268 Clash

The Stone Saint walked toward the Black Knight with stalwart indifference. Her body shone with dark radiance, and there were wisps of ghostly grey fog dancing on her elegant armor. The ruby eyes of the taciturn monster burned with menacing crimson flames.

The darkness that served the devil had been vanquished by Changing Star's incandescent light, but the shadows populating the ancient temple only grew deeper because of it. Now, they were shifting, as if reaching toward the Saint to fall upon her shoulders like a mantle.

Without slowing down, the Shadow raised her shield and hit its rim twice with the edge of her sword, as though challenging the Black Knight to a battle.

With the two creatures finally facing each other, it became even more apparent that there was a mysterious connection between the two of them. Despite the fact that the Black Knight towered above the graceful living statue, their general appearance and the design of their armaments were eerily similar.

It was just that in front of the intricate stonelike armor of the Shadow, the devil's own formidable full plate, which had been masterfully forged from indestructible black steel, seemed almost… crude.

Facing the original masterpiece, he looked like a clumsy imposter.

Sunny knew that his intuition was right when he caught a hint of the same dim, nascent emotion that the Shadow had shown toward the walking colossus.

Despite the fact that the Fallen Devil was vastly more powerful than her and both outclassed and outranked her, witnessing him, the Stone Saint felt nothing but disdain.

Contempt, even.

All of these observations had not taken Sunny more than half a second. In the next moment, both creatures dashed forward and collided in a furious clangor of metal.

The battle had begun!

Now that his core was close to being saturated to the brim by the shadow fragments Sunny had collected from hundreds of Nightmare Creatures — and a few humans — the augmentation provided by the shadow was able to make him powerful enough to almost reach the level of an actual Awakened.

By the same logic, the Stone Saint should have been brought very close to the power level of a Fallen abomination. Sunny even suspected that she was enhanced by the shadow even more than he would be himself. The Shadow and the shadow seemed to intertwine perfectly, almost as if this was the true purpose of the augmenting facet of his Aspect.

The Saint had slaughtered two Fallen Beasts even before becoming a Shadow, although it had been at the cost of her life. What would she be able to do now, reborn and reinforced by the mystical power of his divine Aspect?

…Kill a deadly bastard of a Fallen Devil, hopefully.

But still, the gap between the two of them was just too vast. Even with the help of the shadow, the Stone Saint was clearly not a match for the Black Knight in terms of sheer power.

Luckily, she was not alone.

As the two creatures collided and turned into a whirlwind of steel, the humans joined the fight to support their monster.

Caster appeared at a terrible speed, striking at the giant black sword with his elegant jian. The ghostly green blade slid off the surface of the greatsword without any result, but the impact of his strike managed to slow the Black Knight by a fraction of a second.

That was all the Stone Saint needed to deliver a blow of her own. Closing the distance to the giant fiend in order to turn his size and reach superiority against him, she struck upward at the pommel of the greatsword with her shield. The hands of the Black Knight were thrown above his head, and using that opening, she bulldozed into his abdomen with her shoulder, sending the giant reeling.

The violence of the impact was so fierce that several fractures appeared on the surface of her stonelike pauldron. As the dull metal sound rang across the grand hall, shards of stone flew into the air.

But it was not in vain. The momentary gap in the defense of the devil allowed Nephis to deliver a devastating thrust with her silver longsword.

Enhanced by the annihilating white flame and the miraculous enchantment of the Dawn Shard, the sword hit against the breastplate of the Black Knight's armor…

And broke through, sinking deep into the body of the fiend.

For a moment, everyone froze, stunned at the ease with which they were able to pierce the seemingly impregnable armor of the Fallen Devil. Just a moment before, Caster's jian didn't even leave a scratch on the black steel of the fiend's greatsword…

But then, things took a sharp turn for the worse.

The Black Knight did not seem to care about several inches of incandescent steel penetrating his chest at all. Regaining his balance, he indifferently swiped his sword down, forcing both Nephis and the Stone Saint to stagger back. The black blade hit the marble floor, causing the ground to shake and throwing Neph to the ground.

Before anyone could react, the devil let go of the hilt of his sword with one hand and delivered a shattering backhanded blow to the Shadow. The strength of that strike would have been enough to pulverize any human, but the Stone Saint was made of a far more enduring material than flesh. Still, the living statue was thrown back like a broken doll.

Almost instantly, the Black Knight turned to Nephis once more. The terrifying sword flew into the air, ready to split her apart.

'I was right!'

A savage smile appeared on Sunny's face. Brandishing the Midnight Shard, he dashed forward and screamed:

"...Plan C!"

Plan C was very simple. It was born out of the prediction Sunny had made when discussing how they were going to kill the devil. He had suspected all along that since Neph was a perfect counter to the Black Knight's most dreadful power, he would concentrate all his attention on dealing with her first.

In short, the devil was going to make killing Changing Star his number one priority.

Nephis was indeed a perfect counter against the living darkness, but even better than that…

She was the perfect bait.