Sunny manifested his creepy, crazy, and naughty shadows into avatars, and they clashed with the other three vessels of the skinwalker, creating a massive shockwave that broke the trees around them in half.
Sunny was prepared to move onto the next vessel when he sensed an enormous shadow lunging at him from behind.
He turned into a shadow, and the prominent figure harmlessly passed through him and landed on the moss in front of him with hatred in its eyes. It was a large black panther, silent stalker's transformation. The princess let out a menacing growl as she prepared to lunge at him again. Sunny shouted at Kai.
"Kai! They are all taken by the skinwalker!"
Kai had likely already been informed by Cassie who was watching through Sunny's eyes and saw the soul cores full of vile darkness in each person because a moment after Sunny had shouted Kai's name, his friend had already sent an arrow that shattered the trees around him with a devastating boom, flying at a vessel of the abomination forty meters away from them that one of his avatars was engaged in combat with.
The arrow pierced clean through its target so quickly that the second transcended vessel of the skinwalker's head exploded into a bloody mess that painted the trees a deeper shade of red. As the vessel stood there headless, another arrow immediately flew into where its heart was located. Before it could fall to the ground, Sunny took the arrow out of its heart and tore his hand through its chest, crushing its heart for good measure.
[You have killed a great beast. Your Shadow grows stronger.]
Without wasting a moment, Sunny threw the arrow in the air to Kai and took off to grab the other arrow as his friend simultaneously caught the arrow, nocking it in his bow and taking aim. This happened all within a matter of a few moments.
Silent stalker stared in confusion for a moment before Kai's voice resounded in the air.
"Move to your right!" Kai shouted at her from high in the air as he caught the second arrow, drawing it again and releasing it, then took another arrow from his quiver and released that in the exact moment.
Kai was hovering hundreds of meters in the air to get a bird's eye view of the entire battlefield. He took a moment to look at the handsome Saint known as Sunless, as an arrow he had shot at the skinwalker flew directly back at him.
As Kai snatched the arrow from the air, he nocked it, drew his bow, and sent the arrow streaking down to the vessels. As it tore through the air and broke the sound barrier, Kai took that small moment to look at the young man who seemed so eerily familiar to Kai, even though he had never seen his handsome face until a few months ago at his Brilliant Emporium. But it did pose a question that had been on Kai's mind ever since he revealed his identity at the beach last week.
Why would he hide such a face like that?
Shaking his head from such a thought, he let loose another arrow, silently appreciating that Saint Sunless was tearing whatever arrows were still intact from out of the ground and throwing them high into the air to Kai. In an instant, he had nocked it into his bowstring. Kai's muscles tensed as he drew back and released it onto the incoming threat.
As Saint Sunless manifested spike tendrils to help the others. Only a moment passed from when Kai shouted his command, and he watched Silent Stalker's body jerk to the right against her will. It proved life-saving as not a moment later, a transcended vessel of the Skinwalker with an arrow in its eye, smashed the ground where she was standing, creating a crater.
Meanwhile, on the ground just sixty meters away from everyone else, Moonveil was clashing with another transcended vessel, and Sunny noted that she must've been using her aspect on the nightmare creature, as none of its vessels had yet to use any of their powers. Still, in return, she couldn't either, though that didn't make her any less deadly after all, she was a princess of Song for a reason.
Dodging to move behind a tree and evade its attack proved ineffective as the creature shattered the tree in a single punch, sending the princess flying. She landed on the ground with a hard crash and looked up, cursing, as she quickly moved from her spot, for the vessel had already caught up to her the moment she landed.
"Fall!"
The creature immediately fell to one knee, making a crater in the ground with its left arm outstretched, where Moonveil had previously been.
Taking the moment that the handsome Saint Nightingale gave her, Moonveil sliced off the arm of the skin walker and drove her broadsword into its neck; it proved ineffective as the skinwalker barely acknowledged the wounds, which momentarily stunned the princess, but it didn't stop her from ripping the sword out of its neck, causing black blood to flow like a faucet before the wound closed at a frightening speed.
The skinwalker had already broken out of Nightingale's command and moved at terrifying speeds towards the princess of Song before a loud voice resounded in the air once more.
"Stop!"
Forced to obey Nightsinger's command again, the skinwalker froze in place for a moment, giving Moonveil time to back away. Because not even a moment after the archer's command, its arm began to twitch in resistance; its leg followed along with its other arm a second later. It was no surprise to Moonveil that Nightingale's command had little effect; the vessels of Skinwalker were great beasts after all. But it did buy Saint Sunless enough time to send spiked shadow tendrils piercing through its body.
From behind Moonveil, Mordret's reflection of Howl leaped into the air, then transformed into a giant, monstrous wolf, knocking the nightmare creature off its feet, sending it barreling across the forest. The reflection of Howl chased after in a blur of speed and caught up to it.
Before the Skinwalker could recover, Howl's reflection put her entire body weight as a wolf onto the transcended vessel of the skinwalker, crushing its bones in the process and clamping her massive jaws onto its arm and ripping clean out of the socket. The skinwalker let out a piercing, inhumane scream as black blood poured out like an open river of true darkness and moved to tear off the reflection of Howl.
