The fifth and the sixth Abilities were new.
[Mark of Shadows]… was a peculiar Ability, and one Sunny knew the least about, since there was no good opportunity to experiment with it.
Ability: Mark of Shadows.
[Mark of Shadows] Ability Description:
«Soul Serpent allows the Lord of Shadows to mark his vassals.»
Sunny honestly did not know how it worked, exactly, so he had allowed himself a few liberties when composing that description. He had been able to find out that Serpent could… create lesser versions of itself, for lack of better word. Theoretically, Sunny could place a serpent tattoo on someone, after which a little soul snake would be born in their soul.
What was that snake capable of? Was it a new being or a manifestation of Serpent? He wasn't sure. Sunny had tried to mark his Shadows, but since they did not really have normal souls, the Ability did not work. He had also tried to mark Rain, but nothing happened. He guessed that the soul needed to be at least Awakened to nourish and accommodate the little soul snake, and for the Mark of Shadows to take root.
And since there were no other volunteers, his experiments had ended there… for now.
All he could tell was that the [Mark of Shadows] was connected to the [Grace of Shadows], or maybe even an evolution of it. It was a way to share some benefits of being the master of Soul Serpent without parting with it entirely.
And finally… there was the [Slaying Blade].
The most mysterious of Serpent's Abilities.
What was written in the runes had mostly come from Sunny's intuition, corroborated only slightly by careful observation. Something like that… was hard to observe.
Ability: Slaying Blade.
[Slaying Blade] Ability Description:
«When in its Soul Weapon form, Soul Serpent embodies the Death aspect of Shadow God. As such, it ignores the will of greater beings.»
Perhaps Sunny should have capitalized the word «will». Creatures of higher Ranks, such as the Corrupted Tyrant, Condemnation, had a way of bending the world to their will…
And what was the foremost will of all living beings?
The will to survive. The will to continue existing.
Therefore, killing truly powerful beings was not simply a question of cutting them down. The killing intent of the murderer had to overpower their will to exist, as well. Without the tyrannical will to kill, the sharpest of blades would fail to cut their skin, and the most gruesome of wounds would fail to extinguish their lives.
…Unless Soul Serpent was involved.
From what Sunny could tell, when Serpent assumed its Soul Weapon form, it was as deadly to the greater beings as it was to mundane creatures. He did not have a very rich experience of slaying truly powerful abominations, so this statement was inconclusive… but, from what Sunny had seen, it was also undeniable.
He wasn't sure how it worked, exactly — maybe his killing will was enhanced, maybe the will to exist of the enemy was weakened… or even completely ignored. In any case, he was certain that the Serpent's Soul Weapon form was unexplainably deadly.
Which wasn't particularly useful to him, for now, since most of the enemies he fought did not possess that much of the Will.
And yet, Sunny felt that as his power continued to grow, the caliber of the enemies he faced would also become increasingly inconceivable… and, therefore, the [Slaying Blade] would gain more and more importance in the future. Tremendously so.
«If I live long enough to see that future.»
As he thought that, there was a sound, and he sensed movement at the periphery of his shadow sense.
Soon, a luxurious PTV awkwardly made its way through the snow and stopped some distance away from him. The passenger door opened, and a familiar figure climbed out of the vehicle, looking around with a deadpan expression.
Sunny dismissed the runes and smiled behind the mask.
Nephis had arrived.