Shadow Slave

It had taken Sunny more than a year to defeat the Black Millipede tribe on the battlefield for the first time.

But after that first victory, it only took him a week to bring their vile kind close to extinction.

Such was the sinister nature of the Shadow Legion — it grew stronger every time it was defeated, and it grew even more after a decisive victory. A great number of grotesque millipedes, including some of their most powerful champions, had fallen in that last battle... and all of them fought under his banner now.

Even if shades of the Supreme and higher Ranks did not possess the Will and were therefore not as powerful as the beings who had cast them, it was still an obstacle that the wounded Black Millipede tribe could not overcome anymore. After all, the very reason they lost the battle was that the Shadow Legion had grown to a point where they could not defeat it.

Perhaps if the Millipede Queen had committed to an all-out offensive and entered the battle themselves, they could have still reversed the result. But even then, it would have only postponed the inevitable. Maybe there were creatures deeper in the Burned Forest who could permanently erase shades from existence or possessed unholy powers to counter the Shadow Legion in some kind of way... but the Black Millipedes simply did not possess such tools.

So, they were doomed.

Sunny spent a few days after the battle recovering the soul shards from the corpses of the millipedes — finally! — and waiting for the destroyed shades to be mended in the lightless flames of his soul. The [Dark Embrace] enchantment of the Curse accelerated the process, allowing his army to be restored faster, so he did not have to wait as long as usual.

In the meantime, Slayer was secretly tracking the retreating swarm to its nests. She moved unseen, using her keen senses and Transcendent Ability to stalk the retreating swarm from a distance — and that was how the Millipede Queens themselves revealed the location of their nests to Sunny, painting targets on the map. Once the Shadow Legion recovered most of its strength, he led his army north, wrapped around Saint and riding Nightmare at the head of a vast river of rats. In truth, Sunny was glad to leave the battlefield behind — albeit it made recovering the soul shards much easier, watching the Rat King feast on the dead millipedes for days on end was quite a revolting sight.

The Black Millipede tribe tried to defend its territory fiercely despite the hopelessness of their struggle. The Millipede Queens attempted to battle the Shadow Legion a few more times, but every clash ended in their decisive defeat, each one more devastating than the last.

When frontal battles proved to be impossible to win, they switched to different tactics, staging fierce ambushes and embroiling Sunny and his shades in numerous small-time skirmishes. That strategy proved to be more troublesome, but still failed to stop his advance.

In all honesty, Sunny had to give the Millipede Queens some credit. He had rarely met Nightmare Creatures capable of such a high level of control over themselves — Nightmare Creatures rarely retreated, let alone implemented complex strategies, even if there was no chance of surviving their demented attacks.

But even that could not help the Black Millipede tribe. The ambush had failed to stop the advance of the Shadow Legion, and constant skirmishes had failed to stop it, too.

In the end, their resistance was entirely broken. The last major battle the Millipede Queens gave was when the Shadow Legion reached the first of their seven nests — after being decimated there, the millipede swarm broke and fled, never to assemble again. Sunny burned the nest and sent his shades, as well as the Rat King, on an all-out hunt. Over the next few days, countless millipedes were pursued and slaughtered in the depths of the charred tangle — Sunny himself, meanwhile, continued to pursue the Millipede Queens with the core force of elite shades.

With the help of Slayer, he never lost their trail. Five more nests were destroyed before he reached the final one.

Sunny had expected the Millipede Queens to defend it to their last breath, and was prepared to lay a deadly siege...

However, in the end, he conquered the final nest and laid claim to his second Citadel without any battle at all.

He never got to kill the remaining Great Tyrants, either.

In the depths of the final nest, he found half-devoured carcasses of five of the six Millipede Queens. It seemed that, when facing extermination, they had sacrificed themselves to feed their very essence to the seventh one.

That final Queen then fled north with a small brood of young millipedes, abandoning her nest and escaping from Sunny into the depths of the Burned Forest. He did not know what would happen to her and her vile ilk — far more terrifying beings inhabited the core of the Burned Forest, after all, and creatures like that rarely welcomed weaker abominations invading their territories.

Perhaps the last Millipede Queen would be devoured by a powerful Abomination, becoming the end of the Black Millipede Tribe. Maybe she would be able to flee far north and establish herself on a new territory, then spread like a plague once more.

In any case, with the escape of the last Millipede Queen, the war against the Black Millipede tribe was over.

Having expanded the Shadow Legion greatly, Sunny had finally conquered the southern outskirts of the former Heart Realm.

He had won.

‘Victory sure tastes sweet.’

Riding Nightmare across the Eastern Quadrant, Sunny smiled.

He had tasted defeat too numerous times in the Burned Forest, so this eventual triumph washed away the bitter taste from his mind. Of course, there was plenty of land left to conquer in the Burned Forest... its outskirts in other cardinal directions, its heartland, the titanic stump of the world-tree... ɽаꞐȫᛒΕS

But that would come in time, no doubt.

For now, he had other things to worry about.

Cresting a low hill, Sunny stopped Nightmare and glanced ahead, a complicated expression appearing on his face.

‘I’ve made it.’

In front of him was the ocean.