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.

***

a detached expression. 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, the hateful fiend was dead, and Sunny was not. He had even received an Echo, and

as a weapon of his. Therefore, after the appalling creatures had devoured the Scavenger, it rewarded Sunny for

was currently looking at the

do… what

strings of shimmering symbols were at

Shadow Fragments: [3857/4000].

And:

Echoes: [Ravenous Fiend].

had been a weird abomination. He had obviously assumed some qualities of a shadow creature, but not all of them. Otherwise, the bastards would have turned into a Shadow instead

the issue was that the Scavenger's soul was corrupted, and thus unsuited to directly become a Shadow… in any case, as a result, Sunny had received almost eight hundred shadow fragments for killing

of vile abominations, so turning him into a Shadow was an easy decision.

there were two

in unbreakable bone armor… but what appeared instead was a pitiful, tiny gremlin! The Ravenous Fiend was no fiend at all… it was

Devil, but weak beyond belief. His true power lay in a rather insane ability to grow stronger and acquire new traits by devouring

— even more powerful than he had been after devouring random trash across the Antarctic Center. But that would only be in the future, and right now, transforming the Echo into a Shadow would cost him no less than three

not a terribly large amount… except he was on the verge of becoming

runes, Sunny

not a good

a good

something,

conference room — himself and Master Jet. Winter's seat was

because Winter

of Nightmare Creature, when the section