Chapter 485: Lesser Evil
Now that he knew that he was — insanity! — going to act, Sunny had to decide how exactly, and do it very fast.
Sadly, the question was not as easy as it seemed.
His life was too complicated for anything to be easy…
Not only was the answer to the question not too obvious, but, what's worse, he had mere seconds to make a decision, which was not nearly enough to think things through with any sort of clarity.
But what choice did he have? None at all...
Sunny grimaced.
'Let's speedrun our options.'
The safest and most cowardly option was to Shadow Step into the classroom through the shadow spying on Rain, grab the girl, and bring her away.
At least it seemed safe on the surface.
In reality, though, such an action would cause all types of terrible consequences both for him and for his sister. Not only was he going to have a lot of explaining to do, revealing all the things he wanted to keep hidden, he would also leave countless witnesses, as well as digital evidence, connecting Rain to him and vice versa.
In the future, whenever he was going to end up having really dangerous enemies — which Sunny had no doubt would happen one day, soon — that evidence was going to come to light and lead them to her. Which was not something he was willing to accept.
So, he was going to leave that option as the last resort, and act on it only if the school's defenses were breached and Rain was in imminent danger.
With that out of the way, there was only one path left — doing his civil duty and going directly to the Gate, in hopes of stalling the tide of Nightmare Creatures long enough for the cavalry to arrive.
Awakened who didn't work for the government were expected and encouraged, but not technically obligated to respond to a call like that. Many, maybe even most, did not, and chose to run instead. And who could blame them? Not everyone with an Aspect was a combatant, and even those who were had not become one voluntarily.
Forcing these already traumatized people to go to their potential deaths under the threat of retribution if they refused was not something the government was eager to do. Or maybe, it simply couldn't — forcing Awakened to do anything was a dangerous idea, since they could potentially topple the government if pushed too much.
So, the government preferred to use a carrot instead of a stick when dealing with them. It was a delicate balance.
Sunny wasn't sure that he was even going to see that carrot, though. Because he was facing a dilemma.
Yes, he had decided to fight in front of the Gate, but this could also be done in several ways.
…Two ways, really.
Sunny could go into battle as himself, or… as Mongrel, protecting his identity from the prying eyes, and himself from any attention.
Using Weaver's Mask was not without risk, as every time he did so without proper preparations could potentially leave behind context clues that would allow smart people to narrow down the list of suspects.
But the alternative… right now, with not a lot of time to weigh all the pros and cons, Sunny felt that the alternative was worse.
If he wanted to have a hope of surviving for thirteen minutes, he was going to have to go all out, showcasing the full scope of his true powers. That meant that all his efforts to create an image of a talented, but not too dangerous or noteworthy young Awakened were going to be destroyed.
He was going to become really, really famous… and draw the eyes of entities he wanted to remain blind to his existence for as long as possible.
Perhaps even worse, he was going to create one too many coincidences for Rain to continue not noticing his secret attention. It was one thing to have a quirky neighbor… if he suddenly showed up near your school in your moment of need, and turned out to be one of the most deadly Awakened of his generation, though… that would most likely be enough to make her start asking questions that Sunny wasn't ready to answer.
So…
Awakened Sunless was going to have to cowardly run away from the Gate.
While Mongrel was going to have to stand and fight.
'What a messed up situation...'
One hundred and seventy seconds remained.
Sunny sighed, knowing full well that this decision was not ideal. At the minimum, Mongrel's persona prevented him from using some of his most powerful tools — anything that people knew and associated with Sunny, no less. Like the Cruel Sight…
Very few people had seen him use Saint, however. In fact, outside of Neph's cohort, Mordret was pretty much the only person who had. There were also the people he had fought the Lord of the Dead with, but all of them were gone now… with one notable exception. Seishan was still alive and out there somewhere, in the embrace of one of the three Great Clans.
So summoning Saint was not ideal, too. Even though someone else could have received a similar Echo, revealing her was really risky. He could only do it if things got really desperate.
'Uh… maybe I should reconsider…'
But there was no time to consider things anymore.
There were less than three minutes left before the Gate opened. He would just have to manage, somehow.
Sunny closed his eyes for a moment, then checked where the cameras monitoring the cafe were located, and walked into their blind zone. There, he summoned the Covetous Coffer, placed his communicator on its lid, and sent the box scurrying in the direction opposite of where he himself was headed.
