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.

a way to

warriors of Clan Valor, the fearless soldiers of Clan Song, and those Awakened of the Evacuation Army that had come as escorts of Saint

then, something vast moved in the abyssal darkness of the first

who had enough presence of mind left to see witnessed something shift within the Nightmare Gate. A moment later, giant fingers suddenly pushed from it into the waking world, each as large as a tower. There

blindly, then grabbed the edges of the vertical rift and strained, as if trying to

most horrifying part of it all

That they succeeded.

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

tentacles, which then shot forward with

step back. His

on 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 its carapace were thrown into the air, and the Transcendent creature instantly exploded into a whirlwind of

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

who then raced away. A split second later, the

Most shocking of all…

back from the vague figure outlined in front of her, blood flowing from her mangled

whipped through the empty air with terrible speed, and a fountain of blood suddenly bloomed where the vague figure had stood a moment ago. There was no time to

of torn flesh became visible as they splattered all around, unrecognizable as parts of a human

that, Saint Madoc, the Whispering Blade, brother of the King of

He was dead.

and Nephis watched

Great… a Great Terror? A

Great Nightmare Creature forcing its way into the

seemed meaningless in front of it. The mere thought of trying to

within the other

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

Were zero.

in seconds, a Master like him had no chance at