The sandstorm only intensified as Sunny could barely see Orphne even though she was just a few paces ahead of him.
He felt a large clump of sand scrape against his calf as he weathered the storm's exceedingly strong winds.
Sunny stood frozen on the spot thinking he must not have heard the huntress correctly.
The huntress must have noticed his hesitation as she reiterated in a tone that was somehow more commanding than her usual one that Sunny could clearly hear through the sandstorm.
"RUN ALREADY!"
Orphne abandoned that tone just as quickly as she had adopted it and the contrast only added to Sunny's confusion.
"I can't hold off that thing for long. So, get out of here already, I don't want you to see me when Shadow finally claims what's owed."
It took Sunny a second to understand what the huntress meant while he was still processing her words Orphne had already begun transforming.
Once he finally understood what she was about to do he opened his mouth to warn her to stop but his protests died on his lips as he already saw the other forms starting to materialize around the huntress.
The sandstorm around Orphne's figure seemed to still as the ebony sand of the Shadow Realm froze midair as it ignored the ever-present wind's strength.
The sand then started to materialize into a herd to all forms of beasts.
Orphne had once told him that her aspect was focused on nature. All of her abilities seemed to progressively become more destructive with them culminating in her supreme ability which turned her into a literal force of nature.
How fitting it was for the greatest huntress to become the deadliest force he had always been wrestling with ever since even before his first nightmare – the environment.
Sunny was forced to take another step back as he felt an intangible force spread in a wide radius with Orphne at its epicenter.
That force seemed to make the air itself heavier as Sunny felt like the very world itself was fighting against him.
The wind seemed stronger, the grains of sand sharper, and his own body felt heavier.
Yet the figure holding the lantern stood steadfast as they steadily approached their pace didn't decrease in the slightest nor did they rush as they seemed completely unfazed by the supreme enhanced force of nature. Not even the radiance of their lantern was smothered by Orphne's efforts.
Suddenly the black haze that followed the huntress' every movement began to thin before dispersing all together.
He finally got his first good look at the huntress since he met her.
Orphne did not look good…
Her sparse garments did little to cover the ghastly sight of the shadow infections progress.
Sunny wasn't quite sure how but even her clothing hadn't escaped the spread of shadows as the fabric closer to her skin seemed to have adopted the same deathly shade that made it hard to tell where Orphne ended and the garments began.
Her figure abruptly became hazy once more as she seemed to merge with the storm itself.
Just before he would have completely lost all sight of her the transformation stopped as the huntress materialized once again, she hunched over coughing out liquid darkness that he wished was just sand.
If only he was quick enough to stop her.
Orphne had never told Sunny directly but over the course of his time spent with her it had quickly become obvious that using her aspect expedited the spread of shadows consuming her.
When he had discovered that he had tried to convince the huntress that she didn't have to train him but for some reason that was beyond him she seemed perfectly fine with sacrificing herself in order to prepare him for the future.
Tears began to bloom at the edges of his vision.
'It must be the sandstorm…'
Even though she had told him to run… he simply couldn't bring himself to.
He felt that he owed it to her to at the very least witness her last moments; no matter how unsightly they may be.
Sunny was just about to switch his vision to see the progress of the shadow infection but stopped himself as it no longer became necessary.
The shadows rapidly spread from Orphne's torso rising up her neck and consuming her head entirely.
Yet the shadows didn't just stop with her head as they reached the roots of her long unruly hair spreading all the way to the ends just below her shoulders. Her already dark hair somehow became an even darker shade until it was no longer distinguishable from the rest of her figure.
Sunny couldn't see it from this angle but the shadows had even consumed the very whites of her eyes, for some mysterious reason the huntress' beautiful mismatched iris' remained unscathed in the war she was losing against shadow's claim.
They were the only visible feature that separated her from every other shadow that Sunny had encountered.
With the activation of just one ability Orphne's remaining time was cut drastically.
It was no wonder that he had never seen her use anything greater than her transcendent ability if the cost was this extreme.
The huntress only let out a defeated sigh seeing that Sunny was too stubborn to leave her.
"Have it your way kid. If you are going to stay this will serve as your final lesson. I will show you how demigods fight."
She removed her longbow from her back while simultaneously the herd of beasts she had created from the sandstorm rushed towards the light.
With a smooth practiced motion, she removed one of the poisoned arrows from her quiver and commanded the beasts to adopt their own arrow formation with the largest of them leading the charge.
As the herd accelerated their charge kicked up a massive amount of sand that shielded the light from Sunny's vision.
The huntress' extraordinary senses remained undeterred as she breathed in and nocked the arrow. Even through her shadowy form Sunny could see her arms straining with the draw weight of the bow as the veins in her arms bulged.
He had once asked Orphne if he could try out her bow during his shadow dance training. The amused expression she had worn rekindled the warmth in him.
That bow was something ancient. A relic left behind by a divinity perhaps. When he had tried to draw it as a mere Ascended, he hadn't even been able to move the string in the slightest.
That memory had given Sunny a new appreciation for archers.
Surprisingly in the time that he had spent reliving that memory Orphne had not loosed her arrow.
The huntress must have been infusing a massive amount of essence into this attack via her ascended ability. The arrow began to give off a soft radiance quickly converging until Sunny was blinded completely.
She was clearly planning on putting her everything into this fight.
