Shadow Slave

[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Brood of the Devouring Cloud... ]

The road sloped down, soon reaching the bottom of a deep gorge and continuing forward along its twists and turns. Not afraid of sliding into the abyss anymore, the convoy received some breathing room and accelerated even more.

However, despite that, their situation only worsened.

By now, the distant mountains had already disappeared, swallowed entirely by the veil of the approaching swarm. Only a few nearest peaks remained visible, but even they were already turning hazy.

More and more flying abominations that had traveled ahead of the horde were diving at the convoy, their fleshy circular maws opening wide to bite at the speeding transports and the soldiers operating the turrets.

At first, they came one after another. Then, a few appeared at the same time. At some point, the rumble of the firing turrets turned into one continuous, rolling cannonade.

The soldiers fought with desperate determination, relying on their spotters to find the targets in time. The murderous darkness of the polar night was cut and torn by the stark beams of powerful spotlights, and tracer bullets painted it with red streaks.

High above, the ghostly aurora glimmered among the stars, slowly turning crimson.

Sunny was cursing the world.

Tired of waiting powerlessly inside the Rhino, he climbed to its roof though the upper hatch and swayed as a furious wind assaulted him with cutting cold. A few steps away, Saint was standing straight, sending one arrow after another into the dark sky. Each arrow reaped a life, and the bodies of abhorrent creatures were raining down on the snow behind the convoy.

In a gun nest on the roof of one of the civilian transports, Samara was discharging her rifle time after time, and somewhere high above, bloody explosions of charged essence bloomed with each shot.

The other Awakened were assisting the soldiers, as well. However, even though each possessed a Memory capable of dealing damage at range, they were less proficient with them. The Sleeper, ironically, was the closest the convoy had to a marksman after Saint and Samara. His quiver was full of poisoned arrows.

...In an infuriating turn of events, Sunny was the only one without a suitable weapon. He only had one bow, and that one was currently being used by his Shadow.

'Curses...'

Creatures, compelling the nearest ones to aim at him, and him alone. That made the pattern of their attacks a little bit more predictable, causing more bullets to hit their mark. He did not know what else to

it was meaningless,

still be no more than a drop in the ocean.

then, all their efforts would end in a gruesome and bloody finale. Sunny did

not account

swarms of flying Nightmare Creatures before. And yet, Sunny had never considered a situation like this one seriously enough to come

What was one supposed to do if the sky itself

He gritted his teeth.

failed to escape from the path of the harrowing horde, and

to catch the Brood beasts before they crashed

there was no

taste in his mouth,

disappeared completely, swallowed by the seething haze of the Devouring Cloud. Numerous abominations blotted out the sky, making it seem as though the crimson lights of the aurora itself

of the Nightmare Creatures would be able to satiate themselves with human flesh. There were

the rest

even help his people in their

His most important job as a leader was to think, and yet, Sunny could not think of anything, either. The image of the map was still flashing in his mind, almost burned into it. All the potential campsites and shelters he had marked in

next moment, a corpse of one of the Brood beasts crashed into the roof of the Rhino. The APC shuddered,

maw of the dead abomination, numb to

ghastly, hungry maws would soon be feasting on the

A hungry maw...

a grim expression appeared on his

landed on the