Shadow Slave

The sky parted, sliced through by a narrow vertical rift. Behind it, the fabric of reality made way for a dark, harrowing abyss of nothingness — both light and darkness seemed to be twisted and changed near the Gate, breaking as they were destroyed.

The rift dwarfed the entire battlefield, stretching for hundreds and hundreds of meters into the shattered sky. The abandoned outpost, and the black fissure of the Nightmare Gate that led to the vicinity of the Black Skull, looked tiny and insignificant in front of it.

An invisible shockwave rolled outward from the point where the gargantuan rift touched the ground, exerting an almost irresistible force. Sunny braced himself, but still staggered as the wave passed through him, barely managing to stay on his feet.

His mind was drowned by the deafening, cacophonous howling of the Call — it was many times louder, more unbearable, and maddeningly demanding than it had ever been before.

Sunny desperately resisted the overwhelming desire to submit.

All around them, the Awakened warriors screamed as they grabbed their heads and fell to their knees. Their eyes were wide open, but unseeing. Some were bleeding, and some seemed to be crawling toward the Gate. Some were thrown to the ground by the shockwave.

The invisible force made no distinction between those serving Valor and those serving Song — they were all the same in the face of the harrowing rift.

Mundane humans, if any had come to witness this battle, would have been outright killed by the pressure of the Gate.

Sunny staggered back and looked up at it in terror.

His lips moved.

"Four… it's a Category Four Nightmare Gate…"

And, just as he said those words…

The world shook again, and another rift tore through the sky.

The world convulsed, and one more sliced the fabric of reality apart.

Like three dark pillars holding up the heavens— or three vile spears cruelly thrust into the flesh of the world — three colossal Nightmare Gates surrounded the battlefield, cutting out all paths of retreat.

there was a way to

Awakened of the Evacuation Army that had come

vast moved in the abyssal darkness of the first

Gate. A moment later, giant fingers suddenly pushed from it into the waking world, each as large as a tower.

around blindly, then grabbed the edges of the vertical rift and strained, as

part of it all

That they succeeded.

of black cracks seemed to spread through the sky. Then, the gaping wound of the Nightmare Gate was torn open, and a seething mass of the

black tentacles, which then shot

step back. His

the opposite side of the battlefield, the towering tortoise Echo was ripped apart with a single swing of a black tentacle. The Awakened sheltered in the stone fort on

worm. The titan rose its repulsive body into the air to meet them… but a moment later, it was

the Reflection of Silent Stalker disappeared under the tide of dark flesh, and a faint sound of breaking

Most shocking of all…

from the Gate, Beastmaster suddenly staggered back from the vague figure outlined in front of her, blood flowing from her mangled

bloomed

flesh became visible as they splattered all around, unrecognizable as parts

brother of the King of Swords and an elder of

He was dead.

and Nephis watched the world end

Great

a Great Nightmare Creature forcing its way

of it. The mere thought of trying to resist

the

of outrunning the tide of Corrupted and Great abominations that would enter the waking world in mere moments. Even with Nightmare

Were zero.

obliterated in seconds, a