Shadow Slave

The Rhino let out a disturbing, screeching sound and came to a shuddering stop. Sunny remained on the roof for a few moments, looking down with a grim expression on his face, then jumped down. Landing softly in the snow, he took a few steps away and studied his battered APC.

The mighty machine... had seen better days.

Its armored hull was littered with deep gouges and makeshift patches of scavenged alloy. The wedge-shaped ram at the front of the Rhino was deformed and painted dull red, its deployment mechanism irreparably damaged and stuck in the lowered position.

The six mighty wheels were still intact, but all the additional thrusters were either spent or destroyed.

What worried Sunny the most, though, were the sensitive internals of the APC. Despite the fact that Kim and Samara had been desperately trying to keep them from deteriorating completely, most of the systems were slowly dying. The Rhino had been put through too much abuse, and now, it seemed to be on the verge of failing.

A sad, bitter sigh escaped from Sunny's lips.

'Damn it.'

...Behind him, the rest of the caravan was in a similar condition. The column of dilapidated vehicles stretched for many kilometers, each showing some signs of battle damage and stress. Most vehicles had not suffered as much as the Rhino, which served as the vanguard machine, but then again, most of them were also not as shielded and robust as the custom APC of the Irregulars.

After studying the state of the caravan for a minute or two, Sunny turned around and walked forward. Passing between the massive shape of Abomination and the much smaller, but similarly fearsome shape of Blackie, he stopped and looked at the vast valley below.

As he did, the Crow landed on his shoulder.

Sunny and the three Echoes remained silent for a while.

here once. Craters and mounds of frozen earth littered the landscape, hinting at a heavy artillery bombardment. A ghastly mountain of charred bones towered near the slopes, and some distance away from it lay a graveyard of

Nightmare Creatures

that, thirteen active Gates ringed the valley,

"What a terrible place."

looked at Naeve, who had just reached the crest of the hill. The Nightwalker was looking down with a sour face,

Sunny smiled.

when seven new Gates opened right when we tried to deal with the six that had already manifested, encircling

defend the mundane soldiers. Looking down, he could recognize the spots where

Was he feeling... nostalgic?

did not matter,

matter was that the valley was only a day's travel away from Falcon

had finally

the long night of Antarctica still showed no sign of ending. The world was dark,

bit harder than the previous one. The numerous skirmishes and battles they had fought all started to blend into one, at some point, and the names of soldiers and civilians Sunny

all, few people died... comparatively. Considering the overall size of the caravan, the number of casualties

people were not

and

caravan this close to Falcon Scott in one piece, but the hardest part was still ahead of

humans, the siege capital naturally attracted numerous Nightmare

break through that blockade