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 their attacks a little bit more predictable, causing more bullets to hit their mark. He did not

of it was

more than a drop in the ocean. With each minute, the number of attacking abominations was mounting, and with each second, the

and bloody finale. Sunny did not think for a second that

account for it... fool,

had not fought swarms of flying Nightmare Creatures before. And yet, Sunny had never considered a situation like this one seriously enough

though? What was one supposed to

He gritted his teeth.

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

around to catch the

there was

taste in his mouth, Sunny looked

crimson lights of the aurora itself were spawning the all-consuming deluge of

was that not even a fraction of the Nightmare Creatures would be able to satiate themselves with human flesh. There were too few humans

rest of

could not even help his

was still flashing in his mind, almost burned into it. All the potential campsites and shelters he had

of the Rhino.

the ugly maw of

be feasting on the

A hungry maw...

appeared on his face, hidden by the

around, Sunny dove back into the hatch, noiselessly landed on the floor of the