After that, Sunny took a deep breath… and dissipated into the shadows.
A few seconds later and hundreds of meters away, an armored figure wearing a fearsome black mask walked out of the darkness, the blade of the great odachi resting on its shoulder.
Mongrel had arrived to the Nightmare Gate.
Chapter 486: Call of a Nightmare
The road ahead of Sunny was almost empty. Only several people could still be seen, running away from the vertical line where the air was rippling strangely, a hundred or so meters behind their backs. When they saw his menacing figure, the stragglers recoiled. Someone let out a frightened yelp.
Not paying them any attention, Sunny calmly walked forward.
The Soul Serpent rested on his shoulder.
'Strange… I have never seen an opening Gate up close before.'
The deserted street in front of him did, indeed, look very eerie. Not only because it was almost entirely empty, both of pedestrians and of rushing PTVs, but also because light and shadows were behaving very strangely, the hue of the light slightly wrong, the movement of the shadows slightly erratic.
The sound was strange, too. It was deadly quiet, but at the same time, Sunny couldn't get rid of the feeling that there were barely audible noises coming from all directions, assaulting his ears like an inaudible cacophony of muffled, distant, demented screams.
There was a strange pressure rising in the air, getting stronger the closer he got to the nascent Nightmare Gate.
The Gate itself was easy to recognize. It looked like a tall vertical depression in the fabric of the world, a place where light refracted in unnatural ways and the inaudible screams were the loudest… not a rift in reality yet, but a hint of one.
In front of the Gate, half a dozen people stood, staring at it in tense silence. The Awakened who, just like Sunny, decided to answer the call.
'Only six of them…'
While that fact didn't promise him anything good, it was to be expected. Two hundred seconds was just not enough for a lot of willing defenders to arrive. Even those who were ready to risk their lives in an attempt to protect the civilians needed time to get to the Gate, after all… this bunch were those who had already been in the immediate impact zone when the alert was sent to their communicators, just like Sunny.
Maybe they were overly confident in their abilities, or maybe, just like he, they had people they cared about in the surrounding area, perhaps even in the very same school where Rain was, a few hundred meters behind their backs.
In any case, he couldn't help but feel a bit of respect toward these people. Coming to a Gate already required a lot of courage… remaining even after it became clear that there were going to be less than ten Awakened fighting side by side to stall the tide of monsters was beyond that.
These people were ready to die to fulfill their duty.
'...Fools. Brave, brave fools.'
What about Sunny himself, then?
'I am a fool, too. But a cowardly one.'
Sunny had no plans of dying today. He knew what he was doing, and had ways to escape if things got too dire.
Without slowing down even a little, he calmly walked past the six Awakened and stopped with his back to them, closer to the Gate than anyone else.
Unwittingly, Sunny found himself standing at the head of the small group of defenders.
Unlike them, he showed no sign of fear. The others were staring at the Gate with pale faces, their bodies tense, their eyes full of unease and dark resentment. Sunny's pose, however, was confident, indifferent… almost relaxed.
And in the eyes of the fearsome mask, there was nothing but darkness.
The others reacted to his arrival with excitement. One more Awakened to fight with them was already a good thing, but this one, in particular, looked especially imposing. His onyx armor and fearsome blade were obviously a cut above the Memories they themselves had in their possession, and his calm demeanor suggested either an experienced fighter… or a madman.
And then, someone recognized him.
"Wait… isn't that M—mongrel?!"
The others looked at the girl who spoke with confusion.
"Who?"
She stared at them with wide eyes.
"That's… that's Lord Mongrel! Haven't you heard of him?"
A hint of recognition appeared in the eyes of the Awakened gathered in front of the opening Gate. One of them glanced at Sunny, lingered for a moment, and asked:
"I am sorry, friend. This young woman seems to have heard of you. If I may ask, are you an Awakened of some renown?"
Sunny didn't move a muscle, and lied almost on autopilot:
"...I am not an Awakened. I have no renown."
The man raised an eyebrow.
"What do you mean, not an Awakened? Then who are you?"
Sunny cursed inwardly.
'My damned tongue…'
He gritted his teeth, remained silent for a second, and then answered in a calm tone:
"I am just a human."
Then, he sighed and turned his head slightly, staring at the six Awakened.
From the look of their Memories and how they held themselves, they weren't elites. Several seemed to know how to hold a sword, but that was all. They were going to get eaten alive once the Gate opened.
