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.

ideal situation, but neither was blindly venturing into the mountains. Either way, there was a big

two civilians

of the large vehicle, summoned the Covetous Coffer, and concentrated on preparing a hearty breakfast for the crew of the Rhino. Cooking always made him feel

things. How close was the Second Army to being assembled? What were the Great Clans doing? How hard would it be to

fields. At least they would not be

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

could visit the Ivory Tower and ask one of the cohort members to check up on her. Effie was quite close with Rain, and so was Nephis. Kai kept in touch

would make him several seconds late to react to danger, but the

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

his health. Nevertheless, Beth used a portable medical scanner to take

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

with curiosity, then smiled and uttered

an impressive machine you have here, Master

bringing a spoonful of curry to

is, isn't it? Of all the vehicles I've driven, our Rhino is the most fearsome! This one time, we had to plow

The old man smiled.

conducive to see this design still being used and kept up to date. I knew the engineer who initially created this APC concept, you see. Of course, back then, it was far less advanced. Spelltech was not even in its infancy, so the solutions she proposed to make such a massive vehicle