Shadow Slave

The Memory Sunny had created was, of course, a message to Nephis. The [Shadow Bond] that connected them was an innate Ability of his Aspect, and as such, existed outside of the Spell. It did not matter that the convoy was isolated from the Dream Realm... their tenuous link remained active. Sunny knew it because he himself was still able to see Neph's runes, so she should have been able to see his, as well.

'Well, that's done...'

The only question was how soon would Nephis see the message, and how long would it take for her to come up with a response. Sunny suspected that he was going to have to wait for a while.

Morgan's Warbow proved that forgemasters of clan Valor were capable of naming the Memories they created. However, he did not know how high Changing Star's standing in the great clan was at the moment, and if it was possible for her to charge them with forging a specific Memory for her, let alone do it quickly.

In any case, he was sure that she would come up with something. Nephis was a frighteningly resourceful person, when she needed to be.

...Kind of like Sunny himself.

'It won't be fast, though.'

With a sigh, he glanced at Professor Obel and Beth.

"The message is sent. Now, we just need to wait for a response."

The convoy continued its meaningless march. Hour after hour, the small column of vehicles drove through the overflowing darkness, their sense of time and direction slowly disappearing. The dark tunnel was just too eerie, inexorable, and unchanging. Everything there seemed like a strange, foreboding dream.

From time to time, one of the vehicles would break down, forcing them to stop for quick repairs. The Rhino was operating on an advanced spelltech engine, which meant that its fuel was soul essence. Luster was more than capable of keeping the APC moving indefinitely. The military vehicles had primitive spelltech batteries serving as a backup energy source for their hybrid systems, so he was able to help the soldiers, too.

but were going to gel exhausted sooner or later. Although it did not seem like it,

drove for the rest of the day, and

Rhino, staring at the entrances to the side passages that would sometimes appear in the stone

would have been passing under Erebus Field, their final destination, right about now. With no mountains to climb and no Nightmare Creatures to fight, only the straight road and

translate to the same amount of covered ground in

days after he had sent his message,

soon, but there it was. He habitually summoned the runes to check on Neph, and then blinked a couple of times, noticing that the list of her Memories seemed much longer than it had been

Star joined hands with Valor, her soul arsenal improved by a lot. There were certainly benefits to being an adopted daughter of a great clan, so she would occasionally receive a Memory or two. It seemed that she was being provided with a constant stream of soul shards, as

not envious at all... yeah... I am not

the desperate people who clung to what little

runes, which showed that Nephis had gained fifteen new Memories in

being nurtured by a great clan, that

names of the

Hearth, Nebulous Veil, Dire Warning, Haunting Eversong,

And six more.

them seemed to have been created by

Sunny scoffed.

'...Clever.'

he read the first letter of

up with

FINDHEARTCUTRUN