As much as he wanted to cheer her on, his intuition was telling him that it would all be for naught.
Lastly the huntress controlled the winds of the sandstorm creating a vacuum surrounding the arrow before causing a gale of wind centered around herself to blow in the direction of the visitor.
Seemingly having sensed her massive expenditure of energy the shadows on Orphne's body stirred claiming her amber left eye.
The huntress spared Sunny a caring glance as she commanded the sandstorm to calm in a radius around the treacherous shadow.
Orphne exhaled and released the star from her bow as it streaked across the horizon at a speed completely imperceptible to Sunny much less the naked eye. The only trace of its existence was the faint path of essence in the air it left behind.
When the star reached a distance of no more than a hundred paces from their visitor it disappeared all together before he could see an explosion of essence.
It faintly resembled the essence storms that he had seen in passing during his hunts with Orphne.
Seconds passed as from the center of a storm the color of permafrost was quickly spreading throughout it, until it completely blanketed the storm.
Just when the storm seemed to reach its peak the charging beasts struck merging into the storm as their whole bodies became infused with Orphne's raging essence and the permafrost poison.
Then the soundwave hit them as he lost his hearing, only an annoying ringing being left.
He turned his gaze to the huntress and narrowed his eyes upon seeing her retrieving another arrow from her quiver.
'As I thought, it can never be that easy.'
A downward wind brought the scent of the poison to him and after allowing himself the briefest of moments to smell it he felt his entire body beginning to run cold as his face turned pale.
The huntress only spared him a brief disappointed glace.
"If I were you, I'd try not to breathe that in. I'm immune to its fumes but a direct hit wouldn't be pretty even for me."
He raised an eyebrow at that. Orphne had made it no secret that the infection had an insidious way of making one no longer resemble themselves, both inside and out.
It had gifted her with a strong resistance to many poisons as well as lessening her need for most forms of sustenance, allowing her to live on shadows that she consumed.
So, to hear that even someone like her wasn't completely immune to the poison she released left him wondering about its origins.
For some reason that was beyond him Orphne's lips never stopped moving. It was clear that she didn't want him to hear whatever she was saying as the wind carried away her words.
The huntress nocked the next arrow to her bow and inhaled as her muscles grew taunt drawing her longbow.
He wondered as to why she only infused her essence into the arrow after she drew the bow thinking it was inefficient but who was he to question her archery.
Once again, the huntress infused a massive amount of essence into the arrow while blessing it with a gale further assuring its deadly velocity.
The shadows consuming her hungrily advanced devouring her pale blue right eye.
Even with the loss of all vision Orphne remained undeterred as she loosed the arrow with the same deadly accuracy of all the others.
He switched his vision only to see that her soul core was already crawling with tendrils of shadows that were just one step short of completely claiming her.
It was obvious that this would be her last attack.
Sunny was left with a sense of dread knowing that this would be his last moments with Orphne.
That feeling was only accentuated by the fact that it seemed to all be in vain.
Since the moment Orphne had shot her first arrow it became clear that this was an opponent that the greatest huntress he knew couldn't beat.
The strange visitor seemed entirely unfazed by her assault and the most eerie part was that ever since Orphne began he had entirely lost track of them.
They seemed to have disappeared all together but he knew better than to hope that they actually had, simply because Orphne had shot a second arrow.
The huntress must have sensed them somewhere hiding away from his Shadow Sense's reach.
Despite the obvious futility to her efforts, she remained determined.
Sunny watched her carefully as her movements began to grow slower while retrieving her next arrow.
Gone was the precision and ease that came with a task that had achieved a state of muscle memory long ago.
Yet all this time her lips had still not stopped moving.
While the rest of her movements appeared stiff and fatigued, she seemed entirely at ease whispering into the wind with a faint smile playing at the edges of her lips.
She brought the third arrow to her bow and poured the entirety of her remaining essence into it while unleashing a squall behind it strong enough that Sunny had to strongly anchor his feet to the ground to stop himself from being blown away.
Orphne turned her head towards Sunny giving him her last smile which was the warmest one he had even seen even with her shadowy facial features.
She loosed the arrow and turned away.
He focused his vision on her soul core as he watched the shadows claim it completely.
Then something strange happened.
After the shadows enveloped her soul core, they became dim. A brilliant flash of light dispersed the shadows as her soul core bloomed once again.
The huntress seemed to retain a small sense of her true self.
While the arrow flew a sudden gust of wind that the huntress had hidden in the sandstorm hit Sunny blowing him far away.
He wasn't even left with time to think as he was sent flying.
Just before he was blown out of the vicinity a figure flashed forward as their caught Orphne's arrow while not even deeming it necessary to dismiss the lantern in their left hand.
They closed their hand turning the arrow into dust while brushing it away with an annoyed look.
They directed a disdainful expression towards the huntress.
"I've come here to collect and you, are long past overdue."
He finally got a good look at the figures' face only to despair when he noticed that it was covered by a veil of shadows.
They barely spared Sunny a curious glance that sent a shiver down his spine as he felt his blood run cold.
He was spared the feeling, after they returned their gaze to Orphne with a scornful look, only to feel guilty towards the huntress.
Still the fear remained.
The shadow of Orphne unsheathed her dual swords and flashed towards the invader.
Sunny wasn't able to see the rest of their fight as the wind finally blew him out of range.