Shadow Slave

The battle was over.

…It was over for the Irregulars, at least. The fresh soldiers pulled from the other sections of the wall were still fighting on the ramparts of the secondary defense line, but with the Heart of Darkness and Goliath destroyed, and the boundless horde of Nightmare Creatures decimated by the titanic explosion, the siege was reduced to the usual stream of chaotic, relatively small-scale skirmishes.

The spine of the assault had been broken. Falcon Scott had faced the most dreadful battle yet, and endured.

For the most part.

The southern area of the city was entirely destroyed, replaced by a gargantuan crater. The buildings were gone, and a long span of the great wall was gone, too. Even most of the killing field beyond was erased from existence, with only the towering stone corpse of the slain titan remaining intact. It just lay on the slope of the crater like a mountain-sized pile of rubble, filling the hearts of the soldiers who saw it with dark glee.

With the collapse of the wall, defending the city had become much harder. However, the crater formed a natural barrier of its own — even though the secondary ramparts were not nearly as tall or formidable, they still gave the First Army a chance to resist the attacks of Nightmare Creatures.

More than that, four out of the five direst threats to the siege capital were now eradicated. The Devouring Cloud, the Terror of LO49, the Heart of Darkness, and Goliath… despite the terrible price the First Army had to pay, they were dead. Now, only the most powerful of the horrors remained. The Corrupted Titan, Winter Beast.

But it was being contained by Sky Tide of the White Feather clan, so…

For the first time since the start of the siege, the people of Falcon Scott felt hopeful.

They were shaken and terrified, too, but with countless millions of refugees already evacuated, and so many powerful abominations slain, it was no longer impossible to imagine the end of this bloody affair.

Falcon Scott only had to hold for a handful more days…

The ghostly flames of the aurora burned above the ravaged city, and the moon had hidden itself in the cold darkness of the night sky.

***

His skin had healed, turning into a surreal painting of black bruises, but

done a number on him, especially near the end of their murderous clash. Nevertheless,

a weapon of his.

at the runes with dull

to do… what

shimmering symbols were at the center

Shadow Fragments: [3857/4000].

And:

Echoes: [Ravenous Fiend].

weird abomination. He had obviously assumed some qualities of a shadow creature, but not all of them. Otherwise,

to directly become a Shadow… in any case, as a result, Sunny had

peerless genius of vile abominations, so turning him into a Shadow was an easy decision. Having two Transcendent Shadows would be a

there were

summoned it in the Soul Sea, he had expected to see a towering ogre clad in unbreakable bone armor… but what appeared instead was a pitiful, tiny

rather insane ability to grow stronger and acquire new traits by devouring various creatures or things. He

devouring random trash across the Antarctic Center. But that would only be in the future, and right

except he was on the verge of becoming

the runes,

Now is not a

good time… in more than

something, Sunny somberly looked

only two people in the conference room — himself and

because Winter

Nightmare Creature, when the section of