Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail Chapter 96: End of The Line (Rewritten)

While Seele was exchanging long-distance blows with the currently-transforming Cocolia, Sunny had taken on the intangible form of a shadow, coiling up the Engine of Creation as he approached the top.

Due to the fact that he needed actual shadows in order to instantaneously teleport, he could only use Shadow Step to move normally. Of course, the speed in which he traversed up the Engine of Creation was by no ans slow.

Additionally, the Engine of Creation was obviously not a living creature. Otherwise, Sunny wouldn’t have been able to use Shadow Step on it’s steel chassis.

At the sa ti, he had been observing clash between Seele and Cocolia — the latter had been encased in a cocoon. He was able to gleam a few things.

First of all, Cocolia’s strength seed to exceed that of the average Master. Although Sunny suspected that her skill and experience put her on a higher level than the rest, he wouldn’t have thought that she could casually make ice constructs that could break the sound barrier — at a massive scale too!

Being able to do one or the other was fine, and wouldn’t be sothing that would catch anyone’s eye. However, the amount of versatility she displayed was abnormal; especially for an Aspect that was focused on dealing minor amounts of damage to slowly freeze her opponent’s mind and soul.

To Sunny, this naturally ant that there were other forces at play.

Such as the Stellaron that was visibly glowing inside the cocoon.

He made the highly educated guess that the Stellaron was empowering her with the Path of Destruction. This must have caused her Aspect to mutate in a way, becoming sothing that can cause large amounts of devastation; which was ridiculously powerful, as her Aspect was already very suitable for close-combat encounters.

...Which ant that removing the Stellaron from the equation would be equivalent to bringing Cocolia back to her base state.

However, she must have been sowhat restricted due to her cocoon. As such, it would be better to end the battle as soon as possible rather than wait for an opportunity to remove the Stellaron.

Secondly, there were the intimidating claws that Seele was wielding. Not only did they seem to be easily controllable, but they also served as an extension to her Aspect. For example, one of them phased away as if it was an illusion, which was similar to her Awakened Ability. Plus, she was able to easily shatter the massive ice spear by simply swiping it with her claws.

Sunny didn’t believe that she had the raw strength to do so, as the ice constructs were ford from the soul of an Ascended.

Anyways, Sunny believed that the ferocious claws were from her Aspect Legacy, and she had figured out how to use it sohow. Based on her mismatched eyes — one purple, the other red — he guessed that the claws were an evolution of the state she showed at the orphanage in Rivet Town.

’All Serpent can do is take the form of a Dormant weapon, or guide my Shadow Essence...’

As Sunny inwardly complained about how unbalanced their Aspect Legacies were in comparison to each other, he noticed sothing strange:

As he was moving up the massive forearm of the Engine of Creation, the gargantuan automaton suddenly began to turn it’s head in his direction; sothing that it had never done since the beginning of the battle. It had simply swiped and slamd as it attempted to either blow them away, or crush them into small pieces of flesh.

However, the Engine of Creation was physically facing him despite never turning it’s head, ignoring Seele as it seed to almost stare right at him.

Or maybe it was. Maybe it was staring directly at Sunny.

His answer ca when a golden light began to coagulate around it’s head. Small particles began to gather together like moths to a fla, condensing into sothing tangible... sothing powerful.

The light was scathingly bright. As it gre brighter, the world around it began to seem darker and deeper, accentuating the radiant glow that was being expelled from the Engine of Creation.

Sunny imdiately stepped out of the shadows, slipping off the arm due to the steep angle it was at as at. He slid down, making sure that he was always physically touching the arm in case he needed to Shadow Step away. His eyes flickered to Seele, who continued to advance to the head. She slightly turned in his direction, causing their eyes to et.

Sunny didn’t say anything, indirectly signaling for her to continue onwards.

Besides, he doubted she could hear him with so much distance between them.

As the light began to restrain itself into a concentrated orb, sothing unexpected happened:

An explosion.

There was no warning. No tremor. No precursor bolt of lightning. Just light. A pulse of pure brilliance, suffusing the storm like a sun had ignited within the blizzard itself. It wasn’t above the storm; it was inside it, tangled in the snow, wrapped in the wind, and yet untouched by either. Fire and radiance blood in silence, swelling like a breath held too long, golden and imnse and terrible.

