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 knees and tried not to cry.

instead of death, a cold and indifferent voice came out of the

"...What are you doing?"

met Nephis, who saved and protected her ever since. Without even asking anything in return,

she

prison

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

had to

now, she had to live

Or die with it...

Cassie stood, listening to the sounds of slaughter, a sudden

turned to face

moment later, her face paled, and her

'No!'

alone, away from the battle and anyone who could have heard her,

there

***

on. In fact, it was slowly pushing the horde

and joined the

bodies. With no more abominations crossing the bridges of

core of 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 lines, for a few minutes, the flow of the battle froze in

two opposing forces seemed to

would have taken for the humans to turn that

"Come on! Hold strong!"

"Lit yourself on fire!"

"Follow the Immortal Flame!"

of this battle was about to be decided, a gust of wind

The light dimmed slightly.

froze for a few moments. Their faces became as white as

the world. It was

A storm was coming.

of the black water that

began to

and faster, the black whirlpool swelled and moved forward,

coming to devour the

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

of scurrying away to find shelter, they howled and shrieked in eerie triumph, and then crashed into the Dreamer Army with renewed