Shadow Slave

1071 Familiar Role

Nephis stared at Sunny for a couple moments, then briefly glanced at her apron and quietly cleared her throat.

"Right."

She turned around and got back to stirring the rice. A couple seconds later, site added without looking back:

"You'll have to wait for a couple more minutes. And... welcome back, Sunny. Did you make it out of the Antarctic Center alright?"

Sunny wondered how much Changing Star knew about the situation in the Southern Quadrant as he followed Cassie, Effie, and Kai to sit behind a dining table. Settling on a wooden chair... which was far inferior to his own Shadow Chair... he sighed.

"I wouldn't call it "alright". But yes, I made it out. I'm already inside a siege capital in East Antarctica."

Neph's shoulder moved slightly.

"...That's good."

Effie grabbed a few cans of something sugary and refreshing, then pushed one toward Sunny.

"Kai and I spent a whole month in transit, aboard those giant ships. We were in the first batch of the Second Army to arrive, so we've been in East Antarctica for about a week. Gods... I thought the ocean was bad, but Antarctica! I havenever seen that many Nightmare Creatures in my life, not even here in the Dream Realm. It's like the two worlds switched places."

Kai nodded southerly.

"Indeed. Even though there are secure evacuation corridors between the inland siege capitals and the harbor strongholds, we had to fight a couple battles just to reach our designated sector. Luckily, there were no casualties."

The Second Army was twice the size of the First Army, so it was going to take two trips for the naval convoys to bring all of it to the Southern Quadrant. Both Effie and Kai were in the first wave of reinforcements, which was why they had made landfall around the time Sunny himself reached East Antarctica.

large place, and it was not a given that their paths would cross until

Effie shook her head.

you? You... you look a

indeed look slightly different because of the Marble Shell. However, Sunny knew that

sighed and took a sip from the

after our contingent of the army made it to the Antarctic Center, things were. more or less fine. The field army split into seven divisions, with one remaining in the

Sunny paused.

capital, and then went on a mission to retrieve a VIP from a remote research station. That was when everything went from bad to worse. The Chain of Nightmares had gone into overdrive. and three whole titans

to keep his voice from shaking at the mention of the Winter Beast. The others looked at him intently,

by a powerful Terror. My people and I were the only ones to survive. We were in a bit of a predicament, though, because

and the start of the

already been destroyed. So I had to go to the second nearest one, picking

a smile, looking at

to say the

Sunny chuckled.

a time. Sadly, the second nearest siege capital also ended up being destroyed, and so, I had to lead the train of refugees all the way back to

remained silent for a while. Eventually, Sunny

had been holding back that Comupted Titan I mentioned. Once she was defeated, the titan swept in and killed everyone. The whole field

not mowing what to say, and neither did Effie and Kal. The

people had died, and what had happened to Sunny could very easily happen to the two of them, as

Eventually, Kai sighed.

Sunny. You've

his eyes for a moment. The heart-wrenching memories of the Antarctic Center clawed at his heart, making

With a smile, he shook his

But... it did really feel different, this time. Maybe because I was responsible