Disheartened, he asked:
"Combat Aspects?"
The defenders looked at each other, and then the girl who had recognized him answered:
"I have an Awakened Aspect that enhances my agility and allows me to strike with deadly precision. Two guys have Dormant Aspects centered around endurance and strength, and the other two can perform ranged elemental attacks."
So, three weak Combat Aspects, two supporting fighters, and no one capable of proper support or healing.
He lowered his head for a moment.
There were only thirty seconds left before the Gate opened. Slight tremors were running through the ground beneath his feet, and bits of dust and small pieces of gravel were slowly rising into the air, levitating on the invisible currents of energy coursing through the air.
'How I am going to do this?'
Sunny gripped the hilt of the Soul Serpent tighter, then said hoarsely:
"Stay back, kill anything that gets past me."
He paused for a moment, and then added:
"...Make them bleed."
The girl stared at him with wide eyes.
"Stay… stay back? But, sir, you can't do it alone! There will be a horde of them! Even if there were a hundred of you, that wouldn't be enough to kill them all!"
Sunny turned away and looked at the slowly opening rift in front of him.
How could he get these people to stay out of his way? The best place for them to be was at the back, finishing off anything that Sunny failed to kill and preventing the Nightmare Creatures from escaping into the city... escaping toward Rain's school.
Failing to come up with a better lie, he opened his mouth and said coldly:
"One of me is enough to kill them all."
With that, Sunny left the girl standing there with an open mouth, and walked forward.
'What's the big deal, anyway? It's… it's just a Nightmare Gate…'
His legs, however, were trembling a little.
Just at that moment, an especially strong tremor ran through the ground.
The shadows exploded in a mad dance, the sunlight growing dim and ghostly.
The wind howled through the empty street, as if the air was being sucked into the widening rift.
And then, an invisible shockwave spread out of it, making the windows in the surrounding building shatter.
Sunny resisted the push and suddenly felt the familiar feeling permeate his soul.
...The call of a Nightmare.
The Gate had opened.
Chapter 487: First Wave
Sunny took a step forward and brandished the Soul Serpent, feeling the indomitable nature of Saint's grounded battle style permeate his bones. The gloomy shadow wrapped itself around the blade of the odachi, causing it to shine with dark radiance.
Just like the taciturn demon, this Serpent shared a kinship with the shadow, and as such, the augmentation it received was even more powerful than Sunny himself could enjoy. Even though the odachi was only of the Dormant Rank, for now, this alone made it equal to an Awakened blade in terms of sharpness, durability, and lethality.
He activated the [Living Stone] and [Feather of Truth] enchantments of the onyx armor to make it light as a feather and able to heal the damage it was bound to receive.
Then, Sunny summoned the Blood Blossom charm and willed the armor to integrate it, activating the [Underworld Armament] enchantment. This way, the enhancing effect the crimson flower had on his Memories and Shadows was going to be inherited by the Mantle itself, and then strengthened even further.
He had not told the other Awakened to make the Nightmare Creatures bleed just to seem cool. He literally needed there to be as much blood flowing to the pavement as possible, so that his armor and sword became as powerful as possible.
The Gate was open now, revealing a dark rift in the fabric of reality, as wide as the street itself and as tall as the buildings. It seemed to devour all light around it… and call to him.
Call for him to enter.
…Sunny wasn't too preoccupied with the gate itself, though. His gaze was locked on the unclear silhouettes moving through the darkness.
Soon, the first Nightmare Creature burst into the daylight, leaving cracks on the asphalt with its black claws.
'...Good.'
Had he not wanted to accumulate shadow fragments? Had he not wanted to raise the counter of the [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment?
Well, he should have been careful about what he wished for!
There were going to be hundreds of abominations coming through the rift today to satiate his wish…
The Second Category Gates were the most frequent to appear in the waking world. As such, everyone was familiar with how they functioned.
The first few waves of advancing Nightmare Creatures were not going to be too terrible, at least for a fighter of Sunny's caliber. They would be comprised mostly of Dormant creatures, with some Awakened abominations mixed in. Their Classes and numbers, too, would be comparatively low.
But these first few waves… they were just a hint of the horror to come.
Pretty soon, every Nightmare Creature coming from the Gate was going to be of the Awakened Rank, with more and more Fallen ones appearing as well. Their Classes were going to rise, until there were as many Demons as there were Monsters and Beasts around.
