Shadow Slave

Two weeks after Sunny had returned to Antarctica, he stood on a cliff overseeing a vast scene of devastation. In front of him, a great valley was formed from collapsed mountains and stone debris, the ruinous landscape now covered in ice and snow.

This was the place where Sky Tide, Wake of Ruín, and Dire Fang had battled the three emerged Titans - Whispering Legion, Goliath, and Winter Beast. The Whispering Legion had been slain, while the other two calamitous abominations drove the Saints away. An entire span of the mountain range had been demolished in the process.

There were Nightmare Gates hidden under the crushed stone, without a doubt, or maybe above it.

Sunny could not see, because most of the valley was hidden by a raging blizzard. This blizzard was the very same that had once enveloped Falcon Scott, sapping the lives of all its remaining inhabitants.

It was the manifestation of the Winter Beast's authority,

The air was so cold that each breath Sunny took felt like he was swallowing a scattering of sharp knives,

Not paying it any attention, he was gazing down with an expressionless face, his eyes drowning in deep darkness. His gaunt body was encased in fearsome onyx armor, and that armor was shrouded in darkness.

Out there in the valley, far below, a long line of Nightmare Creatures was advancing into the blizzard. Their movements were still and unnatural, as if they were corpses animated by some unknown force. But, at the same time, none of them showed any fear or hesitation. Neither did they show the demented frenzy inherent to most abominations.

They just slowly marched into the snow, stretching into a wide line that seemed to encompass the front of the blizzard.

A few moments later, the first of the Nightmare Creatures collapsed, its corpse swiftly becoming encased in ice.

cliff, Sunny pursed his lips in

‘Weak.'

that he needed these useless things to be strong. No, their purpose was different... it was to show him which type of Nightmare Creature was the most resistant to the Winter Beast's

as Titans went. It did not rule a legion of powerful minions, either, What made the Winter Beast so lethal was its

seemed slower, as if the

Corrupted Titan, he needed to understand It first. Only after dismantling the

the sacrifice he had prepared to throw into the deathly cold to comprehend

see his sacrificial pawns anymore, but Soul Serpent still shared a

and by studying which ones lasted longer,

on. Die for

the end,

of them

snowstorm. The cold did not differentiate between large monsters or small, those with affinity to ice or those without.

then sighed

'No matter

result in and of itself. The fact that there did not seem to be a kind of resistance effective against the authority of the Winter Beast's profane domain told Sunny a lot, as

for just that kind of outcome. These strategies were risky, yes... but, actually, he did not feel regretful. Because

a fashion

valley, the blizzard suddenly expanded, as if coming to life. A terrible wind blew, crushing into Sunny with a chilling force. The wall of swirling snow and ice particles