Shadow Slave

For a moment or two, Sunny's mind was empty. He crawled back, looking up at the familiar figure towering above him.

Verne… it was Verne. There was no mistake.

…Or something wearing Verne's corpse, at least.

His shadow was much more vast and dreadful than a human's shadow was supposed to be.

The hollow gaze of the dead Master pursued Sunny, his face still and unmoving like a mask. Behind him, the dark waves stirred, and more figures rose from the water. Men, women… dozens of them, hundreds even. They marched forward like an army of the dead, silent and emotionless, their eyes drowning in darkness.

All their shadows were wrong.

The people of LO49 that Sunny had left to die. He recognized all of them, staring at the undulating surface of the ocean in horror.

'The… the Terror…'

Strangely, it was the contemptuous laugh of the cursed sword that shattered his paralysis.

"Look, Lost from Light… your sins have come to haunt you!"

Sunny shuddered, coming to his senses.

'What sins, you bastard? I did everything I could to save them!'

The insidious voice laughed again, then whispered, its hissing words falling like drops of poison:

"Weakness is also a sin, you pitiful worm… it is the greatest sin of them all…"

feet and froze for a split second, thinking feverishly about the

nothing could escape the shore without

its own garrison. Bloodwave and the Awakened of the House of

to put a dent

flashed through Sunny's mind, he saw something that made his blood run cold. There, behind the slowly advancing figures of the drowned residents of LO49, the black water seethed and boiled, releasing even more thralls. Nightmare Creatures… thousands of them… were

an involuntary step back, then steeled himself and raised the

reach the port. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were currently there, with even more already on the ships. Thankfully, the elevator platforms leading

above, illuminating the quiet

But it didn't.

on, as if not noticing anything. Instead of an obliterating onslaught of heavy rounds, all that

on the wall of

felt a chill run

'The hex…'

did not get a chance to finish

too

'Curse it…'

had been before falling prey to the Terror. Whatever the creature had done to them… had made them into… was

are a neglectful fool, aren't

inhale, Sunny gritted his teeth. Indeed, he was… he had already known that the hexed residents were capable of

so Awakened, close to a thousand mundane soldiers, several hundreds of civilians… and thousands upon thousands of Nightmare Creatures, all

blind

situation was

in a long while, Sunny forced himself to rise once

'No, not everyone…'

firing their rifles. That meant that the creature's hex was not