Fate's Slave - Shadow Slave X Honkai Star Rail

For a handful of heartbeats after Sunny’s quiet vow, the battle retained its fragile balance.

Then the cracks began to show.

It was not obvious at first. The white tiger still tore across the battlefield in streaks of lightning. Dan Heng’s three intertwined dragons still howled as fused elements ripped apart entire groves of carnivorous growth. Fu Xuan’s calm, steady cadence of warnings continued to thread through their minds.

But Sunny could see beneath appearances.

He had learned long ago how to look under souls.

The battlefield, to him, was layered. Overlapping silhouettes of flesh and souls, currents of Essence flowing like rivers, fractures forming like hairline cracks in porcelain.

Jing Yuan’s soul was radiant — sharp and ferocious — but the brilliance was dimming. Each thunderous strike, each manifestation of the Lightning Lord, burned fuel. The reservoir beneath that burning star had dropped below a third.

Fu Xuan’s was worse. Every projected future, every forced deviation from inevitability, consumed Essence like a glutton. She had pushed herself far beyond safe margins.

Dan Heng, strangely, remained comparatively stable.

His Essence flowed in a closed cycle. When decay spread, it fed something within him. The three dragons have not slowed down one bit, launching attacks of cataclysmic magnitudes. He was strained — but he was not emptying.

And yet...

The speed at which they wounded Phantylia was insufficient.

Her reservoir was vast. Each slash carved from her form drained Essence — but not quickly enough. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

At this rate, Jing Yuan and Fu Xuan would collapse first.

Sunny’s jaw tightened.

Above them, the sky warped.

A seam of darkness tore open high above Phantylia’s crown. It was thin at first — a fracture in space — then it widened into a yawning rift.

A hailstorm descended.

Arrows fell in a silver torrent, thousands upon thousands of them. They were slender as needles and carried only a fraction of the killing force wielded by Saints — but their number was overwhelming. They rained upon Phantylia’s head, piercing into her scalp, her shoulders, her lotuses.

Each strike was trivial.

But together, they were maddening.

Phantylia flinched — not from pain, but from irritation. Her focus fractured for the span of a breath as she raised an arm to shield her face from the endless rain.

The white tiger laughed.

A booming, thunder-laced sound that cut through the chaos.

"Ha! Well shot!"

Lightning crackled around him as he leapt upward, claws extended.

"Lady Yukong, you have my thanks!"

From somewhere beyond the battlefield, the arrow storm intensified in response — precise, disciplined, relentless.

Dan Heng did not waste the distraction.

The three dragons spiraled outward in a widening helix. Lightning-infused flame roared downward in a spiraling column. Frost-laced thunder speared into Phantylia’s exposed flank. Decay bloomed across her skin like spreading ink.

Jing Yuan followed.

The Lightning Lord manifested above her head in a towering, radiant apparition. Its massive guan dao descended like divine judgment, cleaving downward with catastrophic force.

For a moment—

Phantylia was buried beneath light.

The roots beneath her shuddered. Lotuses shriveled under the combined assault. Amber, violet, and electric blue illuminated the entire Ambrosial Arbor.

Sunny almost allowed himself to hope.

Phantylia’s laughter cut through the light like a blade.

"Enough."

The word carried weight.

Fu Xuan inhaled sharply.

A vision struck all four of them simultaneously.

Instantaneous annihilation by an unknown force.

Jing Yuan impaled through the abdomen, spine shattered.

Dan Heng’s chest imploding inward as if crushed by an invisible hand, dragons unraveling into smoke.

Fu Xuan severed at the shoulder, arm spinning away through the air.

Sunny’s skull split open from crown to brow.

The vision lasted less than a heartbeat.

They moved.

...Too slow.

The world snapped.

A force like compressed inevitability detonated outward from Phantylia’s core.

Jing Yuan’s roar turned into a guttural choke as a hole punched cleanly through his gut. Lightning sputtered. The white tiger stumbled midair, crashing into the roots below in a storm of dissipating electricity.

Dan Heng’s maws shrieked as his chest caved inward. Ribs shattered. The three intertwined forms collapsed, slamming into the ground in a tangle of scaled bodies and fading elemental currents.

Fu Xuan was flung back as an arm was messily severed.

Sunny felt impact.

Then pain.

Something struck his head — not a blade, not a vine — but a focused, crushing point of force. Blood poured down his face instantly. His vision doubled, then tripled. The world tilted sideways.

They had mitigated the fatality of the attack...

But grazing inevitability was still catastrophic.

He dropped to one knee.

The battlefield blurred, sound dulling.

The last thing he registered was Phantylia’s satisfied expression as she prepared to finish it.

...As the countdown in Sunny’s disoriented mind ended, he smiled, hearing a voice echo from a far corner of the battlefield:

"Rematch!"

Sunny blinked.

He was seated.

Across from him, Phantylia sat as well.

They were positioned at a low, lacquered table. The Celestial Jade board lay between them, tiles arranged in immaculate order. The air was quiet, untouched by blood or decay.

His pain faded like receding tidewater.

The wound on his head remained open — he could feel the tacky warmth of blood in his hair — but it no longer throbbed. The agony was muted, deferred.

Phantylia leaned back slightly, folding her fan.

