Shadow Slave

The two of them lowered themselves to the weathered alloy, looking cautiously over the edge. Far away, in the middle of the ruined city, an enormous body of a ghastly creature was hidden between the rubble, long swathes of it submerged into the water.

The creature resembled a monstrous centipede that was at least a hundred meters long. It was encased in pale chitin... no, not chitin. Bone. The giant centipede seemed to be covered in countless thousands of human skulls, all of them stuck together to form a morbid carapace.

Its horrid maw was large enough to swallow an armored APC and full of grotesque, bone-white teeth. On its head, two tall, dead trees grew from the carapace of skulls like skeletal horns.

Making a point to only keep the abominable creature in his peripheral vision and not stare at it directly - powerful abominations could often sense a gaze directed at them - Sunny sighed.

"That... is going to be trouble."

He had chosen to remain as quiet as possible, relying on the [Blessing of Dusk] to convey his thoughts to Jet instead of speaking aloud. She nodded, then responded in the same manner, her voice resounding clearly inside his head despite the deathly silence and the howling of the wind:

"Look at its mouth."

Sunny turned his head a little and watched.

Far below them, the centipede twisted its long neck and convulsed, heaving. Then, it opened its maw and vomited out a huge pile of moist, slime-covered bones. For a few moments, it looked as if the abomination was having problems digesting its prey... then, however, the pile of bones moved, slowly coalescing into a nightmarish, misshapen creature.

The revolting bone monster rose shakily to its varied limbs and staggered away, soon disappearing beneath the water. Looking at the surface of the lake, Sunny frowned... how many of these creatures had the centipede created already?

He lingered for a moment, then glanced at Jet.

"It's a Corrupted Tyrant."

She grimaced.

"Yeah... seems that way."

Soul Reaper cautiously opened her backpack and took out several bulky devices. Those were sensor arrays and recorders the army had issued to them, all based on complicated spelltech technology. The bulk mostly came from various isolating agents the designers wrapped the sensitive internals in, hoping to negate the detrimental effects of the Call.

Sadly, the interference of the nearby Gate was too strong for the spelltech equipment to achieve anything. After several minutes of fruitless attempts to gather data, Jet sighed, glanced at Sunny, and shook her head.

He gave her a shrug.

"Contact Army Command, then."

She remained motionless for a few moments, then moved away from the edge of the smokestack's lip and activated her military comm. The static noise must have been dreadful, but Jet still managed to deliver a message:

"HQ, this is Recon Four and Recon Nine. We are at the mission site, target visual confirmed, threat level core-five. Requesting analyst support."

Soul Reaper waited for a few moments, then raised three fingers into the air. That meant they had to wait for three minutes.

'Fast... HQ is either not too busy today, or sees this mission as a top priority.'

The former seemed unlikely, so it was probably the latter.

With a sigh, he summoned a Memory. Soon, a circle of green patinated bronze appeared in his hands, with a lens of roughly polished crystal encased within.

This antique looking glass was both pretty simple and interesting in function - it was a twin Memory. Somewhere in the army headquarters, there was an Awakened wielding an identical circle of patina-covered bronze, and the two were connected. That allowed the diviners and other analysts to extend their senses across the continent, even if the technological solutions failed.

Memories like this were rare and extremely precious, but each of the scouts serving in the Special Reconnaissance Unit had been issued one.

Sunny shifted slightly and aimed the looking glass at the distant centipede. A couple of minutes later, he sensed the Memory reaching for his essence, and poured a generous amount of it into the murky crystal. The connection was established.

Jet crawled back and pressed herself into the cold alloy by his side. After a few seconds, she sent Sunny a mental message:

"They're looking."

Down in the ruins, the ghastly centipede heaved out another bone monstrosity and swayed its head lightly, as if sensing some disturbance. Both Sunny and Jet froze, holding their breaths. Shivering in the wind, he made a miserable face.

'That's so unfair. I'm the only one who actually needs to breathe...'

A few minutes passed in tense silence. Then, a few more.

Eventually, Sunny felt the bronze circle fall asleep. The pull on his essence disappeared, as well. At that moment, Jet glanced at him.

"Seems like Army Command is on edge about that thing. They need some time to arrange an appropriate response, though. We're to stay here and observe, reporting immediately if it starts moving."

Sunny sighed, then looked around. At that height, the wind was strong and chilly. There was no shelter on the alloy lip of the giant chimney, and the acrid smell could still be felt here, permeating the air.

He shook his head in resignation.

"Great. I'll take a nap then."

Jet blinked a couple of times.

"Hey, how come you get to sleep first? I haven't slept in a week!"

Sunny stared at her gloomily, then sighed again.

"Fine. You go first. I'll keep an eye on the Tyrant."

Soul Reaper flashed him a smile, then turned on her side, put the backpack under her head, and seemed to immediately pass out.

Sunny was left to observe the appalling giant centipede alone. He chewed on his lip.

'Why does she even need to sleep? She's dead!'

Sadly, Jet was already blissfully asleep.

The tyrant methodically continued to create bone puppets, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was being watched. The mysterious being hiding in another smokestack similarly remained passive.

A few hours passed. Sunny patiently waited until his shift was over, then woke up Jet and handed the responsibility of keeping watch on the Tyrant to her.

Tired and bored, he tried to get comfortable on the cold alloy and closed his eyes.

...Seemingly a second later, Jet shook him awake.

"It's on the move."

Sunny rubbed his eyes, then groggily looked down. The enormous centipede was slithering through the shallow water, and the surface of the lake around it was boiling. Hundreds of bone abominations were following the palid creature... much more than he had expected there to be.

'Crap...'

Soul Reaper was already reporting to Army Command. Half a dozen seconds later, she started crawling away from the edge.

"They are sending two entire companies to deal with it... the Wolves and the Nightsingers. We are to follow the thing and inform Army Command on its movements, then rendezvous with the assault force and help them take the abomination down."

Sunny was already moving, the bronze looking glass dissolving into a stream of sparks in his hand. Despite the perilous situation, a crooked smile appeared on his face.

'The Wolves and the Nightsingers, huh? It seems I'll get to spend some quality time with Effie and Kai soon....'