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 like

paled, stared at him with wide

forward, quickly overtaking slower vehicles. Then, it made a sharp

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

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 heavy

Antarctic Center… was very different from the wilderness of Asia that Sunny had seen during his brief train ride. It was just as lifeless, but in a different manner.

a vast mountain chain. Because of that, the horizon was obscured most of the time, and it was hard

After all, Antarctica had been covered by ice for millions of years, and only recently

amazing job of navigating the complicated terrain. 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

days, the Southern Quadrant was not as lifeless as it had used to be. The life that was spreading through its reaches, however, was not the kind anyone in

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

slain by a swift black arrow before having the chance to approach it. Luckily, none of them turned out to be too powerful or laid a

'For now…'

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

off the roof and walked toward the

are you guys

Reaper's cohort looked at

uh… just hot water, sir. The cargo capacity of our

manifested itself into reality and opened its toothy maw, Sunny thrust his hand inside, and then threw a can of instant coffee and an expensive

sir! Thank

did not look like people who were about to fight 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

was situated on

them, he looked around and noticed Master Jet and Winter. The two were standing some distance away, discussing something between

caught

a woman. Hot as

that Mongrel