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.

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

death, a cold and indifferent voice came

"...What are you doing?"

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

because she wanted

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

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

had to make

now, she had to live with that

Or die with it...

stood, listening to the sounds of slaughter, a

and slowly turned to

paled, and

'No!'

the battle and anyone who could have

storm… there is

***

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

and joined the vanguard, reinforcing its dwindling numbers. The Artisans had done the same, abandoning their siege engines and throwing themselves

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 their defense lines, for a few minutes, the flow of the battle

two opposing forces seemed to finally be evenly

would have taken for the humans to turn that

"Come on! Hold strong!"

"Lit yourself on fire!"

"Follow the Immortal Flame!"

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

The light dimmed slightly.

and froze for a few moments. Their faces became as

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

A storm was coming.

closer and closer, the surface of the black water that swirled around the island of the

it began to crawl

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

cursed sea was coming to

did not react in the same way as

shelter, they howled and shrieked in