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?

wide eyes, and suddenly grew very

Then, it made a sharp turn, left the wide highway entirely, and entered uneven

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

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

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

only recently shrugged off its heavy veil. The

was doing an 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

Sunny tense, it was that he rarely 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

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.

abominations wandered into the Rhino's path, only to be 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…'

— which, of course, looked the same as morning, evening, and night — the Rhino reached the ruins of a small outpost, where two similar carriers were parked in the shadow

jumped off the roof and walked toward the fire. Orange light gleamed,

you

Soul Reaper's

water, sir. The cargo capacity of

into reality and opened its toothy maw, Sunny thrust his hand inside,

sir! Thank you,

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 menacing mountain

Three Gate was

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

caught the tail end of their

a woman. Hot as hell,

saw that