Shadow Slave

The first sign of the impending disaster came mere days after Sunny’s discovery. A naval convoy sailing from the Western Quadrant toward the South American colonies went dark, failing to respond to any communications.

Usually, that would not have caused immediate alarm. The sea corridor to the tip of South America had been lost during the Chain of Nightmares, and reestablished only recently — the ships had to travel along the coast of Antarctica to avoid deep waters, staying a good distance away from the lost continent, but not too far away.

As a result, it wasn’t unusual for them to suffer from the interference of the Call, and communicating with the mainland was difficult at times. The convoys often lost contact for a day or two, continuing the dangerous voyage in isolation.

This time, however, things were different — because Sunny and Nephis knew that there were new dangers lurking in those waters. The last known location of the convoy was quite close to the tip of South America, as well.

So, even if there was no substantial evidence suggesting that something out of the ordinary was happening, they decided to commit serious resources to preventing a potential disaster.

Nephis pulled the Night Garden from its current mission, sending it to patrol the coast of South America instead. At the same time, Naeve and Bloodwave were sent to search for the traces of the missing convoy. They found it before too long, lying on the bottom of the ocean. The armored hulls of the alloy behemoths were shredded and torn apart, having been attacked from below. The crewmembers and Awakened warriors, including the Ascended guide from the House of Night, had met a grisly fate. Mere hours after Naeve reported their findings, no more than a kilometer off the coast of South America, the Night Garden engaged in a fierce naval battle against the mysterious foe who had destroyed the convoy.

The water foamed, revealing countless shapes moving beneath it, the wet chitin glistening in the deep darkness of the starlit night. It was as if an entire swath of the ocean boiled, the turbulent mass of seething water rushing toward the titanic ship that stood between the dark depths and the shore.

They were the Black Millipedes — a raiding party of them, numerous enough to pose a serious threat to all human settlements in South America.

Only these ones were subtly different from the abominations Sunny had fought in the Burned Forest. They were larger, stronger, and more ferocious than the previous generation of the Black Millipedes — many of them were Great Nightmare Creatures as opposed to merely Corrupted ones, as well. The battle was brief, but fearsome. In the end, Nightwalker managed to repel the raiding party, preventing the black swarm from reaching the shore. The Night Garden sustained some damage, and although the hull of the living ship was already healing, the warriors aboard wore grim expressions. If Sunny and Nephis had lingered just a little longer, contemplating the decision, the settlements in South America — and all the people populating them — could have been lost. Even if the settlements weren’t destroyed entirely, the damage would have been devastating.

The situation was dire because this raid was not going to be the last one… and South America was not the only human territory under threat, either. Sooner or later, the Nightmare Creatures spilling into the waking world through the breach in the realm boundary were going to discover the Western Quadrant, as well.

There were far more people living in the Western Quadrants, and far more cities that needed to be protected. Sufficient forces had to be relocated to defend from the new threat, and considering the number and Rank of the abominations they would have to face, that meant sending Saints into battle.

The problem was that the Saints were already engaged in countless battles across the Dream Realm. The Citadel Cities there were under siege, and the pressure on their defenders was only mounting. Nightmare Creatures across the entire Dream Realm were slowly beginning to migrate, abandoning their ancient hunting territories and moving toward the human settlements. It was partially a result of the battles between Mordret and the Dreamspawn. Another reason was that somewhere out there, small pieces of the waking world were being sewn into the fabric of the Dream Realm, disturbing the established order. And the most chilling reason of all…

Was a suspicion that the great horrors of the Dream Realm — the Cursed and Unholy abominations slumbering in the depths of the Death Zones — were stirring and changing their behavior, as well, causing the lesser Nightmare Creatures to flee in panic. The Human Domain mobilized all its forces, with both Nephis and Cassie entering the fray personally. Sunny, meanwhile, deployed his shades away from the Citadel Cities, ambushing and slaughtering swarms of Nightmare Creatures before they could reach them.

However, even with the Shadow Legion growing every day, Sunny did not have too many shades to spare — he had to fight his own war on the Forgotten Shore, after all, where the invasion of the Barrow Wraiths was slowly growing more forceful.

Under these circumstances, it was only a matter of time before humanity suffered a defeat.

That defeat came sooner than Sunny and Nephis had hoped for.

There was a Citadel hidden in the mists of the Stormsea. The Citadel did not have a big population, since the craftsmen of the River People had not reached it yet — the floating settlement around it was modest, only housing tens of thousands of people, but it was a strategically important point.

That was because the Citadel was located further into the nebulous expanse of the Stormsea than any other human stronghold. It had unique properties that allowed it to safely weather any storm, as well, so it served both as the staging ground for further exploration of the Stormsea and as an advanced outpost that warned other, more populous Citadel Cities about the coming storms.

At the moment, a radiant Dream Gate towered above the settlement, and people were retreating into its light with frightened and panicked faces. Not too far from the Dream Gate, tendrils of turbulent black water were crawling up the white slopes of the Citadel, slowly swallowing its stone ramparts.

All the way to the horizon, the surface of the sea was entirely black, emanating an eerie feeling. The water seemed to possess a mind of its own, moving with purposeful malice — and there were countless appalling shapes hidden beneath its surface, as well. On the highest spire of the ancient Citadel, Nephis and Sunny stood in silence — one in the light, one hidden in the shadows — both watching the Black Water consume the Citadel with grim expressions.

Eventually, Sunny spoke:

“Are we really not going to fight it?”

Nephis lingered for a few moments, then slowly shook her head.

“You saw it. My first attack barely had any effect. And you can sense its Will, as well — whatever that thing is, dealing with it won’t be easy. We can try, of course… we will probably win, even. But we will also spend too much of ourselves to repel it.”

Sunny sighed.

“And our strength is needed elsewhere… everywhere. All the time.”

It was simply a question of logistics. Allocating too many resources to retain an asset of little significance would only put other, more valuable assets at increased risk.

In other words, Sunny and Nephis had to choose their battles wisely. They could not spread themselves too thin and were not in a position to commit their full force to every crisis.

Nephis nodded.

“Losing a Citadel is an undesirable result, but as long as we can save the people… it’s a win.”

She looked at him, a somber expression on her face.

Nephis remained silent for a moment, and then sighed quietly.

“I am not sure that we will be able to save the people every time, Sunny.”

He did not answer, knowing that she was right.

Soon, the last of the Citadel’s inhabitants disappeared into the Dream Gate, and the two of them retreated, as well. The Citadel itself was gone, shattered and swallowed by the encroaching mass of Black Water.

That was a historic moment…

It was the first time in decades humanity lost a Citadel to Nightmare Creatures. Things like that used to happen often before, in the early years of the Nightmare Spell, but for as long as Sunny could remember, human territories in the Dream Realm had only expanded… not shrunk. Now, the Dream Realm was starting to take pieces of itself back.