Shadow Slave

"The Nightmare Gate leading to the area of the Black Skull Citadel was located within the hunting grounds of a Corrupted Titan... Sunny knew that.

The titan itself was a mysterious creature. The Evacuation Army did not possess a lot of information about it, simply because it was too dangerous of a task to observe the abomination - after losing several teams while trying to investigate the creature, even the elite scouts of the Special Reconnaissance Unit did not dare stalk it.

All they knew about the Corrupted Titan was that its movement patterns were erratic, that approaching it was suicidal, and that its powers had something to do with reanimating the dead. As long as the creature showed no sign of setting its sights on one of the siege capitals, the army simply monitored its general area of activity and kept away.

Army Command had also taken steps to ensure that the corpses of the Nightmare Creatures slain around the siege capitals were promptly disposed of, to ensure that the titan wouldn't be able to make use of them.

...However, the forces of the warring clans had brazenly invaded its territory, and now, they were about to pay the price. Sunny was sure of it.

'Damnation...'

Staring at the worm crawling across his palm, he felt time slow down. Instantly, Sunny was overwhelmed by an animalistic, panicked desire to sever his hand before it was too late - he did not know what would happen if he didn't, and was terrified to find out.

He was... scared.

There had been a time when Sunny felt fear often. At some point, however, he had developed a pretty high tolerance to terror, maybe because he had been exposed to it too much. These days, he sometimes felt disturbed, apprehensive, and wary - but very rarely truly afraid.

He couldn't help but be afraid now, though. Looking at the grey worm, it was as though Sunny had been transported to a snowy field in the Antarctic Center. The feeling of absolute, overwhelming powerlessness he had experienced there... it chilled him to the bone.

'Curse it!'

With a snarl, Sunny dissolved into the shadows, allowing the worm to fall to the ground. A split second later, he reappeared a few meters away, holding his sword in a defensive stance.

All around, the battlefield was changing. The worms were crawling from the ground and... and burrowing into the corpses of the fallen Awakened and slain Nightmare Creatures.

Some were

'What.. what is this?'

brought back to life... or rather, to a perverted semblance of life. All kinds of wild thoughts flashed through his mind, from

it

not indestructible. Sky Tide alone had battled the Winter Beast for weeks... months, even. If there had been

Saints present on the battlefield - six belonging to the great clans, and Wake of Ruin. There were Sunny, Nephis, Morgan, Mordret, and Seishan as well. There was no

the head of a revolting, giant worm. It crawled from the soil as if escaping hell,

didn't. Because there were things

could see its soul cores. A scattering of radiant embers that continued to reveal themselves as the abominations crawled from underground. Three were already in view, and

felt something move in his chest, and allowed himself to

only for

'Embers... embers... seven embers...'

Sunny was frozen for a

there is to war is power... and application of power...

exactly where I wanted

was what Morgan

He shivered.

'Of course...'

had seven soul cores... seven corrupted soul cores. Its soul would have been permeated

Titan, if such a thing existed, would have had seven

in front of him, however, had neither nodes of darkness nor radiant cores. Instead, it had seven bright embers burning within its

Transcendent Echo

had summoned twenty of those,