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...'

compelling the nearest ones to aim at him, and him alone. That made the pattern

of it was

still be no more than a drop in the ocean.

gruesome and bloody finale. Sunny did not think for a second that the convoy would

I not account for it... fool,

yet, Sunny had never considered a situation like this one seriously enough to come

countermeasures were there, though? What was one supposed to do if the sky itself decided to

He gritted his teeth.

as Sunny could tell. They had already failed to escape from the path of the harrowing horde, and had not found a shelter

to fire their turrets, hurriedly swinging the steaming barrels around to catch the Brood beasts before they crashed into the transports. Saint and

was no

a bitter taste in

though the crimson lights of the aurora itself were spawning the all-consuming deluge of them. A

Creatures would be able to satiate themselves with

rest

weapon, Sunny could not even

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 advance were too far away, and all the convenient roads

the next moment, a corpse of one of the Brood beasts crashed into the roof of the Rhino. The APC shuddered, but continued to speed forward. A drop of fetid blood hit the visor

inhaled deeply and stared at the ugly maw of the dead abomination, numb to

ghastly, hungry maws would soon be feasting on the flesh

A hungry maw...

grim expression appeared on his face, hidden by the

around, Sunny dove back into the hatch, noiselessly landed on the floor of the APC's floor, and