arrows slipped between the cracks in the Queen's indestructible shell.

They caused much more damage.

...In fact, the damage they inflicted was catastrophic.

The colossal centipede's neck exploded from the inside, sending whole chunks of flesh and cracked chitin flying into the air. Rivers of blood gushed down like crimson waterfalls, and countless small abominations shuddered, losing their cohesion.

The Centipede Queen let out a high-pitched squeal and swayed, expressing her pain and fear. The Great Devils who had gone to deal with Sunny rushed back to answer their matriarch's panicked call...

but it was already too late.

The Slayer drew her bow again and sent another arrow flying.

A deadly arrow.

In a split second, the Queen's huge head was separated from her neck.