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.

had given up. Sitting down on the hard coral, she hugged her knees and tried not to

cold and indifferent

"...What are you doing?"

anything in return,

she wanted

darkness and destroyed the bitter, all-encompassing prison of

she met Sunny. Sweet Sunny, who pretended to be callous and cruel, but was actually caring

then, she had to

now, she had to live with that

Or die with it...

the sounds of slaughter, a sudden gust of

and slowly turned to

paled, and her

'No!'

away from the battle and anyone who could have

storm… there

***

Army became much smaller, but still held on. In fact, it

no suitable Memories to replace them summoned their melee weapons and joined the vanguard, reinforcing its dwindling numbers. The Artisans had done the same, abandoning

endless reserve of fresh bodies. With no more abominations crossing the bridges of crimson coral and

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

two opposing forces seemed

would have taken for the humans to turn

"Come on! Hold strong!"

"Lit yourself on fire!"

"Follow the Immortal Flame!"

feeling that the fate of this battle was about to be decided, a gust of wind

The light dimmed slightly.

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

was slowly devouring the world. It was approaching the battlefield with terrifying speed, numerous bolts of lightning

A storm was coming.

the black water that

then, it began to crawl

slowly, and then faster and faster, the black whirlpool swelled and moved forward, swallowing the crimson coral

coming to devour

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

shrieked in eerie triumph, and then