Shadow Slave

On a dark desolate highway, a black steed and its bleak rider emerged from the shadows. Adamantine hooves rang on concrete as they flew forward through the falling snow, soon catching up with a small column of battered vehicles.

Overtaking one transport after another, Sunny briefly evaluated their condition. The convoy was roughly halfway to its destination, and none of the vehicles had failed... yet. Each looked as if it had gone through a meat grinder, but whatever the technicians had done to the transports was still keeping them from breaking down on the road.

Hopefully, that would continue to be the case.

His soldiers were doing a good job of warding off the Nightmare Creatures, as well. Nothing had managed to attack the column in his absence. The refugees were all intact.

Glancing at the military vehicles, Sunny sent a short communication to Gere:

"How much ammo do you have left, Sergeant?"

The response came in a crackle of interference:

"Glad... you back, Captain... sufficient... or two... nearly spent..."

Sunny frowned. The worsening quality of the signal could mean only one thing. They seemed to be approaching a powerful Gate.

He concentrated for a moment to sense the Call, and felt that it was gradually growing louder.

'Goddammit...'

With a grimace, Sunny sent Nightmare forward and soon reached the head of the convoy, galloping alongside the Rhino. He caught a glimpse of Luster, who was concentrating on driving the APC, and then looked into the darkness ahead.

were enough to deal with them. However, in the distance, still a few kilometers away, Sunny saw a hint of wrongness hidden in the darkness of the

inconsequential from distance, but had to be considerably wide

A Nightmare Gate.

question was... how long

away in search

looking at the

road. However, the mountain slopes made him feel tense, for some reason. Disturbed, Sunny studied the cliffs rising above the highway to understand what he had missed.

slope itself moved, unfurling long limbs and turning away from the mountain to face the

uttered a

almost of the same texture as the stone slope of the mountain, and its eight segmented legs resembled wide pillars. It looked like a giant spider with an enormous, bulbous

Sunny's mouth turned dry.

'...A tyrant.'

it had to be a tyrant... one that carried an army of minions within its body, no less. The towering abomination was a dire threat itself, just from its sheer size alone, and there was

no

was in disarray, and the damned whispers of the cursed sword were not making it

I deal with

minute left before they would reach the Gate and its Guardian, so

with his most powerful

the Rank of the giant spider, that could either be a very

summon his bow and finally use the wasteful, but devastating [Death Dealer] enchantment, potentially delivering a severe wound or outright killing the tyrant on

that did not work, he