Shadow Slave novel Chapter 2316

While crafting arrows, Sunny picked one up with a shadow hand and used it to draw a grid in the ash.

Seven rows of seven squares each… forty-nine in total.

Then, he marked some of the squares with various runes.

Sunny had not paid a lot of attention to the placement of the figures on the jade board, but he could still recall it flawlessly. There were also five squares marked by special carvings - one at the very center of the board, and one at the middle squares of each outer row.

Eventually, he pointed to the grid and spoke.

'This is what the game board looked like in the Toy Room. As you can see, the Ash Domain is on the verge of losing. We only have three squares left, occupied by the Ash Tyrant - that is me - and two Ash Beasts. That is you and Slayer.'

He pointed to the three squares in the lowest row of the grid. Since one of them was the middle square of an outer row, it was marked with a special rune.

'You should have seen the fortress behind us. I think that it is the Ash Castle - one of the special squares Seishan mentioned. There is a similar carving on the opposite square, so this is where the Snow Castle should be.' Sunny pointed the arrow to the middle square of the uppermost row.

'However, the carvings on the other three special squares are different. They are not Castles, but what are they? I do not know. The one in the very middle of the board is different from the two on the left and right outer rows, as well.'

Sunny sighed. 'Well, we'll learn eventually. What is more important is where the twelve Snow Abominations are standing. Do you see a pattern?'

Kai studied the grid.

On it, three Snow Beasts were facing the three remaining Ash figures. On the opposite side of the board, the Snow Tyrant was standing in the Snow Castle, defended by a Snow Devil and two Snow Beasts in the row below. The second Snow Devil was guarding the central square of the board. A Snow Demon and two Snow Monsters were defending the middle square on the right outer row.

And finally, the last Snow figure - another Demon - was in the lower left corner, all by itself.

Kai frowned. 'It looks to me like… three Beasts are preparing to besiege the Ash Castle, while the rest of the figures are protecting important squares on the board. Three are protecting the Snow Castle and their Tyrant, three are protecting whatever that right middle square is, one is protecting the heart of the map. And one seems to have lost its way and wandered into a corner.'

Sunny grinned. 'Exactly.'

Kai stared at him for a while, then asked: 'So?'

Sunny looked at him meaningfully. ',How should I know? Do I look like a great chess player to you?'

Kai blinked a couple of times. 'You're not?'

Sunny scoffed. 'No, I am not. To be honest, as soon as I understood what it takes to be good at playing chess, I instantly lost interest. Let me tell you… it's not a game, it's a chore! Why would I waste my time mastering something so tedious?'

He shook his head.

Playing chess with Teacher Julius had been fun and exciting at the beginning, but when Sunny realized that it was all about patterns and calculations, he rapidly grew bored. After all, he did enough calculating in his actual life, already.

The chaotic mayhem of checkers seemed more fun. And naturally, nothing beat the noble king of games, backgammon…

Because there were countless ways to cheat when throwing dice, which was the funnest part.

Sunny looked at Kai. 'Why? Are you good at chess?'

Kai scratched the tip of his nose. 'Not really. To be honest, being serious about chess takes a lot of time. And I, uh… always had better ways to spend my time.'

Sunny looked at him with suspicion. 'Did he just politely point out that he had a life?'

Verify captcha to read the contentVerify