Shadow Slave

The moment Winter's arrow reached the Devouring Cloud, a brilliant flash of light blinded everyone for a moment. A vast sphere of flame bloomed in the middle of the swarm, spreading far and wide like a rolling wave of destruction.

Then, it collapsed on itself and exploded once more.

Tongues of flame spread through the mass of abominations, swallowing countless brood beasts. Some were turned to ash, some fell down to the ground like burning stars. Others continued to burn as they streaked chaotically through the sky, their flesh boiling and dissipating.

But they did not die before colliding with some of their vile brethren.

The fire spread.

As if possessing a mind of its own, it continued to spread from one abomination to another, until it seemed as though the sky itself was aflame. The darkness was chased out by the furious orange-white glow, and Sunny felt something that he had never expected to feel in the middle of winter in Antarctica.

Scorching heat caressing his skin.

He sucked in a shaky breath.

'...Damn.'

It seemed that all their preparations were not in vain. Winter's opening was nothing short of breathtaking. It was outright frightening, if he was honest.

But it was just an opening, nevertheless- although the Devouring Cloud had sustained considerable losses and had to slow down, it was in no way stopped. Already, some brood beasts were charging through the wall of fire, lunging toward the city.

Grinning at the sight of the fiery slaughter, Sunny shook off his momentary shock and drew Morgan's Warbow again.

need

a brood beast clean through, then continued to fly forward, killing several others.

descending tide of winged horrors. Even though it seemed as if the

fear for one's life, but with two hundred million people depending on their protection, the soldiers of

dozens of throwing stars appearing between her fingers and shooting forward with terrible speed, shredding

her rifle, explosions of essence blossoming in the mass of Nightmare Creatures. Pieces of torn flesh and streams of blood rained

the Devils were doing

was not at all done with her part of the slaughter,

With four Awakened elites using their Aspects to augment hers and a number of

arsenal capable of widespread destruction, and augmented as she was, the

her soul essence, she had no reason to

Cloud was melting in front

'Morel'

the string, the process of dismissing and summoning the Strike of Thunder back finally finished... just in time.

slain...][You have slain...][You have

yet, even with all that destruction summoned upon the brood swarm, it was still advancing on the city. Half of the vast killing field had already disappeared in its shadow, and the first of the winged horrors were already reaching the

disappearing into the breach in the war platform's armor that it had just created with the circular, fleshy maw. The creature crawled into the pilot's cabin - in the next moment, the massive machine jerked erratically and stepped back, plummeting from the battlement into

uttered a silent

all the Awakened standing nearby. Their arrows and bullets easily passed through the dome to hit the enemies, but when a lone brood beast lunged at Winter from above, it collided against the wall of shimmering energy as if against solid stone. The creature's body bounced away in a rain

it's

"Sunny! Now!"

thoughts. They briefly glanced at each other, then dashed away from the Irregulars. Sunny dismissed

an insidious voice - his own voice -