Shadow Slave

'Tired... so tired...'

Sunny smashed through the nearest beetles and jumped back, sliding a few dozens of meters across the ground as his claws left deep grooves in the frozen soil to slow him down.

In front of him... the river of darkness was falling apart. The dark beetles, who had been acting like a single organism before, were now aimless and sluggish. Some grew lethargic or started burrowing into the ground, while others were wandering away. A few hundred were still pursuing him... with a thought, Sunny deactivated the Dying Wish and watched the small creatures dash away in fear.

The swarm ceased its purposeful advance and instead flowed outward, losing the shape of a giant tentacle of darkness. It was as though a tank of water had been broken, water spilling to the sides.

Utterly, chillingly exhausted, Sunny panted heavily inside the shadow shell. There were several beetles still crawling within it, stubbornly trying to bite through his skin. However, even their vicious bites had grown less determined.

'The breaking point... did they reach it?'

His tired mind wanted nothing more than to release the manifested shadows and let the Shadow Devil form crumble into nothingness, but he forced himself to remain vigilant.

Looking left and right, Sunny saw that the two neighboring swarms were in a similar condition. This was good news, but also bad... now that the Heart of Darkness was acting directionless, its deterrence seemed to have lost most of its power. The horde of Nightmare Creatures, which had been scared away by the dark beetles, was already starting to tentatively move closer to the group of humans.

'Crap...'

Sunny closed his eyes for a moment, then turned around and took a few steps toward the members of his cohort, who were similarly spent and battered.

His soldiers, however, recoiled away from him.

He looked down in confusion for a moment.

'Oh...'

With that, Sunny finally let the shadows comprising the Shadowspawn return to their natural form and flow back into the intricately engraved lantern hanging on the black silken cord tied around his waist. The towering four-armed devil suddenly crumbled into a cloud of darkness, and a pale young man in a beautiful black tunic stepped out of it with a stagger.

'Argh!'

Sunny fell to his knees, then raised his fist and angrily struck the ground several times, crushing the scurrying beetles.

"C-captain? Is that y-you?"

He glanced at Kim, who was staring at him with wide eyes.

"Of course, it's me. Who else would it be? And it's Major now, damn it..."

He slowly stood up and summoned the Endless Spring, taking several large gulps of cold, refreshing water.

Perhaps dismissing the Shadow Shell outside the city wall was not the wisest decision, but he felt that he would not be able to sustain it much longer. At least that way, he would have a tiny bit of essence left... for whatever it was that would happen next.

The wall...

Sunny looked back, finally witnessing the full scope of the damage done to the defensive barrier. The southern span of the wall was terribly deformed and broken, with many sections laying in giant piles of broken, melted alloy... much more of them than when he had left it. Somewhere beside it, hidden by the sea of abominations, the Awakened of the First Army was still holding the horde back.

He wondered how many of them were still alive.

'What is going on? Why did the Heart of Darkness suddenly... stopped beating? Where the hell are...'

Shaken, he looked to his left, where Saint and Nightmare - and Soul Reaper's cohort - had fought.

His Shadows were already approaching, both littered with wounds. Neither had perished, but they did sustain a lot of damage. Even Saint, who was Transcendent, and thus much more durable than Sunny, had suffered dreadfully while battling the swarm of black beetles. Maybe because the small creatures were especially proficient at gnawing through stone...

The [Mantle of Darkness] was slow to repair the damage, as well, almost as if Saint's internal source of true darkness was as exhausted as Sunny's reservoir of essence. Her wounds were healing, nevertheless... just not at all as fast as he would have wanted.

There was one more figure making its way toward him, as well. Sunny felt extremely relieved when he recognized Jet.

Soul Reaper... did not look good. Her armor seemed to have been destroyed at some point during the battle, and now, she wore only the uniform bodysuit, its smart fabric wet and heavy with blood. Her face was ashen.

In a few heartbeats, all three arrived.

...In the same span of time, the Nightmare Creatures started to draw closer, madness and hunger burning in their eyes.

Sunny was the first one to speak:

"Master Jet? What happened? Why did the bugs suddenly..."

She staggered, forcing him to support her. Sunny and the members of his cohort looked at the leader of the Irregulars with concern.

Jet took a few raspy breaths, then said in a hoarse voice:

"I'm alright. It was Bloodwave... he fought his way to the center of the swarm, and killed the thing in charge."

Sunny blinked.

"What? How? And what exactly did he kill?"

She shook her head.

"I don't know."

It was only then that Sunny realized that Soul Reaper was alone. He hesitated for a moment, then asked:

"Your cohort?"

Jet gritted her teeth.

"...Dead."

Then, she pushed herself off of him and straightened.

"The Ascended that were supposed to reinforce us... are also dead. They couldn't fight their way through the horde. And speaking of the horde, we need to get the hell out of here, fast. We need to reach the secondary defense line really, really soon... otherwise, Army Command is probably going to blow us all up..."

Sunny froze for a moment.

'The... the Rampart Protocol...'

The First Army, of course, had all kinds of contingencies. There were a few set in place in case the city wall fell, too - from relatively tame to really drastic.

The Rampart Protocol was the most drastic of them all.

There were tunnels dug below the killing field, and under the span of abandoned streets between the city wall and the secondary defense line, as well. All of them were choke-full of powerful explosives, most of them created with the use of spelltech.

All those explosives were set up to go up in flames together, turning everything outside the secondary barrier into a vast, scorching inferno.

That measure was only supposed to be implemented after every soldier had safely retreated into the safety zone... and most of them already had. Army Command would probably wait for Sunny, Jet, and especially Bloodwave to return before pulling the trigger.

But the situation was extremely chaotic, and communications were down. There was just no telling for sure.

'Damnation...'

Sunny glanced to his right and saw a battered Echo - the other two must have been destroyed - and a fearsome figure in sharkskin armor emerge from the mass of dark beetles and dash toward them.

Some distance behind the pair, a mass of abominations was already lunging forward.

He looked back at Jet and grinned.

"Then what the hell are we waiting for? Run!"