Shadow Slave

Soon, they reached the army outpost. There had been a few Nightmare Creatures that attacked them on the way, including an especially vile Corrupted Monster - Sunny tore the former apart with hands woven out of shadows, and cut the latter down personally with a blade created the same way.

These days, he tried to avoid getting his own hands dirty, mostly using Shadow Manifestation to slaughter the enemy. Sunny wanted to hone and refine his mastery of Manifestation, and for that, he needed a lot of practice.

Additionally, he felt that it was unnecessary for him to get up close and personal with every godforsaken abomination standing in his way.

Perhaps it was the nature of his current mission as a solitary scout, or perhaps Sunny had simply received a chance to return to being cautious and stealthy after years of being forced to play the role of a frontline fighter... in any case, he strived to only enter melee range with an enemy if he was certain of killing the foe with a single strike.

Usually, one of Sunny's strikes was enough. If not, he would avoid a confrontation entirely.

The army outpost was located underground, similar to the supply depot he had visited once in the Antarctic Center. However, as a member of the Special Reconnaissance unit, Sunny knew very well where all the army assets were hidden. Better yet, East Antarctica had no problems with communications... well, except for the usual interference of the Call... so he had been able to radio about their arrival in advance.

Sunny and the surviving MWP pilot were met by a cohort of sleep-deprived Awakened. Despite their visible fatigue, the soldiers stood at attention and saluted him respectfully. Their eyes betrayed a hint of reverence.

'This again...'

Sunny was met with such stares anywhere he went in Antarctica, at least among the soldiers. The First Army and the Second Army were merged into one military now, but within it, people who had been in the Southern Quadrant since day one of the Chain of Nightmares were treated with silent respect.

That went tenfold for those who had been a part of the Antarctic Center contingent. The Antarctic Center had been the most terrifying battlefield of the operation yet, and almost the entire field army sent there had been wiped out. There were only a few survivors here and there - mostly those who had been among the evacuated wounded.

Needless to say, Sunny was both a veteran of the Antarctic Center and an Ascended. That was why most soldiers treated him with veneration.

"Master Sunless, sir!"

He nodded at the welcoming party and handed over the MWP pilot to them. The young woman had done well keeping pace with him on the way to the outpost, but now that they had reached safety, she looked to be on the verge of collapse. Of course, it was not at all surprising...

Sunny sighed and glanced at the Awakened.

"At ease. Take good care of the lieutenant... oh, and by the way. I've cleared a path through the hills and dealt with the Corrupted Monster that had been stalking the area. If you hurry, you might harvest what is left of it before more abominations show up."

The soldiers looked at each other, their eyes glinting. That monster had been causing a lot of trouble for the outpost, especially considering that it had blocked the pathway through the hills. With the creature gone, logistics would become much easier for them.

"Thank you, sir!"

Sunny nodded.

"Well then, I'll be off."

He looked at the MWP pilot, lingered for a few moments, and then said awkwardly:

"Stay alive, soldier."

With that, Sunny stepped through the shadows and disappeared from view. He had wasted a lot of time already, and was running late for the rendezvous with Soul Reaper.

The soldiers remained standing there for a while, staring at the empty space where he had stood before. Eventually, one of them said:

"That was him. The Devil..."

Another nodded with a stunned face.

The sun was circling in the sky, never falling behind the horizon. He glided through the shadows where he could, ran where he couldn't. From time to time, Sunny simply hid in the shadows, waiting for large swarms of Nightmare Creatures to pass by. These pauses slowed him down, but they also allowed him to recover some essence.

He avoided getting into fights to preserve more of it, as well... and also because there was no reason to.

It was already evening, or whatever passed for one in this strange land, when Sunny drew near another ruin. The city in front of him was almost entirely destroyed, and drowned by a vast lake, with only the remains of tall towers rising above the icy water.

The ruin was different from the one from before, and much older - it had been left behind by the wars that humans waged on each other during the Dark Times, not the rampage of the Chain of Nightmares. Nevertheless, the drowned city was Sunny's current mission.

He hid himself in the shadows of a rusted wreck and studied the ruin. There were bodies of Nightmare Creatures floating near one of the towers, painting the water black. Each of them seemed to have been killed by a single arrow. Sunny observed the area for a few minutes, noticing strange ripples on the surface of the lake - there were more abominations hiding underwater.

Finally satisfied, he activated his comm and contacted Jet.

"Reaper, it's Devil. I've arrived."

A few seconds later, her voice came through the static.

"...Took you long enough. Where are you?"

He looked around.

"Southern shore, near an old wreck on the slope of a flat hill."

Jet took a few minutes to respond.

"I see it. Move west for about a kilometer, then follow a collapsed tower into the lake. From there, you'll be able to see three huge smokestacks. I'm in the middle one, near the top. Get here as soon as possible... and be careful of the water. It is teeming with schools of tiny, hungry fishes."

Sunny lingered for a moment.

"Got it. What about the target?"

Soul Reaper responded in a few seconds, her voice sounding a bit tense:

"It's in the middle of the lake. I was waiting for you to arrive before trying to get a better look."

Nodding, Sunny glanced at the ripples in the cold water one more time, and then dashed out of his shelter.