Shadow Slave

For a moment or two, Sunny’s mind was empty. He crawled back, looking up at the familiar figure towering above him.

Verne… it was Verne. There was no mistake.

…Or something wearing Verne’s corpse, at least.

His shadow was much more vast and dreadful than a human’s shadow was supposed to be.

The hollow gaze of the dead Master pursued Sunny, his face still and unmoving like a mask. Behind him, the dark waves stirred, and more figures rose from the water. Men, women… dozens of them, hundreds even. They marched forward like an army of the dead, silent and emotionless, their eyes drowning in darkness.

All their shadows were wrong.

The people of LO49 that Sunny had left to die. He recognized all of them, staring at the undulating surface of the ocean in horror.

‘The… the Terror…’

Strangely, it was the contemptuous laugh of the cursed sword that shattered his paralysis.

“Look, Lost from Light… your sins have come to haunt you!”

Sunny shuddered, coming to his senses.

‘What sins, you bastard? I did everything I could to save them!’

The insidious voice laughed again, then whispered, its hissing words falling like drops of poison:

“Weakness is also a sin, you pitiful worm… it is the greatest sin of them all…”

Sunny snarled, then rose to his feet and froze for a split second, thinking feverishly about the situation.

After chasing the Tyrant, he was now behind the city. There were tall cliffs between the ocean and the northern wall of Falcon Scott, so nothing could escape the shore without being torn to shreds by the defensive armaments… granted, most of the First Army forces were currently concentrated on the southern side of the wall, fighting against the Devouring Cloud.

The port fortress was nearby, though, and defended by its own garrison. Bloodwave and the Awakened of the House of Night were also there, protecting the anchored ships and overseeing the loading of the refugees.

A thousand enthralled corpses were not going to put a dent in the defenses of the port. As for the Terror itself…

Just as that thought flashed through Sunny’s mind, he saw something that made his blood run cold. There, behind the slowly advancing figures of the drowned residents of LO49, the black water seethed and boiled, releasing even more thralls. Nightmare Creatures… thousands of them… were rising from the waves, all moving with the same silent, harrowing dispassion.

He took an involuntary step back, then steeled himself and raised the Sin of Solace.

The Terror’s thralls could not be allowed to reach the port. Hundreds of thousands of refugees were currently there, with even more already on the ships. Thankfully, the elevator platforms leading to Falcon Scott were empty, the evacuation stopped briefly on account of the Devouring Cloud.

The defenders of the metropolis had also spotted the new threat. Powerful beams of light fell from above, illuminating the quiet horde. A instant later, a hail of bullets was supposed to tear into it…

But it didn’t.

The spotlights moved on, as if not noticing anything. Instead of an obliterating onslaught of heavy rounds, all that came were a few sporadic streams of rifle bullets.

The armaments on the wall of the port fortress were silent, too.

Sunny felt a chill run down his spine.

‘The hex…’

He did not get a chance to finish the thought.

Verne suddenly disappeared, moving with much more speed than he had been capable of as a human. Sunny shifted, trying to deflect the incoming attack, but his reaction was too slow. A devastating blow sent him flying backwards, the breath knocked out of him entirely. He crashed to the ground and rolled, feeling cold numbness spreading through his chest.

‘Curse it…’

He had been mistaken to assess the enemy’s power based on how powerful the thralls had been before falling prey to the Terror. Whatever the creature had done to them… had made them into… was much more dangerous than their former selves.

“You are a neglectful fool, aren’t you?”

Struggling to inhale, Sunny gritted his teeth. Indeed, he was… he had already known that the hexed residents were capable of showing unnatural strength. Why would the slaves be different? If anything, their change would be greater.

One Master, a hundred or so Awakened, close to a thousand mundane soldiers, several hundreds of civilians… and thousands upon thousands of Nightmare Creatures, all controlled and changed by the Terror.

With everyone seemingly blind to their existence.

The situation was not good…

Feeling true fear for the first time in a long while, Sunny forced himself to rise once again and look at the hollow-eyed horde.

‘No, not everyone…’

Although most of the defenders seemed to be ignoring the Terror’s thralls, some were still firing their rifles. That meant that the creature’s hex was not absolute. With so many residents around, it could only do so much.

There was a restriction to its power. Which meant that it could be defeated.

There was a sound of metal scraping against stone behind him. Looking back, Sunny saw Dale approaching, his buckler raised and dripping with blood. His heart skipped a beat.

“Dale! Do you see them?!”

The heavily armored Master turned his head slightly, darkness nestled in the slit of his visor. His voice sounded a little muffled:

“What are you talking about?”

Sunny’s heart fell, but then, Dale continued:

“How would I miss thousands of creatures crawling from the ocean? Of course, I see them. Question is, why are the wall armaments still silent?”

More and more Nightmare Creatures emerged from the water, flooding the shore. Sunny found Verne and shivered, noticing that the dead Master was staring at him, as well.

“It’s the Terror of LO49! The wretched thing is messing with people’s minds! We need to…”

The hollow horde suddenly stopped moving. Thousands of heads turned in unison, countless empty eyes all staring at a single point…

Sunny.

He shivered.

‘…I guess it recognized me, as well.’

The horde rushed forward.

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