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

cold and indifferent

"...What are you doing?"

and protected her ever since. Without even asking anything in return, not before, and not after learning of what Cassie's Aspect was able to

because she wanted

prison of her loneliness. How was

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

she had to make a

now, she had to live

Or die with it...

slaughter, a sudden gust of wind rustled her beautiful

flinched, and slowly turned to face

face paled, and

'No!'

and anyone who could have heard her, Cassie closed

storm… there is

***

In fact, it

Memories to replace them summoned their melee weapons and joined the

crossing the bridges of crimson coral and lunging forward to

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

opposing forces seemed to finally be evenly

humans to turn that balance in their favor was

"Come on! Hold strong!"

"Lit yourself on fire!"

"Follow the Immortal Flame!"

decided, a gust

The light dimmed slightly.

froze for a few moments. Their faces became as white

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

A storm was coming.

of the black water

it began

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

was coming

Spire, however, did not react in

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