And if Sunny was still alive by the time this second stage was nearing its culmination… well, two things could happen, neither promising him anything good.
Either the Gate was going to end up really being of the Second Category, or not.
If it continued to grow, reaching the Third Category, then there would be more and more waves of Nightmare Creatures, hundreds of Fallen abominations lunging into the real world from the dark void between worlds, with Corrupted horrors and creatures of higher Classes appearing among them.
If it didn't… then, the Guardian of the Gate would manifest itself into reality. The Guardian was always at least one Rank higher than the Gate's Category, and could be of any high Class, from a Devil… to a dreaded Titan.
…In any case, Sunny had to live through the initial waves first to find out what was going to kill him in the end.
The first creature to appear from the darkness resembled a terrifying hound with bloodred bone spikes growing from its mottled, black fur. It landed on the road and opened its maw, then produced a guttural, hoarse roar.
…And then abruptly grew silent as Shadow Serpent's blade slashed across its neck, severing its head entirely.
[You have slain a Dormant Beast…]
Sunny jumped back, and just as he did, more silhouettes lunged at him from the dark rift, their eyes burning with madness and bloodthirst as they smelled what was waiting for them up ahead…
A whole world full of defenseless, untainted souls for them to devour.
'Not so fast, you filth…'
Sunny had a very simple plan.
He was going to build a barrier in front of the Gate.
…He was going to build a mountain of bleeding corpses right at the border of the darkness, to show the next waves of Nightmare Creatures how welcoming the real world was to their kind.
As soon as more spiked hounds entered into the light, he lunged forward to meet them.
Blood sprayed into the air, and as the menacing odachi reaped another life, Sunny shifted his weight, slammed the pommel of the sword into the face of a lunging creature, then swiftly stepped forward and pierced the third one through the throat.
Before the drops of blood even fell to the ground, he tore the blade from the corpse of the abomination, slicing it almost in half, and brought his heel on the skull of the beast he had previously slammed to the ground. In the process, he increased the weight of the Mantle of the Underworld, so the creature's head simply exploded under his boot.
All of it took no more than two seconds.
…And on the third second, a dozen hellish beasts emerged from the rift, some of them running, some of them jumping high into the air to land on him from above.
Behind them, a macabre wall of flesh, claws, and fangs was spilling out of the darkness like a rabid tide.
Sunny growled, feeling the enchantment of the Blood Blossom activate and fill his sword with an unquenchable bloodlust.
'Come! Come, you bastards! Let this mongrel guide you all to hell!'
Chapter 488: A Beast More Terrible
No matter how fast Sunny was, how intricate his control of the shadow essence was — he had spent a whole month doing nothing but practicing it, after all — no matter how strong his body could become as the result, he still couldn't be in several places at the same time.
Yes, he had two cores brimming with power, and his armor and his weapon were augmented by a combination of an Aspect Ability and enchantments. Killing one of the infernal hounds without receiving a hit was not that big of a problem… several, even.
But a dozen? That was too much, even for him.
So Sunny didn't even try.
At this point, Mantle of the Underworld was as close to the pinnacle of the Ascended Rank as a Memory could be, so these Dormant beasts had no chance of piercing it with their fangs. He could allow himself to be bitten a few times.
He just had to be strategic about it.
He had to protect his neck and the back of his head, as well as pay attention to balance and mass. Yes, the abominations couldn't get to his flesh just yet, but an impact was still an impact. If he wasn't careful, the bastards were going to topple him, and once he was on the ground, the game would be over.
Luckily, he had [Feather of Truth] at his disposal and could manipulate the weight of the onyx armor, turning it from incredibly light to as heavy as a mountain. In conjunction with the cautious use of Saint's grounded style, which excelled at solid footwork and indomitability, he could stay upright no matter how many beasts attacked him.
Ignoring the creatures that were lunging at him from the ground, Sunny dashed to the side to avoid being landed on by one of the jumping hounds, and received another on the tip of the odachi, allowing the momentum to impale it on the sword.
Before the heavy carcass could weigh the Shadow Serpent down, Sunny used the long hilt as a lever and slammed the dead creature into the mass of its attacking kin.
By that time, one jaw was already closing on his thigh, and another was centimeters away from his forearm.
The bloodred fangs scraped against the stonelike metal of the onyx armor, not leaving even a scratch on it.
