Shadow Slave

'Ah... it hurts...'

Sunny had escaped the dark cave fast enough to not be eaten alive, or even to a serious degree. Just as he had joked, he ended up only being eaten a little.

There were a few bites on his body and one on his cheek. The most serious wound by far was the one he had inflicted on himself to get the last beetle from under his skin. The Moonlight Shard had cut deep, but, guided by his steady hand, missed both his heart and anything else that was important.

Still, it stung. Not that Sunny had time to pay it any attention.

The Rhino was speeding forward, almost flying through the shuddering tunnel. All around it, the darkness was rippling and shifting, as if out of control. It felt like the thing they were inside of - whatever it might have been - was convulsing. Not exactly in the throes of death, but maybe in agony. Sunny was pretty sure that the blow Saint had delivered to the black sphere was not fatal to be unknown being, since he never heard the Spell announcing a kill. The source of the true darkness was not destroyed, just damaged.

...Or maybe set free.

"Captain! That... that is new!"

Hearing Luster call out to him, Sunny looked forward and saw an unfamiliar shape appear from the darkness. It was a rusted frame of an old personal vehicle, which they had never seen before. The implication made a pale smile appear on his face.

'It's broken...'

The strange anomaly that had been keeping them inside the tunnel seemed to be no more. They were actually moving forward instead of traveling endlessly through a neverending sea of darkness. Destroying the black sphere had really broken the binding.

He let out a shaky breath.

If he had not received a message from the outside... things might have turned out differently. Sunny would have ventured into the side passages eventually, but probably without leaving one of the shadows behind. Even if he did, he would have definitely taken the rest of the Irregulars with him.

Then, they would have died.

Actually, he still struggled to believe that everyone survived.

...For now.

out of

looked at Luster

Get us out of

they could feel the floor of the tunnel starting to slope up. That had not happened before, so Sunny took

good things had ended after

life around them. it shook and trembled, more and more cracks appearing on the walls and the roof of the tunnel. At some point, one of the walls collapsed just as the last vehicle passed it, and a flood of something dark and soothing flowed into the

was behaving as if it possessed a maleficent sentienee. Instead of spreading in every direction like

crack appeared on another section of the wall, and a few tiny bodies fell from it on

'Crap!'

Sunny could do was pray that they would pass the swiftly growing crack before

Somehow, they did.

tunnel was ready to collapse. The civilian transports struggled to keep up with the Rhino, climbing up the quaking road. Behind them, the endless flood of dark beetles was gaining speed, swelling as new streams of

ahead of them, in the distance, a circle of dim

The exit.

ghostly flames of the aurora, and maybe even the moon. Although small, the difference between the true darkness of the underground tunnel

They almost made it...

going

as he watched the distant exit

a bit more... just

night. The vast expanse of the

Then, his grin disappeared.

to see, he sent his shadows to take a look outside,

had led them quite high into the mountains. Behind them, the stone slopes were cracking and breaking, with giant boulders rolling down into

beetles were continuing to pursue them even