Shadow Slave

The First Evacuation Army was accompanied by three Saints. One was loyal to the government, while the other two… the other two had been sent by the great clans.

Unofficially, Valor and Song had refused to participate in the Southern Quadrant campaign. Officially, however, they still had to keep up appearances. For that reason, each had provided a token force to support the evacuation effort, and the two Saints in question were in charge of these forces.

Sunny did not know who these Transcendent were. All he knew was that the government had wisely chosen to separate them, sending one to East Antarctica, while the other ended up in the Antarctic Center.

And now, apparently, that latter was coming to aid the Irregulars in vanquishing a powerful Corrupted abomination. He was not sure how to feel about that.

On one hand, the help of a Saint was more than welcomed. On the other hand… one of the reasons he had decided to participate in the Antarctica campaign was to get away from the great clans and their machinations.

Now, it seemed that he just couldn't escape coming in contact with the Sovereigns and their forces.

'Curse it all…'

With a sigh, Sunny sent Luster the coordinates of the rendezvous point and walked over to the pilot's cabin.

"We have new orders. Get to this location as fast as possible."

The young man yawned, studied the coordinates for a bit, and then nodded.

"Aye, sir."

He lingered for a moment.

"Uh… by the way, what's there?"

Sunny shrugged with a nonchalant expression.

Tyrant? Something

paled, stared at him with wide eyes, and suddenly grew very

marching formation of the division and accelerated forward, quickly overtaking slower vehicles. Then, it made a sharp turn, left the wide highway entirely, and entered

the high-tech suspension system, the members of the cohort barely felt any

armored vehicle briskly traversed the wild expanse of the Antarctic Center. Powerful spotlights installed on the Rhino's roof flooded the landscape in front of it with stark light, cutting the dimness with wide beams. Various sensors supplied Luster with additional information to better steer the

ride. It was just as lifeless, but in a different manner. There were fewer signs of past wars and disasters here, but at the same time, the

Basically, most of the landmass was covered by a vast mountain chain. Because of that, the horizon was obscured most of the time, and it was hard to notice any approaching threats. More than that, the landscape itself looked strange and

covered by ice for millions of years, and only recently shrugged off its heavy veil.

It moved toward the rendezvous point with sufficient speed, sometimes making use of existing roads, sometimes cutting through untouched wilderness. It climbed or descended tall hills and mountain outcroppings, traversed stretches of frozen marshlands, and waded through

was not as lifeless as it had used to

and climbed on the Rhino's roof through one of the upper hatches. Since Samara was yet to return from the Dream Realm, Sunny was the only member of the cohort with decent means of ranged attack. Using the open lid of the hatch to shield

path, only to be slain by a swift black arrow

'For now…'

evening, and night — the Rhino reached the ruins of a small outpost, where two similar carriers were parked in the shadow of a broken wall. A handful of people could be seen gathered around

walked toward the fire. Orange

are you

members of Queen's and Soul Reaper's cohort looked

of our carriers is limited, so we

its toothy maw, Sunny thrust his hand inside, and then

sir! Thank you,

a Corrupted abomination of a high Class. They seemed relaxed and nonchalant about the whole ordeal, and paid more attention to the can of coffee than to a

Three Gate was situated

the grateful Awakened brewed coffee for themselves and Sunny's soldiers, who emerged from the Rhino and joined them, he looked around and noticed Master Jet and

them and caught the tail end of

a woman. Hot as

idiot, I saw that Mongrel guy myself