Shadow Slave

The remains of the field army sent to the Antarctic Center gathered into a formation after marching across the giant crater. The hill—like stone corpse of the Fallen Titan Goliath, the pit created by the enormous explosion, and the city with millions of defenseless humans sheltering inside were now behind them.

In front of them were a vast field of snow and the towering peaks of the mountains.

There were around twenty thousand mundane soldiers, some of them piloting the mighty war platforms, and a thousand or so Awakened gathered in front of the crater. Just like Gere had said, very few members of the First Army had used the priority right to be evacuated ahead of civilians. Most had remained, and were now preparing to face a dreadful foe.

The Winter Beast.

The plan of the battle was rather simple... the creature’s physical body was rumored to be hidden at the heart of the blizzard, protected by hurricane winds and murderous cold. To prevent it from reaching the siege capital, the army was going to advance into the snowstorm and confront the titan.

Neither mundane soldiers nor the Awakened had any hope of actually damaging a Corrupted Nightmare Creature. Luckily, an abomination that mostly relied on unnatural powers to kill its prey could not be too formidable in a physical confrontation. The few Masters who still remained with the army had a good chance of wounding, or even slaying it... if they could get close enough.

The role of the soldiers and the Awakened was to bury the titan under their bodies and distract it, hopefully giving the Ascended an opportunity to strike.

No one knew if the plan had even a theoretical chance of working, but it was their best chance.

Aside from Sunny and Jet, there were two more Masters who had both survived the previous weeks of the siege and chosen to stay and fight. The four of them were spread across the formation, each commanding one of the four brigades.

Nightmare was still slumbering because of the wounds he had received during the previous battle, but Saint, maybe due to the [Mantle of Darkness], had already recovered. However, Sunny did not summon her yet — he wanted to keep his strongest weapon at hand in case things went wrong.

If the army was unsuccessful in their desperate gamble to breach the wall of the blizzard, he would send one of his shadows ahead, to allow the taciturn knight to emerge from it near the titan and engage the abomination in battle.

That was his last resort.

...Even still, Sunny did not know if Saint would be able to do anything. That was the main problem — none of them knew anything for sure. The Winter Beast was just too unknown and mysterious. Chances were, every single one of them would die long before catching a glimpse of the titan’s true body.

’Curse that fiend.‘

Sunny was standing in front of the brigade of grim-faced soldiers who were now under his nominal command. The members of his cohort were right behind him, and behind them were the rest of the Awakened. The mundane soldiers were at the back of the column, comprising most of it.

All of them were looking ahead, struggling against the cruel winds.

In front of them... a cloud of snow was descending from the mountains, slowly blotting out the sky. It was like a swirling white wall was slowly erasing the world. With each second, the winds were growing stronger, and the terrible cold was becoming more unbearable.

The blizzard was coming.

Sunny sighed, then looked over his shoulder.

”Get ready!”

Without Kim, the members of his cohort lost the ability to borrow his sight. Each of them had summoned a luminous Memory, and so had the rest of the Awakened in the brigade. The mundane soldiers, too, were equipped with various light-producing devices. Beams of powerful spotlights shot into the darkness from the shoulders of the towering MWPs.

The brigade appeared like a river of light in the middle of a sea of darkness.

The harrowing snowstorm was getting closer and closer.

”Advance!”

Sunny took the first step forward, and the soldiers followed. The war platforms prepared their flamethrowers — since the titan’s most fearsome weapon was cold, today, these armaments were more valuable for their ability to create heat, not for their destructive potential.

On both sides of the brigade, two more rivers of light flowed forward — one commanded by Soul Reaper Jet, one by an Ascended that Sunny had met a few times, but did not really know.

A few moments later, the snow was upon them.

Sunny shivered, feeling a merciless chill permeate his body. Even with his elemental resistance and the help of the Memory of Ice, he was shocked by how ferocious the cold was. He could only imagine how terrible it was for the rest of the soldiers.

It had never been the same the previous times Sunny encountered the wandering blizzard. Now that Saint Tyris was not suppressing the Winter Beast, it had fully unleashed its power, causing the world itself to become its tool. This snowstorm was not an aftereffect of the titan’s presence on the landmass, either. It was directly created by the frozen horror.

...In fact, the snowstorm itself was the horror. It was as much a part of the Winter Beast as the physical body hidden in the heart of the blizzard was. In that: regard, the Corrupted Titan was much closer to the dark sea of the Forgotten Shore than it was to a simpler creature like Goliath.

For a moment, Sunny wondered if there was something secretly hidden at the heart of the cursed sea, as well.

”Flamethrowers!”

The MWPs walking at the sides of the column extended their arms, sending long streams of fire crisscrossing above the formation. It was as though a flaming cage was created around the brigade — for a few moments, the cold receded slightly.

The billowing clouds of snow were instantly melted, and drops of water rained down on the shivering humans.

For as long as the war platforms had fuel to keep the flames burning, the army still had a chance to reach the depths of the unnatural snowstorm.

...However, they had not burned for long.

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