Shadow Slave

Effie rose to her full height, towering a hundred meters above the desert. She was like a colossus cast of lustrous steel, the gorgeous lines of her athletic body shining under the blinding sun… a beautiful war deity rising to face the tide of monstrous abominations.

The white fabric of the Starlight Shard rippled in the wind.

Expanding the two Memories to fit her giant size cost a significant amount of essence, but it was worth it. Sadly, the same could not be said about the rest of her arsenal — not that there were a lot of Memories in her possession that could accommodate her Transformation.

Even those that could were too weak to justify the expenditure.

Especially because Effie had other ways to spend her essence.

As soon as her Transformation was complete, she activated her Ascended Ability. Instantly, every soldier at the bottom of the dry riverbed — those that could see her, at least — felt their hearts beating faster. Their spirit and body were reinvigorated, while their strength, speed, agility, endurance, and resilience were greatly enhanced.

But that was the good thing about Effie's Transformation… it was hard not to notice a hundred-meter-tall colossus, especially one as striking as her. Her Ascended and Transcendent Abilities synergized beautifully to make sure that anyone on the battlefield could see her at any moment, even in the midst of a furious melee.

As long as she was on the front line.

The loud, reverberating roar rose from the riverbed as thousands of soldiers, both mundane and Awakened, chanted in exhilaration:

«Raised by Wolves!»

«Saint Athena!»

«War Beast is here!»

Their impassioned voices were full of resolve and grim determination.

And as they looked at her, Effie felt her essence being slowly replenished.

«Well, at least someone is in a good mood.»

Looking past the exultant soldiers, she gazed at the burning city. From her current height, Effie could see the eerie fissures of the Nightmare Gates surrounding it like seven ghastly siege towers. One of them was especially tall, reaching even higher into the sky than she did.

There were several gargantuan figures moving in the sea of Nightmare Creatures. The Great Devil was not the only calamity unleashed by the seven Gates there were other Gate Guardians, as well.

Two of them was even Titans.

«A Great Devil, a Corrupted Tyrant, two Fallen Titan, and a swarm of Terrors…»

One way or another, today's battle was going to end up in the history books. It was not quite the Chain of Nightmares, but definitely the worst crisis the waking world had faced since the Southern Campaign — by far.

What would the history books tell?

That on that day, the forces of humanity triumphed vallantly over a dreadful enemy?

Or…

loss

of the battle,

«…To hell with that.»

placed the back of her hand on the ground, the open palm facing the

tapestry of horrors that awaited humanity in the coming decades. In the near future, there would be

end of it all, there might be no one

was definitely not

[Cassie.., are you watching?]

was a moment of silence, and then a response came, as

[I am.]

Effie smiled.

[…Watch well.]

Cassie's job, after all,

soared into the air and landed gracefully on her palm. Effie rose to her feet, gazed ahead, and

quaked under

steel colossus running was both

war chant of the advancing army, Effie leaped over the vast battle formation the marching mundane soldiers, the wings of lumbering MWPs, the heavily armored tanks, the Awakened phalanx — and crossed the dry riverbed in

was among the Nightmare Creatures. Standing on

slow down! Proceed to the designated

with a

I ever

like the thunderous song of

with her keeping it down. Jet was tough enough to withstand the full volume of Effie's voice, but if a mundane human happened to be too close, they would easily be crippled or outright die

them in one fell swoop. Some had survived, and were already trying to crawl up

amounted to anything. Even if the armor was breached, Effie had her Awakened Ability to fall back on. As great as her offensive might was, her defenses were even more astonishing… in fact, Effie was often tempted to say that she

Saying something like that was just inviting

all kinds of Nightmare Creatures out there, Many of them had means of bypassing physical defense, or could deal entirely different types of damage. The moment a powerful Awakened became arrogant

whispered into

[You have slain…]

[You have slain…]

[You have slain…]

a

large rat. Its body disintegrated into a disgusting torrent of bloody liquid, and before that liquid splattered across a vast stretch of the riverbed's slope, Effie was already past the foremost wave of

Corrupted Monster, Maw of

later, she reached the city

great walls surrounding NQSC, Not all human cities were siege capitals, after all the true siege capitals had been constructed

Spell, both to keep the Nightmare Creatures out and to make them habitable in the aftermath of the previous era. Still, the scale

of Effie had quite a robust wall once upon time, but now it lay in ruins. The streets were obscured by smoke, and countless abominations were rampaging under its suffocating

she could hear a terrible cacophony