Sunny let go of the hilt of the odachi with one hand, then hooked its blade under the throat of one of the attacking abominations and made a simple move forward, slicing through tough fur, skin, and vulnerable flesh beneath.
His other fist landed on the head of the second beast. Unseen to anyone, the Moonlight Shard appeared in it at the last moment, its ghostly blade easily piercing the creature's skull and disappearing as fast as it had appeared after destroying its brain.
Sunny spun, throwing both corpses aside, caught the hilt of the odachi with his second hand, made a small thrust to pierce a lunging hound's head right through one of its eyes, and then dashed forward to descend on the group of them entangled in the carcass of the abomination he had caught on the tip of his blade earlier.
What happened next could only be described as a morbid, bloody dance. Sunny moved through the mass of Nightmare Creatures, much faster than any of them were, his great sword flying through them with graceful and fluid logic, sending more and more blood spraying into the air. Somehow, he managed to avoid most of their attacks, and those he did not ended up sliding fruitlessly from his armor.
He almost made it look easy.
…But of course, it wasn't.
Any of these beasts, even though they were only Dormant, could massacre countless mundane humans, or kill a less skillful Awakened in one fell lunge. It was just that today, they met a far more terrifying creature.
A true Awakened fighter.
And a monstrous one, at that…
Sunny cut through the mass of spiked hounds, strategically leaving many of them maimed, but alive. They could only bleed as long as they weren't dead, after all. And he needed them to bleed a lot to bring the Blood Blossom to the peak of its strength.
There were many of them around him… too many, really. But that, too, could be used to his advantage. He used the corpses of the beasts he had slain, the ones he had left alive, and those who were yet to meet his blade as a barrier to slow down the others. Through superior speed and clever positioning, he was able to not only always remain moving, but also evade being surrounded.
Things weren't exactly easy, but he was still managing without too much strain. His main problem right now was to not allow any of the abominations to move past him and escape into the streets.
Luckily, the few that did manage to slip by were quickly finished by the six Awakened staying behind, observing the massacre with grim, tense, and darkly awed expressions.
However, Sunny wasn't oblivious to the fact that this successful start was an illusion.
The first wave was just an appetizer, after all. Simply a hint of the true calamity to come.
So, his goal, for now, was to kill as many of the dormant beasts as he could, bring the augmentation of the Blood Blossom to considerable strength, and throw as many corpses at the stretch of cracked asphalt directly in front of the Gate as possible, to make it harder for the stronger abominations to enter into the real at full speed.
He felt the dreaded change too soon, though.
It came in a form of an eerie, long whistle that suddenly made the hounds lunge at him with renewed fury.
And then…
A crude arrow suddenly flashed out of the darkness of the rift, almost hitting him in the eye. The arrowhead, fashioned out of a splinter of a red bone, exploded against the wood of Weaver's Mask, throwing his head back.
'What the…'
He swiftly repositioned and caught his balance, then dashed forward and skewered several beasts on the blade of the Shadow Serpent.
More arrows flew out of the darkness, piercing the flesh of the attacking hounds or sliding off the onyx surface of the Mantle of the Underworld.
He felt each hit, though. The power behind these arrows was truly monstrous.
'Awakened… Awakened creatures are coming! Already?!'
As soon as he thought that, the first of the hunters came out of the darkness, following their hounds into the real world.
Sunny gritted his teeth.
A tall, desiccated humanoid with skin as black as coal and as rough as the bark of an ancient tree, wearing rotten remains of fur armor, raised a mighty bow made out of wood and bone, and looked at him with empty holes where his eyes should have been.
Furious, red flames burned in their darkness instead.
'Crap!'
Sunny grabbed one of the hounds and hoisted its body up… just in time for the arrow to pierce its body instead of hitting him in the face.
'Bows, they're using bows?!'
How was that even fair?!
Feeling the bloodlust of the Blossom charm surge in his heart, Sunny threw the dying hound at the bone hunter, gripped his sword, and dashed forward once again.
Chapter 489: Second Wave
There were several ancient archers aiming at him already, and more and more of the hunters were appearing from the darkness. Some wielded bows, some spears with jagged flint blades and crude axes.
Those were Awakened Monsters, each and every one — equal in Rank and Class to Carapace Centurions Sunny had fought once, a long time ago, on the Forgotten Shore.
And to Sunny himself, technically.
…A much tougher enemy for him to slaughter.
