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.

Corrupted Tyrant? Something

him with wide eyes, and suddenly grew very

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

system, the members of the cohort

next several hours, the 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.

just as lifeless, but in a different manner. There were fewer signs of past wars and disasters

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

all, Antarctica had been covered by ice for millions of years, and only recently shrugged off its

sometimes making use of existing roads, sometimes cutting through untouched wilderness. It climbed or descended tall hills

had an opportunity to see far ahead. These days, the Southern Quadrant was not as lifeless as it had used to be. The life that was

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 himself from

by a swift

'For now…'

night — the Rhino reached the ruins of a small outpost, where two similar carriers were parked in the shadow of a broken

off the roof and walked toward the fire. Orange light gleamed, reflecting from the bleak metal of his

are you guys

Reaper's cohort looked at

water, sir. The cargo capacity of

itself into reality and opened its toothy maw, Sunny thrust his

Thank you,

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

was

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 Winter.

headed toward them and caught the tail end of their

woman. Hot

idiot, I saw that Mongrel guy myself once. He's definitely a