Shadow Slaves
Chapter : The King of the Mountains

Turning towards the rumbling sound, many slaves raised their heads – only to see rocks and ice shards raining down on them from above. They instantly panicked, sliding away in a frenzy of screams. The shadows happily danced on the black rock as, entangled by the thick chains, the slaves fell to the ground and pulled the others along with them.

Sunny was one of the few people who remained upright, especially since she was prepared for something like this. Calm and collected, he stared at the night sky, his Attribute-enhanced eyes pierced through the darkness, and retreated one measured step. In the next instant, a lump of ice the size of a man's body struck the ground right in front of him and exploded, showering everything around him with sharp shards.

The others are not that fast. As ice and rocks continued to fall, many were injured, and some even lost their lives. Wailing of suffering filled the air.

“Stand up, stupid! Go to the wall!”

The veteran soldier - the man who whipped Sunny a few hours earlier - shouted furiously, trying to get the slaves to move towards a relatively safe mountain slope. However, before anyone could heed his orders, something big came crashing down, sending vibrations through the rocks beneath their feet. It fell right between the caravan and the mountain wall, making everything go silent for a few seconds.

At first, it looked like a lump of dirty snow, roughly round in shape and as tall as a horseman. However, as soon as the creature stretched out its long limbs and rose, it towered high above the stone platform like a terrible harbinger of death.

‘The height of the object was at least four meters,’ thought Sunny, a little surprised.

The creature has two stocky legs, a thin, dry body, a humpback, and a long, disproportionate multi-joint hand – two of them, each topped off with a set of terrifying bone claws, and, and the other two, this one is shorter, ending with a finger that's almost human-like. The thing that at first glance looked like dirty snow turned out to be its fur, yellowish-gray and tattered, thick enough to hold arrows and swords.

On his head, five milky white eyes looked at the slaves with insect-like indifference. Beneath them, a terrifying jaw with teeth as sharp as a razor half-open, as if it were anticipating. Thick saliva flowed on the creature's chin and dripped into the snow.

However, what frightened Sunny the most were the strange shapes that moved endlessly, like worms, under the creature's skin. He could see them clearly because, alas, he was one of the unlucky souls closest to the ugliness, getting a sickening first-row view.

‘Yeah, it's just... too much,’ thought, stunned.

As soon as Sunny finished that thought, all the chaos ensued. The creature moved, swinging its claws in its general direction. But Sunny was one step ahead: without wasting any time, he jumped to the side as far as he was allowed to comfortably place the broad-shouldered slave between himself and the monster.

His quick reaction saved his life, as those sharp claws, each along the length of a sword, sliced the wide-shouldered man a split second later and sent a stream of blood into the air. Wet drenched in hot liquid, Sunny fell to the ground, and her fellow slave – now only – corpses fell on her from above.

‘Shoppers! Why are you so heavy!’

Blinded for a while, Sunny heard a cold howl and felt a huge shadow pass by her. Immediately after, a deafening chorus of screams filled the night. Not caring about it, he tried to roll the corpse aside, but was stopped by a powerful jolt from the chain that twisted his wrist and filled his mind with burning pain. Confused, he felt himself being dragged a few steps, but then the chain suddenly loosened, and he could control his hand again.

‘See, things could get worse ..’

Placing his palm on the dead man's chest, he pushed with all the strength he had. The heavy corpse stubbornly rejected all his efforts, but eventually fell to the side, freeing Sunny. However, he did not have time to celebrate this newfound freedom, as his blood suddenly turned to ice.

Because at that moment, with his palm still clinging onto the bloody body of the broad-shouldered slave, he clearly felt something writhing under the skin of the corpse.

‘You just need to think about how things can get worse, right, stupid?’ he thought, and then flinched back.

Pushing the corpse with her feet, Sunny crawled as far as she could – which was about one and a half meters, thanks to the ever-present chain. He quickly looked around, seeing a bunch of dancing shadows and raging monster silhouettes amidst the cries of the slaves at the end of the stone platform. Then he concentrated on the corpse, which began to be shaken with increasing violence.

On the opposite side of the corpse, the crafty slave saw him with loosened jaws and a horrified expression on his face. Sunny waved to catch his attention.

