Shadow Slave

"Before the battle, Morgan had said that she would have been certain of Valor's victory if not for Mordret's Reflections. Now that her final Echo had revealed itself, Sunny finally understood what she meant.

The arrival of the worm titan instantly changed the situation on the battlefield, but even such a creature was not enough to spell certain defeat for the forces of Clan Song.

...A mere Corrupted Titan would not have been able to doom the monstrous beings gathered on the desolate Antarctic plain today, and an Echo of one was tremendously powerful, but not nearly as dreadful as the real thing would have been.

So, even though the situation had changed, the outcome of the battle still hung in fragile balance.

The dead were rising to assist the outnumbered warriors of Valor. The main body of the Echo itself had to be dealt with, as well.

Instead of quelling the furious bloodshed, the arrival of the abominable worm only seemed to drive the chaos to a new, inconceivable level.

One thing it did manage to achieve instantly, though, was force Beastmaster to finally reveal herself.

Sunny felt her presence before he saw her.

It was as though an invisible hammer fell from the sky, pressing every soldier of Clan Valot into the ground. The Awakened, who had been fighting with indomitable resolve up until now, suddenly staggered and swayed. Their movements grew sluggish and strained.

'Aargh...'

Sunny gritted his teeth as he shook off the effects of the mental assault. Even his incredible resistance against mind attacks had been insufficient to fully deflect Beastmaster's diabolical power... the poor warriors of Clan Valor stood no chance against it.

Their only saving grace was that the enchantress was forced to spread herself thin to influence a thousand powerful Awakened at the same time. Their concentration was broken, and their strength was severely diminished, but at least they survived - if the task in front of the daughter of Ki Song had been less enormous, she would have probably managed to either subjugate them or outright shatter their minds.

The most frightening thing about it, though, was that the ordinary warriors were not even her main target.

Sunny saw it from the corner of his eye... but once he did, he couldn't look away.

against the Reflections. Sunny did not know if she had

was mesmerizing. But

so breathtaking that looking at

though Sunny's soul

'Damn it...'

took a step forward, the four Reflections that

enemy could not be seen. The ground around her suddenly exploded, and she was obscured by a cloud of dust. Something moved within that cloud, and a devastating shockwave spread outward, sending Awakened warriors and enthralled Nightmare Creatures flying. A

enchantress, but looking at her bizarre clash with Madoc - one using ethereal mental attacks, the other invisible swords - he was suddenly not sure that he was qualified. How was he supposed to intrude upon a

'Later.'

still had an unfinished

had risen to support the warriors of Valor, but Beastmaster's calamitous assault had restored the lethal equilibrium between the two fighting forces. The titanic Echo was clashing with the four

was still

cut down one of the Masters who had attacked him before -

same time, the cursed sword laughed at him from the

fought his way through the ring of enemies surrounding Sky Tide and

Tyris was on one knee in the middle of a pile of corpses, her armor battered and broken. Her sword was covered in a net of cracks, and her golden hair

they were full of pain and

the brunt of Beastmaster's

stinger on Sky Tide's cracked sword. The two of them fell to the

no retaliation from the Nightmare Creature, because Saint Tyris had pierced its neck a

pulled her sword out of the thrall's corpse and braced it to block an Aspect Ability attack made by one

Tide's sword let out a low ring, and shattered, instantly turning into a rain of radiant sparks. She was tossed back and grunted, spitting out a mouthful of

'You bastards...'

back on his feet,

assessed the situation and reluctantly suppressed his desire to slaughter everyone in sight. Cutting down the minions of Clan Song would have been enjoyable, but there were too many of them around, and they were too powerful - he could