Shadow Slave

The [Formless] Ability allowed Serpent to assume the form of any shadow resting in Sunny's soul, Inheriting its powers and abilities. The shadow had to be of the same or lower Rank and Class, which meant that the most powerful form Serpent could currently assume was that of the Sybil of the Fallen Grace... the Terror of LO49.

And, in fact, that form was suited for Sunny's goal much better than the Mountain King. However, Serpent had to maintain the transformation with its own essence, and could not sustain such a powerful shape for a long time, let alone constantly.

Once the Shadow's essence was exhausted, the effects of those powers it had assumed would be gone. In other words, if Sunny had ordered Serpent to turn into the harrowing Sybil and enthrall a swarm of Nightmare Creatures, those abominations would have been released from the mind hex before too long.

The Mountain King, meanwile, was merely an Awakened Tyrant. As a Transcendent Terror, Serpent could maintain that form almost indefinitely, especially after Sunny augmented it with the shadows. That was exactly what he needed in order to collect a small army of abominable thralls,

It was funny... the Larvae the Mountain King spawned were Dormant Beasts. Therefore, his first thrall was also a Dormant Beast - but one wearing a Fallen Monster's corpse. What exactly did it make him, Sunny did not know. Nor did he care that much.

Come to think of it...

Sunny glanced at the towering figure of the Soul Serpent, then at the hideous creature laying obediently on the snow. He sighed.

By now, Serpent had to possess at least two new Abilities since it had risen in Class twice while following Rain, and in Rank once. But without the Spell conveniently informing Sunny about what these Abilities did, he had no way of knowing what they were.

There had not been a lot of time for research and experimentation, either, while he was traversing the toxic wilderness of the Northern Quadrant and fighting his way through the depths of the ocean.

All he had was a suspicion that one of these Abilities had to do with Serpent's weapon form, while the other one had to do with souls and spirit essence. However, he wasn't sure.

find out

was dead, there would be no serious threats left in the Antarctic Center for a while... at least until the powerful abominations

more reason to kill that cursed

Sunny

and then turned away. The desolate landscape of the Antarctic Center stretched in front of him, tall mountains rising from the snowy plain in the

chilling darkness in Sunny's eyes

"Time to hunt..."

***

Titan Goliath, the Corrupted Terror Sybil of the Fallen Grace, and the Corrupted Titan Winter Beast. Sunny had killed the first two, while

was to say that Sunny, now a Transcendent Terror, was the second

the Antarctic Center was like a merciless death trap, with harrowing abominations waiting to ambush him and his soldiers on every turn. He had crossed it once with the First Evacuation Army, and the second time with a convoy of refugees, each time

things were

Sunny was the harrowing predator, while the abominations dwelling

the sun had not fallen beyond the horizon yet... there was twilight and darkness dwelling in the deep canyons between the snowy peaks, so he

the slopes like morbid gardens

to enjoy

of them died,

Slowly but surely, his swarm of thralls grew, which made it harder to hide them. Eventually, he had to abandon stealth and advance forward openly. Sunny hoped that a horde of Nightmare Creatures would attack him, but sadly, the number of abominations seemed to have dwindled under the Winter