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

"This complicates things."

an understatement. What they sensed was the Call, which had suddenly grown much stronger. That meant two things, none of them

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, Sunny was willing to bet that there were two

was not immediately

of him. Then, he spoke, his voice being carried all across the fortress by the integrated

effective immediately, the interference status of the LO49 facility should be

bound to become weaker. It was not

within the walls of LO49 was a gamble for all Awakened defending it. The probability of becoming pulled away by the Seed of Nightmare was not high, but it

'"Damnation.’

Considering that they had to have opened close enough to strengthen the Call, the Nightmare Creates brought by them would undoubtedly come to visit, attracted by the smell of human

announcement, Verne looked at Sunny with weary eyes. Sunny

"I'm on it."

burst from his figure, swiftly gliding across the floor and leaving the security center a second later. They flew across the facility, climbed its

of the security force,

their expertise and rank, the Devils were

the vicinity of the

he spoke, the faces of the soldiers changed slightly,

the Irregulars remained

Finally, Sunny sighed.

"Found it."

so it was easy to discover the menacing rift that tore apart reality. He was slightly

everyone stared at him, Sunny winced