Shadow Slave

A few more days passed in the clamor of firing armaments and frenzied howls of dying Nightmare Creatures. The dark landscape of the Antarctic Center flowed past the incessantly moving caravan, with the starlight and the undulating visage of Aurora Australis finally appearing from behind the clouds of ash, only to be devoured by the veil of snow.

The blizzard was picking up again, making Sunny wonder if he was going to meet the second titan raging in the region. He was not very enthused to make its acquaintance, to say the least.

The journey... was a strange one. Sunny was used to things going south fast, but the situation of the caravan was very different. Instead of something dreadful and devastating happening all at once, their circumstances were growing slightly more dire with every hour, bringing them closer to annihilation little by little.

The confident pace the caravan had established after leaving the resupply station was long gone. Instead of rare skirmishes with weak swarms of Nightmare Creatures, they were now embroiled in a nearly unstoppable battle with the sea abominations flooding the northern reaches of the Antarctic Center.

The pressure on the Awakened and the MRW pilots had increased tremendously, and the infantrymen had to bloody their bayonets on more than one occasion already.

Worst of all was the inescapable corrosion that the multitude of Gates were exerting on their tech. The military vehicles were shielded from the detrimental effects of the Call to some degree, but very few had the same rare and expensive modifications as the Rhino had. They were managing for now, but there was no telling how long it would last.

The problems were mounting.

...The casualties were mounting, too.

During the harrowing push to Erebus Field, Sunny had lost only a handful of people to the vagaries of the Spell and the deadly crucible of battle. Their losses were few enough to consider each one a poignant event.

It was not so much for the current step of the journey.

The caravan had grown too much, and the combat engagements they had to fight were too frequent and intensive to avoid losing soldiers. The attrition rate was not terrible, and in fact remained admirably low, but it seemed that every time Gere contacted him to give an update on the state of the column, more names had to be added to the list.

Sunny was strangely bothered by it. He had thought that with the drastic increase in numbers, the loss of individual soldiers would not affect him too much, especially if the casualties were below expected. He had also thought that he would eventually grow numb to the news of people under his command dying.

But he had not.

his soldiers died - no matter how few - the more bitter and angry he felt. However, the most powerful emotion he experienced was rather

good men and women die, to see mundane humans putting their lives on the

'Damned bastards...'

cut to be

a good job of leading the caravan and pretending to be an intrepid commander. However, it was all alien

alone in the Dark had been much

'Ah, good old times.'

caravan's advance north... something that Sunny should have expected,

under his command was not reducing. Instead, it was growing...

squads of soldiers that had lost contact with Army Command due to the blizzard, and evacuation convoys that had gotten stuck in a limbo after their destination was destroyed. All of them were happy to see a well-organized

they joined the caravan. Sunny could not really turn the stragglers away, and at that

then six, and then twelve. The five hundred soldiers turned into more than

of Awakened swelled to seven, and there were now two

for two kilometers now, and showed no signs of stopping

it, Sunny couldn't help but shake

just a

a whole division by the time they reached Falcon Scott. If they reached

would stumble on a colonel or two and push the command responsibility on them soon. If the colonel was not an idiot, of

Demon laying in ambush in the path of the caravan and returned to the head of the column. As soon as he appeared from the shadows on the roof of the Rhino, the Crow flew down and perched on his shoulder, his feathers ruffled and covered

glanced at the miserable bird and

Did you see

monster bobbed its