“What do you see?! Away from her!”

The crafty slave tried, but fell straight away. The chain was twisted between the three of them, bound down by the weight of the wide-shouldered man.

Sunny gritted her teeth.

Just below his eyes, the corpse underwent a metamorphosis that triggered a nightmare. Strange bone growth pierced through his skin, extending like a nail. His muscles bulged and wriggled, as if trying to change shape. Nails turned into sharp claws; his face cracked and split, opening a crooked mouth with a single row of needle-like fangs covered in blood.

‘This is not true.’

Sunny twitched, feeling a strong urge to empty her stomach.

“That chain!”

The scholarly slave was only a few steps behind the cunning one, pointing to the shackles with a face as pale as a ghost. The statement was far from helpful, but given the situation, his shock was understandable. Being shackled was bad enough, but being shackled with such horrors was truly unfair.

But Sunny's conclusion that something is wrong doesn't come from self-pity. He simply meant that this whole situation was completely untrue: The spell, though mysterious, had its own rules. There are rules to what kinds of creatures can appear in a particular Nightmare as well.

However, the creature had clearly just created a lower version of itself an ability that belonged exclusively to the tyrants, the rulers of the Nightmare Spell, and the people above them.

What did this tyrant do in the First Nightmare?

How powerful is that [Fated] goddamn attribute?!

But there is no time to reflect.

Unfair or not, now there was only one person who could save Sunnyhimself.

The wide-shouldered man – left of him – slowly rose up, his mouth letting out a strange clicking sound. Without giving her time to fully wake up, Sunny cursed and jumped forward, grabbing the sagging chain.

The monster's one arm, now equipped with five serrated claws, shot forward to meet him, but Sunny avoided it with a single calculated move.

What saved his skin this time was not a quick reaction, but the simple presence of a mind. Sunny may not have learned good fighting techniques, as her childhood was spent on the streets, not in school. But the streets are also a kind of teacher. He has spent his entire life struggling to survive, quite often literally. That experience kept him calm on his shoulders amidst any conflict.

So, instead of freezing or being consumed by fear and doubt, Sunny acted instead.

Stepping closer, he threw the chain onto the monster's shoulder and pulled, clamping his hand against its body. Before the creature, which was still sluggish and dizzy due to its transformation, could react properly, Sunny wrapped the chains around him several times, barely saving his face from the bite of the monstrous creature.

Fortunately, the monster was unable to move his hand right now.

To make matters worse, the length of the chains he used to immobilize her was already gone, there was almost no distance between them.

“Two of you!” Shouted Sunny, speaking to his two fellow slaves. “Pull that chain as if your life depended on it!”

Because it is.

The crafty slave and the scholar gaped at him and then, understanding what he was thinking, began to move. Grabbing the chains from the opposite direction, they pulled with all their might, tightening their grip on the monster and not letting it loose.

‘Big!’ thought Sunny.

The monster inflated its muscles, trying to break away. The chain creaked, stuck in the bone spikes, as if it was slowly breaking.

‘Not so good!’

Without wasting any more time, he raised his hand into the air and caught the creature's neck with a short and thin chain connecting its shackles. Then he circled the monster at a quick pace and pulled it, ending with it back to each other as far as possible from its jaws.

Sunny knows that she is not strong enough to strangle a man with her bare handslet alone a strange and terrifying mutant like the one who tried to eat her. But now, using his own back as a lever and the weight of his entire body to pull the shackles down, he at least had a chance.

He pulled down with all his might, feeling the monster's body pressing down on him, bone spikes sweeping across his skin. The monster continued to thrash, clicking loudly and trying to break the chains that bound it.

Now there remains the question of what will break up over the dulurantai or the monsters themselves.

‘Dead! Die, motherfucker!’

Sweat and blood ran down Sunny's face as she pulled, and pulled, and pulled down with as much force as she could muster.

Every second feels like eternity. His originally small strength and stamina were quickly depleted. His injured back, wrist, and muscles pierced by bone spikes were in great pain.

And finally, Sunny felt the monster's body go limp.

A moment later, a somewhat familiar voice sounded in the air.

It was the most beautiful voice he had ever heard.

[You have killed an inactive beast, the Mountain King Larva.]