The snow caught it first — each flake lit from within, glowing like fragnts of stars. The sky, once shapeless and gray, beca a kaleidoscope of motion: fire reflecting off falling ice, light refracted through a billion tumbling crystals. It should have scorched everything. It looked like it could erase mountains.

But nothing burned.

The fire roared — but only with light. The wind still scread, still drove snow in wild arcs across ridges and valleys, yet the explosion seed to exist within the blizzard without disturbing it. No trees bent. No stones cracked. The snow didn’t lt. It just shimred, radiant and unreal, as the storm danced on.

And still the light expanded.

A slow, spiraling sphere of incandescent power, shot through with tendrils of violet and electric blue, twisting like roots in a void. Lightning spiderwebbed through it in total silence, caught in a cage of wind and snow. The mountains — as well as Everwinter Hill — were illuminated, outlines briefly carved in sharp relief, their faces pale and ancient in the glare — but they stood, unmoved.

Then, just as the light seed to reach its apex — just as the mind could barely comprehend how it hadn’t consud the world — the explosion began to fade.

Not in a blink, but gradually, like the closing of a colossal eye. The colors dimd. The light withdrew into itself, curling inward with elegance rather than fury. The snow continued to fall. The wind howled on. And the sky, wounded with beauty, slowly stitched itself closed.

It was like a black hole was spawned within it, sucking it in until nothingness was all that was left.

The explosion didn’t cause any harm. Instead, the only damage dealt was to the Engine of Creation itself.

It’s tallic face was scarred with scorch marks, the steel twisting into jagged, molten, and warped teeth. It’s glowing crimson eyes were nowhere to be seen, having been obliterated in the blast. The singular horn-like structure it had was completely lted.

A distorted voice spoke, bringing migraines along with it.

"The Engine of Creation was... tampered with?"

As Sunny looked a little higher, he found that Cocolia’s cocoon was unhard. Outside of so sudden winds, nothing was able to escape from the Engine of Creation’s head.

The explosion must have been an unexpected factor for her as well. Assuming that she was being honest, then it was possible for soone to have ssed with the robot, causing a malfunction.

Sensing an opportunity, Sunny once again dove into the shadows, breaking the slide he had been on.

"No matter..."

Ignoring Cocolia’s headache-inducing voice, he continued to glide across the surface of the Engine of Creation. Sohow, the beast of steel continued to move as it attempted to swat Seele away. It seed to ignore him; most likely because the tool that was ant to be used against him was destroyed.

However, Sunny did not grow complacent. Instead of quickly moving in a straight line, he spiraled up the Engine of Creation’s arm, taking a slightly slower path while staying unpredictable. This way, even if Cocolia had another way to attack him, then he could give her so difficulty in actually hitting him.

Surprisingly, he was able to reach the head without much of a problem. Stepping out of the shadows, he felt the stone boots of the Mantle of the Underworld grow hotter, as they were making contact with recently exploded tal. Without wasting any ti, Sunny readied his baseball bat as he looked upwards.

Augnted by three shadows and the Everwinter Night, Sunny pumped as much Shadow Essence into his legs as he could. With a powerful leap, a gale storm picked up as he rocketed through the sky.

Destination: Cocolia.

In all honesty, Sunny’s current position was far from ideal. Being in the air ant that he couldn’t retreat into the shadows, and that he didn’t have a good foothold to fight on. However, as Cocolia was vulnerable, he decided that it was a risk he needed to be willing to take.

He rembered the ti he got impaled by long-beaked birds.

’Sky battles... are really not my thing.’

As he prepared to slam his bat into the crystalline cocoon, a golden glow shone in his eyes. At the sa ti, the energy that coursed along his bat beca more dense, more intense, and more volatile.

All the rage, annoyance, and spite he had bottled up were being released into a final ho run.

In that mont, Sunny and Gloomy were one and the sa.

’Ah... so that’s what you are.’

Despite all the negative emotions that were flowing through him, Sunny couldn’t help but smile.

Suddenly, he heard a crack.

The world beca slower, and slower, and slower...

