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…"

froze for a split

could escape the shore without being torn to shreds by the defensive armaments… granted, most of the First Army forces were currently concentrated

nearby, though, and defended by its own garrison. Bloodwave and the Awakened of the House of Night were

to put a dent in the defenses of

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 rising from the

step back, then steeled himself and raised the Sin

thousands of refugees were currently there, with even more already on the

of light fell from above,

But it didn't.

onslaught of heavy rounds,

armaments on the wall of the

chill run

'The hex…'

get a

with much more speed than he had been capable of as a human. Sunny shifted, trying to deflect the incoming attack, but his reaction was too slow. A devastating blow sent him flying backwards, the breath knocked out of

'Curse it…'

before falling prey to

a neglectful

he had already known that the hexed residents were capable of showing unnatural strength.

close to a thousand mundane soldiers, several hundreds of civilians… and thousands upon thousands

seemingly blind

situation was not

fear for the first time in a long while, Sunny forced himself to rise

'No, not everyone…'

firing their rifles. That meant that the creature's hex was not absolute. With so many residents around, it