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.

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 at least the former choice gave his soldiers a chance to get

two civilians to

Sunny moved to the compact kitchen of the large vehicle, summoned the Covetous Coffer, and concentrated on preparing a hearty breakfast for the crew of the Rhino. Cooking always made

about a lot of things. How close was the Second Army to being assembled? What were the Great

its well-off geothermal fields. At least

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

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

There was a difference between taking a nap and leaving for the Dream Realm. The former would make him several seconds late

Rhino to the lounge area. Even Professor Obel

well, considering how sudden their departure had been. He still seemed 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

of coffee and several bars of

curiosity, then smiled and uttered in his usual friendly

machine you

was already bringing a spoonful of curry to his mouth,

is the most fearsome! This one time, we had to plow through a whole swarm of low-rank Nightmare Creatures... ah,

The old man smiled.

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 move at an acceptable