Everything seed to co to a standstill. He was only a few inches away from the cocoon, his bat almost grazing it.

But before it could, the cocoon was already breaking.

Shards of ice began to move out of place. They didn’t fall — Sunny was perceiving things too slowly for gravity to beco visible. Instead, they were simply pushed out of position, countless cracks reverberating through the still void.

Sunny was initially confused. He hadn’t even struck it yet.

Then, he felt depair consu him.

A pressure began to exert itself upon the world; incomplete, yet there nonetheless. An embryonic connection to the Universe was forged, a fetal demigod being birthed...

Sunny’s golden eyes began to darken, turning into a pair of pitch-black orbs that seed to contain an endless pool of darkness. The roots of his gray hair grew inky, a lightless color framing his head.

He hung limply in the air. His wide eyes were drawn to his chest.

An icy lance pierced through his lungs, his unbeating heart, and severed his spine. Both the front and back of the Mantle was shattered. His gaze trailed down the weapon’s cold edge, moving up the arm that led to the perpetrator.

Then, he saw her.

She descended like a celestial specter clad in frost and starlight.

Her form was lithe, sculpted like a warrior forged from the edge of the cosmos itself. Midnight-black skin shimred with the soft, shifting glow of distant galaxies, as if the void had been pulled taut over her fra. Jagged shards of crystalline ice jutted from her shoulders, hips, and legs — angular, elegant, and deadly — each piece gleaming with a cold, unnatural purity.

A radiant crown of ice rose from her head, sharp and regal, encircling her face like the halo of a frozen deity. Her eyes were hidden in shadow, lending her an unreadable stillness, an emotionless grace. Flowing from her back were long, translucent ribbons of pale fabric, like the trails of a cot, untouched by gravity, casting gentle arcs behind her as if moved by her very presence.

Every inch of her was contradiction — fluid and rigid, cosmic and elental, divine and dangerous. She did not walk. She existed — like a weapon too beautiful to be wielded, or a goddess carved from the void between stars.

Cocolia had escaped her mortal coils.

However, even as he faced the eternal despair of death, Sunny weakly smiled. He spoke in a broken, raspy tone. It was a miracle that he could speak despite his impaled lungs.

"So... do you like it...? Being a slave, I an."

There wasn’t much pain. Sunny couldn’t feel much of anything. Maybe it was because his spine was damaged.

Cocolia’s voice only grew more alien, as she shook her unrecognizable head with a vicious laughter. His question was blatantly ignored.

"Humanity... so weak and foolish. Always overestimating their abilities. Let bestow upon you... despair!"

Or rather, she allowed him to feel pain again.

It began with a sharp, biting pressure in his chest — subtle at first, like the sting of winter air drawn too deep into the lungs. But then it spread, fast and cruel, blooming beneath his skin with an impossible cold.

Sunny’s already-short breath hitched. His muscles locked. Then, he splintered.

Agony, pure and unrelenting, tore through him as the first spear of ice erupted from his side, splitting flesh and bone in a single, brutal motion. It didn’t slice — it grew, jagged and rciless, pushing outward with the slow inevitability of death. A second burst through his thigh, another from his shoulder. Each impact ca with a sickening crack, not just of bone, but of the very structure of who he was. Nerves fired like lightning. Vision blurred.

Sunny couldn’t scream. The cold stole his voice, froze it in his throat before it could beco sound. His soul was freezing, his mind shattering.

The pain was not heat — it was absence. An annihilating void where warmth had once lived, now replaced by crystalline death forcing its way through sinew and soul. His hands trembled as they rose, not to defend himself, but in futile instinct — his own body no longer obeying him, no longer his.

One final spear erupted through his sternum, a bloom of perfect frost that glittered even as blood dripped down its sides, steaming faintly in the winter air.

And then, silence.

Motionless.

Suspended in a grotesque sculpture of ice and ruin.

The cold held Sunny aloft, not as a man, but as a monunt to his end.

Cocolia looked at the corpse before her, her gaze incomprehensible. She loosened her fingers, allowing the horrid display to fall along with the Lance of Preservation.

After all, what use did she have for a weapon of Qlipoth?

Sunny fell through the air, his abyssal eyes completely lifeless.

And so, Lost From Light died.