Shadow Slave

In the cold darkness, a small procession of vehicles was climbing an old and battered mountain road. The road clung precariously to the stone slope, so narrow that the wheels of the transports barely fit on its cracked surface.

Looking through the windows to their right, all the refugees could see was a sheer drop. It was as though they were driving on nothing, a few centimeters away from plummeting to their deaths. From time to time, a stray rock would be pushed off the road by the wheels of the slowly moving vehicles, and then fall down, ricocheting off the cliffs with startling clangor.

The sound traveled far through the deep gorge, reflecting from its stone walls as it grew louder and louder. For the frightened refugees, it seemed as deafening as thunder.

Their fear was only made worse by the darkness. The headlights of the transports cut wide swaths through it, but beyond that, the night was impenetrable and oppressive. The drivers were already struggling with keeping the vehicles on the narrow road, and with most of it obscured by the chilling gloom, their task seemed all but impossible.

Traveling through the mountains at night was an ill-advised and perilous affair. It was a fool's errand.

'...Who's the fool, then?'

Studying sensor feeds in the command suite of the Rhino, Sunny was mentally calculating the rate of their progress. No matter how he thought about it, the convoy's speed was appallingly slow.

Sadly, it couldn't be helped.

The powerful APC was moving at the head of the column, clearing the path for the other vehicles. Its ram was lowered and once again serving to push through the snow. From time to time, the Rhino had to remove other obstacles from the road, as well - stone debris, large boulders, and massive chunks of ice that had split from the glacier at the peak of the mountain.

they stumble on something that the Rhino could not move through or push away. In these instances, the whole convoy had to come to a halt and wait for Sunny to remove the obstacle that

that Sunny could not throw off the road, and even if there were, he would simply cut through them with the Sin of Solace. The jade

he enjoyed listening to

nature of the old mountain roads, the rough

side of things. Of course, there were other threats around them, as

was teeming with

but it was only a question of time before they had to fight. With how much noise they were making and how much light they were producing, it was inevitable for something hungry

been able to kill the few solitary Nightmare Creatures without drawing too much attention. Sunny was using her as an outrider, so she traveled apart from the

them, though. Sunny felt as though the envelope

could see through the darkness. If they were as blind as the mundane soldiers protecting the convoy, Sunny would have

him, the situation was both simple and

at his disposal. One of them was assets - Saint and Nightmare, himself, the Irregulars, and the mundane soldiers. The other was dependents - the refugees,

were also four types of danger facing him. One was the Nightmare Creatures, whom he had to track through his shadows and either avoid or slay. The other was the threats from within - people succumbing to the Spell or going mad, which he could mitigate through various measures. The third was the environment itself. The world could easily kill them without even needing the help of the abominations, but that could be dealt with, as

one - the unforeseen threats. That one could not be preempted, dealt

to protect his dependents from the danger. However, even if he made all the right decisions, nothing stopped a new Gate from opening right in the middle of the convoy, so... there was that to think

of

At that rate, the refugees would have to

I can do about that,