Howl's reflection got off it, and the skinwalker moved to get up. Still, it was stopped short when Mordret's second reflection, the Lord of Shadows, stepped in front of it and drove his odachi into its skull, pulling the sword down with a hard tug and splitting the third transcended vessel in half. The reflection of Saint Sunless stared at it emotionlessly before six more of him appeared, and all broke into a sprint to the nine remaining vessels.
From his spot, Sunny watched as they began to engage in a death battle with six more vessels. He managed to peer into the soul of the reflection Mordret made of Sunny just before it took off and saw that it had six lightless cores. Mordret had done the most killing for a reason. Still, it was no surprise to Sunny that the prince of nothing would prioritize strengthening Sunny's reflection, as it was far more powerful than Lonesome Howl's reflection, and this was due to his transformation, which allowed him to have multiple bodies.
On the other side of the miniature battlefield, the Silent Stalker, who had long gathered her bearings, remained in her transformation, tearing her paws through the legs and then the head of the fourth vessel, killing it. Howl, who had been beside her sister, bit off the second vessel of the skinwalker's head, but not before it dug its fingers into her fur and ripped it open. Howl let out a cry of agony, then crushed its head between her jaws in a fit of rage, coating her canines with blood, and ripped out its heart with her claws, killing the fifth vessel.
[You have slain a great beast; Vessel of Skinwalker.]
There were only seven vessels left, as much as Silence hated to admit it, Saint Sunless worked seamlessly with everyone involved. He covered Moonveil's flank, attacking where she had no time to find an opening on the abomination.
Saint Sunless tossed the arrows that Saint Nightingale set loose on the skinwalker and hadn't broken on impact, back into the air where the archer floated hundreds of meters above the small battleground they had created in the forest and caught them without his gaze ever wavering, then nocked them into his bow, sending them tearing through the air.
All within a heartbeat.
But that was not all; what caught her attention the most was the way Sunless moved, exactly as Bin, Howl, Hel, and Revel had described what they witnessed at the nameless temple when they first met him. It was like a dance of death; any moves that he made had a purpose for the present and the immediate future, almost as if he could tell when the skinwalker would attack before it could.
'Foresight?'
No, that was impossible.
Only Saint Song of the Fallen had such an ability. But to be so skilled enough to make Silence believe that he did, even if only for a moment, wasn't an easy feat, not at all.
Silence regarded the mysterious saint with begrudging respect before moving alongside Howl to help kill the remaining vessels.
From fifty meters away, Sunny felt the shadows of Silent Stalker and Howl approaching, where Moonveil, himself, and Mordret's reflections were facing off against the remaining vessels. Sunny took a moment to sense his surroundings and noted that Mordret's original body was nowhere to be found.
He had a clue as to where he had disappeared to, but Sunny didn't get to finish the thought before the seven remaining vessels stopped in place. Their previously dead eyes widened with terror.
***
A strangely beautiful man walked through the calm waters and stared at a soul core that was once bright and radiant, but was now pitch black, filled with vile darkness. He smiled pleasantly, but immediately frowned when he laid eyes on the creature that caused it.
Mordret felt many things throughout his life.
He felt joy when he was set free by the blind witch and killed his captors in the night temple. He also felt joy when he conquered the second nightmare and was granted a new body.
He felt hatred when he was sold off to the dreamspawn by his father at the age of twelve, and still held that hatred all these years later.
But very rarely did Mordret feel fear; there were very few times he felt that emotion. The first time was after he conquered his first nightmare and was split into seven fragments as a result of his flaw.
The second time was whenever Mordret thought about the inevitable return of the dreampspawn, he knew that the monster wanted nothing to do with him anymore, as he had already gotten what he wanted from Mordret decades ago, the lineage of war. But that still didn't stop Mordret from being weary.
The third time he felt fear was when he encountered his defiled counterpart, the soul stealer, during the third nightmare. That creature alone was why Mordret refused to do no more than two soul duels simultaneously in fear that he would end up the same as his defiled self if he split any more than that.
However, over the past four years, he had attempted to conquer that fear by slowly increasing the number to three, then four, but he had never managed to do seven at a time, let alone twelve. This creature reminded him very much of his counterpart and Mordret himself, with its ability to take bodies, which is why he despised it.
It was also why Mordret let his reflections and companions kill five vessels of this abomination before challenging the remaining vessels to a soul duel. And not only that, it was because Mordret had a significant advantage over the Skinwalker, something he had noticed while taking people who turned out to be vessels of the Skinwalker over the years.
The great beast couldn't yet properly use weapons.
It was why Mordret was confident enough to challenge the creature in the first place. But that didn't make it any less dangerous than it was now.
Walking closer to it, the creature sensed his presence and growled at him in recognition, and was in front of him in the blink of an eye. In response to its approach, Mordret calmly extended his hand, having already summoned a memory that this vessel had wielded before dying and being taken by the Skinwalker. Simultaneously, he did the same inside the soul seas of the other six vessels and offered them a pleasant smile.
"You are still an unsightly creature. I'm afraid there can only be one of us inside this soul."
Mordret swiftly sliced its neck, beginning the soul duel.