Shadow Slave

Dorn, Kim, and Luster brought other news from the Dream Realm, too. All of it was fragmented and chaotic, since the First Army itself did not seem to have a strong hold on what was happening throughout the Antarctic Center.

With all modern forms of communication down, whatever information trickled in and was disseminated through the Dream Realm was doomed to be incomplete, and often became obsolete on arrival. The lack of reliable intelligence was the worst fear of all armies.

The strange blizzard raging across the Antarctic Center was the cause of the collapse of the interaction network. It was attributed to one of the Titans that had emerged around a month ago, designated as the Winter Beast. The Titan's current location was unknown, but its impact could be felt throughout the region.

The field army tasked with evacuating the Antarctic Center was in a rough spot. The southern reach of the landmass - where Sunny and his cohort were currently stuck - was lost and all but abandoned. People were scrambling to preserve the remaining six siege capitals, not knowing when and where the Titans would strike next.

Even worse, the Titans were merely the harbingers of a new phase of the Chain of Nightmares. The frequency and potency of the opening Gates seemed to have increased drastically, and countless Nightmare Creatures were pouring into the waking world every day.

...In other words, humans in the Antarctic Center were in trouble, and Sunny was in the biggest trouble of all.

'Wonderful.'

His soldiers had not only received information, but also reported the cohort's current status and location. The information was going to take some time reaching Master Jet, and then more time would pass to get her response back to Sunny. For now, he had nothing to do.

Sunny contemplated for a few minutes whether he should start moving north immediately, or remain in place for a few days to give his soldiers time to recuperate and learn more about what was happening in the region. In the end, he decided to postpone the decision for when the second shift of sleepers returned from the Dream Realm.

Rhino static in the open was not an ideal situation, but neither was blindly venturing into the mountains. Either way, there was a big chance that a disaster would find them, but

two civilians to

finished their report, Sunny moved to the compact kitchen of the large vehicle, summoned the Covetous Coffer, and concentrated on preparing a hearty breakfast

close was the Second Army to being assembled? What were the Great Clans doing? How hard would it be to reach the distant siege capital, which stood

its well-off geothermal fields. At least they would not be cold

also wondered how Rain was doing. Was she worried about his long silence, perhaps? Was she

of the cohort members to check up on her. Effie was quite close with Rain, and so was Nephis. Kai kept in touch with Aiko, who was responsible for taking care of Rain in Sunny's absence, and

between taking a nap and leaving for the Dream Realm. The former would make him several seconds late to react to danger, but

lounge area. Even Professor Obel and Beth woke up because of it.

ancient and fragile, but there were no signs of a sudden deterioration of his health. Nevertheless, Beth used a portable medical scanner to take a few readings, and then produced a batch of medicine pills and supplements from her bag, acting

of fragrant curry on the table, as well as a pot of coffee and several bars of dark chocolate for the dessert. Considering their

eating, Professor Obel looked around with curiosity, then smiled and uttered in his usual

is an impressive machine you have here,

bringing a spoonful of curry to his mouth, paused and

is the most fearsome! This one time,

The old man smiled.

then, it was far less advanced. Spelltech was not even in its infancy, so the solutions she proposed to make such a massive vehicle move at an acceptable pace