Shadow Slave

"The Nightmare Gate leading to the area of the Black Skull Citadel was located within the hunting grounds of a Corrupted Titan... Sunny knew that.

The titan itself was a mysterious creature. The Evacuation Army did not possess a lot of information about it, simply because it was too dangerous of a task to observe the abomination - after losing several teams while trying to investigate the creature, even the elite scouts of the Special Reconnaissance Unit did not dare stalk it.

All they knew about the Corrupted Titan was that its movement patterns were erratic, that approaching it was suicidal, and that its powers had something to do with reanimating the dead. As long as the creature showed no sign of setting its sights on one of the siege capitals, the army simply monitored its general area of activity and kept away.

Army Command had also taken steps to ensure that the corpses of the Nightmare Creatures slain around the siege capitals were promptly disposed of, to ensure that the titan wouldn't be able to make use of them.

...However, the forces of the warring clans had brazenly invaded its territory, and now, they were about to pay the price. Sunny was sure of it.

'Damnation...'

Staring at the worm crawling across his palm, he felt time slow down. Instantly, Sunny was overwhelmed by an animalistic, panicked desire to sever his hand before it was too late - he did not know what would happen if he didn't, and was terrified to find out.

He was... scared.

There had been a time when Sunny felt fear often. At some point, however, he had developed a pretty high tolerance to terror, maybe because he had been exposed to it too much. These days, he sometimes felt disturbed, apprehensive, and wary - but very rarely truly afraid.

He couldn't help but be afraid now, though. Looking at the grey worm, it was as though Sunny had been transported to a snowy field in the Antarctic Center. The feeling of absolute, overwhelming powerlessness he had experienced there... it chilled him to the bone.

'Curse it!'

With a snarl, Sunny dissolved into the shadows, allowing the worm to fall to the ground. A split second later, he reappeared a few meters away, holding his sword in a defensive stance.

All around, the battlefield was changing. The worms were crawling from the ground and... and burrowing into the corpses of the fallen Awakened and slain Nightmare Creatures.

Moments later, the corpses started to convulse. Some were even rising, moving like broken marionettes.

'What.. what is this?'

Horrified, Sunny watched as the victims of the bloody battle were being brought back to life... or rather, to a perverted semblance of life. All kinds of wild thoughts flashed through his mind, from the instinctual desire to flee to the wild idea that it was Ki Song, the Queen of Worms, had personally descending into the waking world.

But no, it couldn't be her...

It was simply a Corrupted Terror - it had to be. A creature like that was powerful, but not indestructible. Sky Tide alone had battled the Winter Beast for weeks... months, even. If there had been six more Saints supporting her, the abominable creature would have undoubtedly been slain.

There were currently seven Saints present on the battlefield - six belonging to the great clans, and Wake of Ruin. There were Sunny, Nephis, Morgan, Mordret, and Seishan as well. There was no reason for him to...

Suddenly, the ground trembled and split. Hundreds of meters away, a gargantuan head rose from below it - the head of a revolting, giant worm. It crawled from the soil as if escaping hell, its long body not really a single whole, but instead a shape created by numerous slithering grey worms sticking together. A visage so ghastly that Sunny suddenly wanted to vomit.

However, he didn't. Because there were things only Sunny could see...

Even though the giant body of the titan was not an actual creature, but instead an amalgamation of countless smaller worms, he could see its soul cores. A scattering of radiant embers that continued to reveal themselves as the abominations crawled from underground. Three were already in view, and four more would undoubtedly follow.

Sunny felt something move in his chest, and allowed himself to be paralyzed by shock.

But only for a second.

'Embers... embers... seven embers...'

His eyes widened. Sunny was frozen for a moment, and then whispered:

"All there is to war is power... and application of power... one has to be flexible when waging war..."

I have them exactly where I wanted them.

That was what Morgan had said.

He shivered.

'Of course...'

A Corrupted Titan would have had seven soul cores... seven corrupted soul cores. Its soul would have been permeated with abhorrent darkness stemming from seven vile nodes.

A Transcendent Titan, if such a thing existed, would have had seven radiant spheres of light serving as the nexuses of its vast soul.

The creature in front of him, however, had neither nodes of darkness nor radiant cores. Instead, it had seven bright embers burning within its body.

Like a Transcendent Echo would.

And Morgan had summoned twenty of those, already.

For some reason, the Spell was obsessed with the number seven. And, influenced by the Spell, humans had begun to structure various things in sevens, as well.

So, wouldn't the princess of Valor actually possess twenty-one Transcendent Echoes?

That would be only logical...

Finally, several things clicked together in Sunny's mind - the reason for Morgan's unexplainable confidence, her pretense of willingness to participate in a duel that had pushed Beastmaster into committing to a battle, the fact that the Corrupted Titan's hunting grounds had shifted to encompass the Black Skull Nightmare Gate right after reinforcements had been sent through it by Whispering Blade...

Sunny blinked.

'...What a devious strategy.'

There wasn't, and had never been, a Corrupted Titan. There was only an Echo of one - a Transcendent Echo belonging to Morgan. She had unleashed it in East Antarctica and allowed it to roam free all that time. The Echo had even destroyed several human outposts and killed every scout of the Evacuation Army sent to investigate it, until no more scouts were sent.

All to make this moment possible.

The titan Echo had been supposed to protect the Nightmare Gate and seal access to Black Skull until it was captured by Clan Valor, but Mordret bypassed the worm entirely and made those plans useless. So, Morgan was forced to shift her strategy.

Instead of betting on the Black Skull Citadel to carry her to the Tomb of Ariel ahead of the competition, she used it as a lure to decimate Clan Song's forces on the battlefield.

She had applied her power in a way most flexible, indeed.

...Looking at the giant grey worm rising from the ground, Sunny suppressed a stifled laugh.

'What the hell... am I supposed... to be happy to see this revolting thing?'"