Shadow Slave

Left on the top of the tall mound of crimson coral, Cassie stood alone in the darkness.

Now that the Quiet Dancer had left her side, she was back to her previous self.

Lost.

Weak.

Frightened.

Utterly helpless.

The oppressive nothingness surrounded her from all sides.

But that nothingness was full of sound.

It swelled with the deafening cacophony of the nightmare horde's onslaught. Cassie heard howls, growling, inhuman screams, shrieks, and the scraping of chitin.

She heard the clangor of steel and the sound of flesh being ripped apart.

She also heard countless human voices calling out to any kind of deity that could save them. Full of fury, agony, bravery, fear, resolve, sorrow, strength, helplessness, hope, faith, despair, disbelief.

She heard them dying.

Standing above it all, Cassie shivered. She wanted to press her hands against her ears, but didn't.

…Her terrible vision was coming true.

And she was back to being lost in the darkness.

Just like before. Worse than before. Almost like on that first day in this cursed, forsaken, lightless land.

In this forgotten hell.

Back then, she had found herself stranded on a similar mound of coral. Only what surrounded her was the dark sea and not a horde of Nightmare Creatures.

But Cassie didn't know that. She didn't know where she was, and what was hiding in the boundless darkness. She only knew that she was alone, and helpless.

That she was going to die in that lonesome, cold nothingness.

down on the hard coral, she hugged her knees and tried not to cry. Abandoned

instead of death, a cold and indifferent voice

"...What are you doing?"

anything in return, not before, and not after learning of

she

destroyed the bitter, all-encompassing prison of her loneliness. How was Cassie

Sweet Sunny, who pretended to be callous and

had to

now, she had to

Or die with it...

the sounds of slaughter, a sudden

and slowly turned to face the

her face paled,

'No!'

have heard her,

storm… there is a

***

smaller, but still held on. In fact, it was slowly pushing the horde of the Nightmare

ammunition, those who had no suitable Memories to replace them summoned their melee weapons and joined the vanguard, reinforcing its dwindling numbers.

endless reserve of fresh bodies. With no more abominations crossing the

Changing Star serving as the unassailable core of the human formation and rallying fighters around her, with Effie stalling the entire horde to give the rest of the humans time to mend the breaches in their defense lines, for a few minutes, the flow of the battle froze

forces seemed to finally

it would have taken for the humans to turn that balance in their favor was one last furious

"Come on! Hold strong!"

"Lit yourself on fire!"

"Follow the Immortal Flame!"

people yelled, feeling that the fate of this battle was about to be decided, a gust of wind suddenly blew over the battlefield,

The light dimmed slightly.

they suddenly stumbled and froze for a few moments. Their faces

of darkness was slowly devouring the world. It was approaching the battlefield with terrifying speed,

A storm was coming.

it drew closer and closer, the surface of the black water

began

whirlpool swelled and moved forward, swallowing the crimson coral meter after a meter, its dark vastness

was coming to

Crimson Spire, however, did not react in the same way as the usual Nightmare Creatures

they howled and shrieked in eerie triumph, and then crashed into the Dreamer Army with renewed