Luckily, unlike the massive centurions, the hunters weren't covered in adamantine chitin from head to toe.
Ducking under the flying arrow, Sunny lunged forward and thrust the tip of the odachi into the desiccated flesh of one of the bowmen. The black, bark-like skin offered a lot of resistance to the shadow-honed blade, but the force of the blow was terrible enough to rip through flesh and bone, allowing it to pierce the body of the hunter and emerge from his back.
Sunny just hoped that these bastards had anatomy similar to humans, and that their hearts were located in the same place.
From the look of it, they were… however, the monster did not react to having his heart destroyed as a human would. Instead of dying, he simply grabbed the blade of the Shadow Serpent and took a step forward, skewering himself deeper onto it, in an attempt to reach Sunny with the other hand.
'Curses!'
Sunny twisted the blade, severing the monster's fingers, and then pulled the odachi upward, slicing through his ribcage, neck, and skull.
This, finally, caused the bowman to die.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster, Ancient Barrow Wraith.]
'Revenants… great! Simply great, damn it!'
So he was fighting corpses that were possessed by some sort of a murderous spirit… as such, the hunters weren't fully sentient. That didn't stop them from remembering some of their craft, though. Not only were they able to wield their stone weapons with deadly skill, they also seemed to coordinate their attacks, herding Sunny like prey.
The archers moved apart so that he would have no choice but to show his back to one while attacking another. Those with melee weapons rushed forward, aiming to surround him. The situation was quickly turning desperate.
Sunny gritted his teeth, dodged a strike of a stone axe, saw it shatter the asphalt into dust, and lashed out with the Shadow Serpent. Just a moment after the blade of the great odachi severed the attacker's legs, another arrow hit him in the shoulder, causing Sunny to stagger and almost lose his balance.
He glanced around him, noticing that the enemies had succeeded in positioning themselves in a way that would have doomed a normal enemy. He was surrounded from all sides, with archers hiding behind mighty hunters wielding spears and axes.
'Damn it. I didn't want to do this…'
As a dozen arrows streaked through the air to bite at his armor… Sunny suddenly disappeared.
A moment later, he appeared behind one of the archers and decapitated him with one terrible strike.
Before others even had time to register what had happened, Sunny was inexplicably at the opposite side of their formation, his odachi piercing the head of another archer.
Almost leaving afterimages behind, the figure of the warrior in the menacing onyx armor seemed to blink between half a dozen monsters in the span of a few seconds. Each time it appeared, one of the creatures died, their black bodies crumbling into piles of severed limbs and shattered skulls. The blade of the great odachi shone with dark radiance, cutting through the ancient hunters like a reaper's scythe.
A few moments later, Sunny slid backward on the broken asphalt, leaving a bloody trail behind.
A low growl escaped from beneath his mask.
Enhanced by the [Underworld Armament], the enchantment of the Blood Blossom was behaving strangely. It was supposed to augment his Memories, Echoes, and Shadows, but with so much blood flowing to the ground, Sunny found that even his body and mind were being affected by the morbid charm a little.
He felt both exhilarated and frustrated — exhilarated by the slaughter he was perpetrating, and frustrated because he wanted… needed… to kill more, cut more, make them bleed more, more, more, so much more…
'Blood... blood... more!'
Sunny basked in the ecstasy of bloodshed for a split second, and then lashed out at himself, making the rabid thirst recede.
He needed to be careful. This bloodlust was beneficial, but could easily blind him. He had to maintain clarity… that was the only way to control the flow of the battle and survive. Thankfully, he knew how to keep a cool head better than most.
…Regardless, although using Shadow Step so many times in rapid succession cost him a lot of shadow essence, he had managed to break the enemy formation and eliminate most of the archers. The rest were going to be much easier to deal with now.
But of course, the Gate was not done with him. It continued to spew more and more enemies, making any progress he had made meaningless.
As a new wave of hunters emerged from the darkness, a frenzied mass of hounds rushing between the wraiths, he paled a little.
'...Too many!'
No matter how superior his armor, weapon, and skill were, he was going to get buried under the tide of Nightmare Creatures due to their momentum.
And even if he managed to cut a hole in the wall of abominations, the rest were going to move past him and descend upon the six Awakened, and then, inevitably, escape into the streets of the city.
Toward Rain's school.
'Damn! This is going to suck!'
