Shadow Slave

Sunny's plan was rather simple. Since the mental protection granted by the Undying Chain was not enough to break through the mind hex of the unknown horror, he just had to get better defenses.

Of course, he could have summoned Saint, who was completely immune to that kind of attack. If he had no choice but to fight the abomination, which Sunny suspected to be a Corrupted Terror, he would do exactly that... but at this point, he was simply trying to understand what exactly was happening, and how.

Considering that Saint would not be able to communicate what she saw, he had to try breaking through the hex himself, first.

Several minutes later, Verne summoned the officers of his Awakened force, and then sent them away with a simple task - to get every Memory that could offer at least some form of protection against mind attacks to Sunny. Considering that there were still around ninety Awakened soldiers at the facility, at least a couple of them had to have something like that in their arsenal.

Soon, Sunny found himself in possession of several loaned Memories. He was wearing the Undying Chain, which was his best tool to solve this situation. There was a new charm hanging around his neck, a strangely mercurial cloak on his back, and a flint dagger with a handle made out of weathered bone in his hand.

The dagger came from Verne itself, so it was especially powerful.

There were many people in the security center now, including Verne, Professor Obel and Beth, all six of his soldiers, and several sleep-deprived Awakened officers. Sunny was sitting in front of a screen, holding the memory storage device.

Taking a deep breath, he wrapped all four of his shadows around the Undying Chain and felt its bleak steel become stronger, more durable, and more powerful.

Then, he inserted the memory device into the socket of the terminal and accessed the recordings stored on it.

Everyone watched the video feed of the undulating ocean with a morbid sense of curiosity. However, none of the people present in the security center noticed anything special about the recording.

After a while, Beth said in a tentative tone:

"I... don't see anything?"

when she looked at Sunny, there was a grim expression

had been unable to notice earlier.

on the screen

'Damnation...'

recording went on, replaying the shifting landscape of the lightless beach from the past two days at enhanced speed, Sunny slowed it down to a crawl several times, seemingly for no

nonchalantly make way for

being swallowed by the cold waves, and yet, this was the first time his consciousness managed to become aware

it did, the hex was broken, and suddenly, all the memories that had been suppressed before flooded his

Sunny shuddered.

'Gods...'

strong reaction,

you see? What kind of Nightmare Creature is it? How

moment, and then stopped the playback with a trembling hand. He stared at it in

let out

mostly. There is indeed a mind hex affecting everyone in this fortress. It makes us indifferent and unaware of the victims, and the traces left behind by them. However... I did not see the creature itself. It never appeared. The victims... they just walked into the ocean themselves, and vanished.

Verne gritted his teeth.

to be

hesitated for a long

experience, the only way to deal with a creature like that is to run away from it.

at

of kilometers of rough terrain alive, not with hordes of Nightmare Creatures prowling this region of the Antarctic Center seemingly unopposed, with no intelligence about the state of the territory and cut off

His eyes grew cold.

have to remain here and wait for the Ariadne to arrive. It should be here in two days... or if not, soon enough. We can survive this abomination