When Sunny heard the white-haired War Maiden refer to her disciple as a feral child, he assumed that she was speaking about an especially ferocious female warrior being trained in the ancient sect of War.
…What he had not expected, however, was that his enemy would turn out to be a literal child.
'...Damnation!'
As Sunny watched with a grim expression, two of the Awakened maidens dragged a girl of about eleven, maybe twelve years of age into the hall, then threw her on the stone floor in front of him.
The girl had a scrawny, juvenile body that did not seem to have touched on the path to maturity yet. Her short, wild hair was of a vibrant red color, almost the same as the torn silk garments she wore. Her skin was pale and white… or at least, it was supposed to be.
Good day, dear readers :]
…And what a day it is!
Today, Shadow Slave turns one year old. Exactly a year ago, I posted the first chapter of it, titled “Nightmare Begins”... and it hasn’t stopped ever since ;]
At the start of it, I didn’t really know what I was doing. This was my first attempt at writing a proper web novel, and while I was confident that I could write a good story, I was also certain that it would be a niche one. To my surprise and delight, people responded to it much better than I had ever expected. Thank you all very much!
Back then, I wasn’t sure that I will be able to keep up with writing one whole chapter every day for a week, let alone a month.
...And here we are, 365 days of writing, 668 chapters, and three volumes later! Thank you all for joining me — and Sunny — on this perilous journey :]
To celebrate this occasion, I decided to share some interesting numbers with you all :]
Currently, Shadow Slave is:
- 1 year old
- 668 chapters long
- 822,000 words
- 13,100 Chapter Comments
- ~65,000 Paragraph Comments
- 307,000 Power Stones
- 6,200,000 views
By volumes, the numbers are:
Volume I: Child of Shadows — 95 chapters, 135,000 words
Volume II: Demon of Change — 255 chapters, 300,000 words
Volume III: Prince of Nothing — 250 chapters, 300,000 words
Also, here are some fun statistics! :]
- Shadow Slave is currently one of the Top 5 novels on Webnovel
- It is also the #1 pirated web novel (welp)
- Sunny was 16 in Chapter #1, he is 19 in Chapter #668
- Sunny’s current kill count is ~1886 (without counting Dreamscape wins)
- Guilty Guild, the novel's Discord server, is 3700 members strong!
- Shadow Slave Fandom Wiki has 908 pages, 211 articles, and 10,805 edits
- The exact number of “Damnations!” said by Sunny is… who knows? I surely don’t ;]
- At least 16,700 people were hurt in dire cliffhanger accidents (totally not my fault...)
That's it. I hope you have enjoyed this year of Shadow Slave, and here's to a few more years to come! \[T]/
P.S.
...Oh, I almost forgot! There is also one last thing. As some of you may know, I am not very fond of the idea of official novel illustrations, since they can intrude upon the personal imagination of readers. However… well… here’s the first official Shadow Slave illustration, anyway, “Sunless” drawn by fantastic artist AdamaSto. I'll post it in the comments of this chapter. Just keep in mind that it is an interpretation of how a character might look, not the definitive canon :]