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?"

Sunny, there was a grim expression on his

things that he had been unable to notice earlier.

he saw on the screen left him disturbed, shaken,

'Damnation...'

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 apparent reason. Every time, his expression turned

nonchalantly make way for the mesmerized victims, only to forget

waves, and yet, this was the first time his consciousness managed

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

Sunny shuddered.

'Gods...'

his strong reaction, Verne

Creature is it? How does it capture people from within the

and then stopped the playback with a trembling hand. He stared at

he let out a

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. Some right in front of our eyes. It seems that the bastard is somehow controlling them to come

Verne gritted his teeth.

There has to be a way to stop

for a

deal with a creature like that is to run away from

head with a resentful expression. That resentment was not aimed at Sunny, however... instead, it was aimed at the dreadful being that hid beneath the waves, the Chain of Nightmares, and the sorry state

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 from Army

His eyes grew cold.

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