"Even if you win again and heal yourself with Dragons, or exhaust my Essence with Bamboos, what then? You may mend your own injuries. But your companions? They are nearly spent. The next exchange will end them."

She smiled.

"It is over."

Sunny reached for the tiles.

He did not respond for a moment.

"What else? I’ll just kill you."

Her lips curved in faint irritation.

"What a bore."

***

They began.

The tiles clicked softly as they built their walls.

Celestial Jade was a game of strategy and memory. Every discard altered the flow of odds between them.

Sunny’s mind sharpened.

The world narrowed to tiles.

Bamboo. Circles. Characters. Winds. Dragons.

He watched her discards.

She played aggressively, attempting to corner him into defensive posture. Her tiles moved with unnatural confidence, like someone accustomed to inevitability.

Sunny did not rush.

He allowed two early melds to pass. He built quietly. Seven pairs forming beneath her notice.

She attempted a concealed Kong. He adjusted.

He discarded East Wind intentionally. She took it.

Three turns later, he revealed.

Winds.

A pure wind hand amplified by concealed draw.

The board flared.

Invisible pressure struck Phantylia’s soul directly.

Her soul flickered as slicing currents of intangible wind carved through it. Sunny felt nothing in return.

He had not suffered soul damage, so his soul would not be healed.

The board reset.

Second round.

Phantylia’s smile was thinner now. She shifted strategy, forcing faster exchanges. Sunny matched her pace.

This time he built Dragons deliberately.

Red. Green. White.

Triplets forming in silent symmetry.

She noticed too late.

The board ignited crimson.

Across the battlefield — wherever their bodies waited — Dragons manifested as consequence.

Multiple slash wounds opened across Phantylia’s physical form simultaneously. Deep, overlapping cuts carved across her body.

Sunny felt warmth spread through his own body.

On the battlefield, his fractured ribs knit. The wound in his side sealed. The bleeding in his scalp slowed, then reversed.

Her eyes narrowed.

The board reset once more.

Third round.

She played ruthlessly now, attempting to block his combinations. Sunny discarded inefficiently on purpose, luring her into overextension.

He built Characters.

A straight hand with concealed finish.

He drew the final tile.

The board chimed.

He did not know what Characters inflicted upon her, considering the effects seemed to be random.

But he felt it.

His perception sharpened. Edges clarified. Depth expanded. The subtle layering of Essence became vivid, almost painfully so. It was as if someone had adjusted the focus of his entire being.

Phantylia’s expression had grown cold, clearly bothered by an unknown effect.

The board released them.

***

The battlefield returned in a violent rush of sound.

Jing Yuan and Dan Heng were already in motion, having resumed combat in the suspended interim. Fu Xuan hovered at mid-range, blood still dripping from her severed arm, expression pale but resolute.

Phantylia’s body bore the slash wounds from Dragons. Her aura flickered where Winds had cut into her soul.

She immediately began to heal.

Jing Yuan roared and charged again, white tiger blazing. Dan Heng’s surged above him, striking down from the heavens. Fu Xuan resumed her predictive transmissions without hesitation.

They pressed her.

But Sunny saw the truth.

Even Saints had limits. They were never meant to fight Supreme Titans — if Phantylia hadn’t been playing around, they would have died dozens of times over. It was a miracle that they weren’t dead yet.

Fortunately...

They were Saints.

A missing limb? Inconvenient.

A hole through the abdomen? Manageable.

Collapsed ribs? Annoying.

They could survive with a snapped neck or a failed heart for a while. Really, the only way to kill them instantaneously was to seperate their head from their body, or to directly destroy their brain.

Sunny turned toward Dan Heng mid-assault.

"Dan Heng!"

One of the three intertwined dragon heads twisted toward him while the other two continued firing torrents of fused element at Phantylia.

***

Sunny found himself gripping one of Dan Heng’s massive tails.

"Wait—"

The dragon spun.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

The world became a blur of roots and sky.

"YOU COULD HAVE WARNED ME!"

Sunny screamed, voice cracking as centrifugal force threatened to rip his arms from their sockets.

Dan Heng did not slow.

He gained momentum with terrifying precision.

On the fourth rotation—

He whipped.

Sunny became a projectile.

Air tore past him in a violent scream.

Ahead, Phantylia’s jaw hung open mid-heal, a ragged wound still sealing along one side from Jing Yuan’s claws tearing into her.

Sunny let go.

Mid-flight, he made a choice.

He dropped all defenses against soul and mind.

Every fragment of Preservation condensed around physical integrity alone.

At the same time, the Lance of Preservation blazed. All the stored stress from countless impacts released at once. Amber fire erupted from its length like a rocket exhaust as the thrusters on his sole wing ignited in brilliant arcs of incandescent light.

Flying with one wing should be impossible.

Flight requires symmetry. Balance. Counterforce. Two surfaces to generate lift and stability. A single wing produces torque, not glide. It would send a body spiraling uncontrollably, tearing itself apart under uneven force.

By every law of aerodynamics, he should have corkscrewed into the ground.

In the face of all that, Lost From Light, of course, flies anyway.

He became consumed by a blaze of molten amber.

A shooting star aimed directly at a god’s throat.

Phantylia’s eyes widened.

He entered through the wound in her jaw just before it sealed.

For the first time ever, a woman has taken Lost From Light into her mouth.