Shadow Slave novel Chapter 3162

During the awe and horror of the dawn of time, the shadow had confined its senses within the cave, trying to make itself blind to the world. It wanted to become as small as possible, so that the terrifying giants that walked the earth could not see it — could not sense it watching them, and therefore become aware of its existence.

Now, however, the shadow was forced to take a look outside.

In an instant, its senses spread across hundreds of miles, encompassing the movement and texture of every creature, insect, and blade of grass swaying in the wind in the lands that surrounded its shelter.

...The world had grown small while the shadow rested.

Its cave had ended up in one of the mortal realms. The boundary of the realm felt like a moving stream to the shadow's senses — easy enough to cross, if one didn't mind getting wet.

Not that the shadow wanted to do such a thing.

Its senses encompassed a region of the primal realm that was covered by craggy mountains, green valleys, and forests. The youthful world was pure and untamed, unsullied by the devastating splendor of civilization. Myriad beasts and creatures populated its wild expanse...

And abominations, too.

They hid in the dark corners of existence, just like the shadow did. They were the beings of the Flame who had been corrupted by the Void, driven mad by the insatiable need to destroy that which they had lost, all in a futile effort to reclaim it.

They roamed the world, hunting the children of the Flame in a tortured frenzy, and infected everything around them with the appalling rot of Corruption.

Where there was life, there was Corruption. And those Corrupted were the rulers of all lands that fell beyond the cleansing fury of the gods.

The gods were great and vast... the gods themselves were beings of the Void. So what did they care about these small abominations?

The shadow did not care, either.

However, now, there was a scent of blood drifting into the cave it had chosen as its shelter. Out there near the entrance, a human was crawling across the jagged stones, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. The man was dressed in crude garments made from fur and hide, his weathered face hidden by a bushy beard. His body was covered in gruesome wounds, and his eyes were full of pain and despair.

As a hoarse groan escaped from his mouth, a grating sound came from behind him. There, a towering abomination broke through the wall of tall trees, shattering them into splinters. It was tall and imposing, blood streaming down from between its bestial fangs, its vaguely humanoid shape both gaunt and menacing.

The abomination was wounded, too, but it was nowhere near the man’s grievous state. It fell on all fours, glaring at him with murderous fury. Its powerful hind legs tensed, ready to send the creature into a deadly lunge, and its long tail whipped like a bone spear.

The man was about to perish gruesomely in the creature's hideous maw.

The shadow did not care whether he lived or died.

It had experienced hundreds of thousands of deaths, after all, so what was one more? It was not worth the effort of feeling anything. All things died, in the end. Their passions, their aspirations, their pain, their despair — none of it held meaning to the shadow. The accumulated weight of its myriad lives made everything seem fleeting, and it had lost the desire to care about small things.

All that was left was indifference.

The shadow did, however, feel a strange impulse to intervene.

It was not because the shadow felt compassion toward the man or considered his life valuable. Rather, it was because at that moment, the shadow discovered a new fact about itself.

It disliked Corruption.

In the vague recollections of its previous lives, the shadow remembered being constantly haunted by the corrupting influence of the Void. In fact, most of its lives seemed to have been spent in the throes of Corruption.

Sometimes, the shadow was born as an abomination. Sometimes, the shadow was born as a child of the Flame, lived a life full of joys and sorrows, then underwent the torturous transformation of being tainted by the Void and spent myriad years roaming the world consumed by madness and agony.

And throughout all those lives, the shadow itself — the being dreaming the nightmare of myriad lives — had to arduously resist the Corruption, preventing its seeds from taking root in its soul. That was a reason why the shadow's dream was a nightmare, as well.

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