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.

the hard coral, she hugged her

instead of death, a cold and indifferent voice

"...What are you doing?"

her ever since. Without even asking anything in

because she wanted

of the darkness and destroyed the bitter, all-encompassing prison of her loneliness. How

Sweet Sunny, who pretended to be callous and cruel, but was

then, she had to

had to live with that

Or die with it...

the sounds of slaughter, a sudden gust of wind rustled her beautiful

slowly turned

face paled,

'No!'

anyone who could have heard her, Cassie closed her

storm… there

***

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

of arrows and ammunition, those who had 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 their siege engines and throwing themselves into the crucible of

more abominations crossing the bridges of crimson coral

with Effie stalling the entire horde to give the rest of the humans time to mend the

two opposing forces seemed

it would have taken for the humans to turn that

"Come on! Hold strong!"

"Lit yourself on fire!"

"Follow the Immortal Flame!"

was about to be decided, a gust of wind suddenly blew

The light dimmed slightly.

for a few moments. Their

wall of darkness was slowly devouring the world. It was approaching the battlefield with terrifying speed, numerous bolts of lightning illuminating its furious

A storm was coming.

surface of the black water that swirled around the island

then, it began to crawl

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

sea was coming to devour the Forgotten

not react in the same way as the

in eerie triumph, and then crashed into the Dreamer Army with