Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2685

On the shores of the Palace Island, a legion of shadows was drowning in the sea of wraiths.

The lake had become covered by billowing mist, glowing with ethereal light as an endless armada of ghastly ships glided across its waters. There were so countless of them that one could travel from shore to shore by jumping from deck to deck; each ghostly vessel carried scores of imprisoned souls in its hold, and as soon as they reached the Palace Island, those souls were sent forth to join the battle.

The island was being swallowed by mist, and the Shadow Legion was being besieged by the dreadful tide of wraiths.

Jet had found herself plunging into the familiar heightened state of battle focus. The world had become both simple and profoundly intricate, void of emotions, but full of calculated intent. There was no past or future in that world, only the present moment — only action and reaction, cause and effect, happening so rapidly that they were almost one and the same.

Combat was simple.

It was really the simplest thing in existence, both in principle and by definition. That was because combat only had two components — choice and execution. Execution was a foregone issue of matching action to its intent, while choices were easy to make by always striving for optimal efficiency. Efficiency of movement, efficiency of emotion, efficiency of thought... the most efficient move was always the most economical, the least wasteful, and therefore it was always the simplest. Made up of these simplest choices, combat was simplicity itself.

Perhaps such an approach was not very elegant, but then again, the same people who critiqued Jet for lacking refinement were the first ones to tremble at the sight of her blade.

So who cared?

She definitely couldn't give less of a damn. The only thing that mattered was slaying the adversary and staying alive... well, alive-adjacent, at least.

‘Haa..."

Jet felt very alive at the moment.

That was because the Mist Blade had reaped countless lives — or whatever the wraiths possessed instead of lives — and raging torrents of essence were pouring into her starved soul.

With every phantom she destroyed, more jagged fragments were added to her shattered core, as well. Jet was a veteran of countless battlefields, but she had never reaped such a bountiful harvest of powerful souls. It would have been exhilarating if it weren't so daunting... if she had the capacity to feel exhilaration while chillingly making an endless amount of optimal choices.

Time flowed slowly, each moment encompassing countless actions. Jet, meanwhile, moved with the speed of lightning — or maybe with the speed of the last electric impulse that traveled through the nerves of the dying before they were embraced by darkness.

There were wraiths all around her. Their ghostly bodies were ethereal and insubstantial, but that did not mean that their weapons could not cut her, could not bring her down. So, she had to stay ahead of an endless avalanche of deadly blows — either by staying on her toes and being faster than death, or by killing those who aimed at her faster than they could kill her.

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