Shadow Slave

Sunny was staring at the black waves that came and went, licking the stone shore not too far away from the tall wall of the fortress. Even though he had told his soldiers to stay away from the ocean, Sunny came here once or twice every day, perhaps hoping to see the fearsome silhouette of the giant battleship emerging from the darkness.

That was silly, of course, since the arrival of their ride away from LO49 was days, or even weeks away. Still, he found himself in a contemplative mood whenever he observed the waves.

He was also reasonably sure in his ability to get away should anything other than Ariadne appear from the ocean...

The blizzard finally subsided a few hours ago, so today, Sunny saw much further than before. Not that there was anything to see.

Shivering in the cold, he sighed and turned around to go find warmth inside one of the station's buildings.

It was at that moment that Sunny froze and tilted his head, as if listening to something. His eyes narrowed.

"...Crap."

The maddening whispers assaulting his mind had just grown much louder.

Jumping off the wall, Sunny walked quickly and soon reached the security center of the facility. There, several Awakened were monitoring the sensor feeds. Verne was standing in front of a wall of screens with a dark expression on his face.

Hearing Sunny's steps, he turned his head.

"You felt it too?"

Sunny nodded.

"Yeah. It's strong."

closed his eyes for a few

"This complicates things."

sensed was the Call, which had suddenly grown much stronger. That meant two things, none of them promising anything good

first thing was rather obvious... somewhere out there, very close to the facility, one or more Nightmare Gates had just opened. Considering how loud the Call was,

not immediately dangerous, but vastly

and pressed a few buttons on the console in front of

This is Master Verne speaking... effective immediately, the interference status of the LO49

the strength of the Call growing so much, the stability of the Gateway anchors of the Awakened inside the fortress was bound to become weaker. It was not at the stage where falling asleep would definitely lead to being thrown into an unknown region of the Dream Realm, yet...

was a gamble for all Awakened defending it. The probability of becoming pulled away by the

'"Damnation.’

with. Considering that they had to have opened close enough to strengthen the Call, the

announcement, Verne looked at Sunny with

"I'm on it."

swiftly gliding across the floor and leaving the security center a second later. They flew across the facility, climbed its walls, and plunged into the cold

the security

expertise and rank, the Devils were naturally included in this

everyone arrived, Sunny's shadows were already scouring the vicinity of the fortress, searching for the manifested Gates. Verne briefed his

changed slightly, knowing that they

the Irregulars

Finally, Sunny sighed.

"Found it."

coastal plain did not have a lot of geographic features, so it was easy to discover the menacing rift that tore apart reality. He was slightly surprised that there was only one Gate,

at