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.

Sitting down on the hard coral, she hugged her

cold and indifferent voice came out

"...What are you doing?"

Without even asking anything in return, not before, and not after learning of what Cassie's Aspect was

because she

her out of the darkness and destroyed the bitter, all-encompassing prison of her loneliness. How was Cassie supposed to ever repay

Sunny, who pretended to be

had to make a

now, she had to live

Or die with it...

sounds of slaughter, a sudden gust of

flinched, and slowly turned to

face paled, and her

'No!'

alone, away from the battle and anyone who could have heard her, Cassie closed her eyes and whispered

storm… there is a

***

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

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

fresh bodies. With no more abominations crossing the bridges of

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

forces seemed to finally be

have taken for the humans to turn that balance in their favor

"Come on! Hold strong!"

"Lit yourself on fire!"

"Follow the Immortal Flame!"

the fate of this battle was about to be decided, a gust of wind suddenly blew over the battlefield, bringing with it

The light dimmed slightly.

for a few moments. Their faces became as

the Crimson Spire, an impenetrable wall of darkness was slowly devouring the world. It was approaching the battlefield with terrifying speed, numerous bolts of lightning illuminating

A storm was coming.

black water

began

then faster and faster, the black whirlpool swelled and moved forward, swallowing the crimson coral meter after a meter,

coming to

Spire, however, did not react in the same way as the

they howled and shrieked in eerie triumph, and