As the new wave of creatures lunged forward, joining the survivors of the previous one, Sunny shifted his Memories around. For a brief second, the Broken Oath took the place of the Blood Blossom, its soul-eroding aura being inherited and enhanced by the Mantle of the Underworld.
A wave of nausea washed other Sunny's mind.
'Argh!'
A mental scream rang in his head.
Luckily, he was prepared for the pain. His armor provided him with a solid defense against soul attacks, too… even ones coming from the Mantle itself. The attacking Nightmare Creatures, on the other hand, had no resistance to it at all…
Sunny had only kept the Broken Oath active for a second before changing the slotted charm back to the Blood Blossom, but it was enough to break the momentum of the tide of abominations.
The hunters staggered, the hounds stumbled and slowed down. For a brief moment, the whole mass of monsters seemed disoriented.
Sunny used this opportunity well.
The dark figure wearing a fearsome mask suddenly appeared in the very middle of the enemies, and before the Nightmare Creatures could regain their bearing, the great blade of the odachi turned into a whirlwind of darkness, leaving clouds of bloody mist and severed corpses everywhere he went.
Sunny had abandoned Saint's grounded style, reduced the weight of the Mantle of the Underworld to that of a feather, and turned to pure offense, dancing between the enemies like a dark, slaughtering demon.
For now, he was still at his peak…
But exhaustion was already not too far behind. As he fought, his breath was slowly becoming hoarse and labored.
'How… how long has it been?'
He thought back to what had happened until now…
And felt the first hint of desperation.
Just a couple of minutes.
The whole battle took slightly more than two minutes.
And he had to continue for at least eleven more…
Chapter 490: Break Point
Six minutes.
That was how long Sunny managed to hold on until things really went from bad to terrible.
By then, the ground in front of the Gate was littered with piles of corpses, their blood flowing down the pavement like a crimson stream. He had lost count of how many dormant abominations he had slain, how many ancient hunters he had sliced apart. Despite how strong and fearsome the primeval wraiths were, their assault had broken against the impenetrable barrier of his blade, his Aspect, and his will.
Sunny paid a price, though.
By now, his muscles were burning, and he had to force the air in and out of his struggling lungs. The Mantle of the Underworld held, but his body beneath the black stonelike metal was beaten and battered. The armor itself was covered in blood and dented slightly in several places.
Those dents did not come from the hunters, though.
During the third wave, new Nightmare Creatures emerged from the darkness of the Gate… among them were larger beasts, more terrifying than the hounds Sunny had been slaughtering.
And their masters.
The demons of the mysterious Barrow were similar to the desiccated huntsmen, but much taller, stronger, and better equipped. They wielded masterfully crafted flint weapons and armors made out of rotten leather and bone, their empty eyes burning with hungry red flames.
What's worse, they really knew how to use their stone spears and swords.
Met with the strange, ferocious, and deviously lethal battle style of the primeval demons, Sunny was sent for a loop. This was like nothing he had ever experienced before. They fought with the straightforward, yet insidious resolve of cunning apex predators, with the evil will to kill through any means necessary, always following the most efficient and barbarously cruel path to dominance.
It should not have worked, but it did.
The dents on Sunny's armor could attest to it.
Well… he shouldn't have been surprised. If these ancient wraiths came from people similar to his own world's prehistoric humans, then they were the most devastating of predators, ruthless killers on a planetary scale.
From what little Sunny knew about history, ancient humans had spread across the whole planet like a plague, eviscerating whole types of living creatures — including all other nascent branches of the human kind — in one fell avalanche. With their flint weapons and the knowledge of fire, they became nothing less than the cause and perpetrators of the sixth mass extinction, equal to the likes of massive asteroids and climate shifts despite their puny size and lifespan.
…He was kind of starting to miss the carapace legion.
In any case, Sunny somehow managed to kill these terrifying fighters — a few of them, at least — too. More than that, he reached into the very essence of Shadow Dance and greedily absorbed every nuance of their primeval and ferocious fighting style, and then reflected it back at the waves of Nightmare Creatures, bringing his already terrifying dance of death to a truly chilling level of brutality.
The Blood Blossom had long ago reached its limit.
Minutes passed, and despite the fact that Sunny was battered and growing dangerously tired, his reserves of shadow essence swiftly diminishing, for a few moments, he felt as though he had things under control.
That maybe… just maybe… he was going to stand his ground for the whole thirteen minutes.
And then, he realized that he would not.
As the sixth minute came to an end, a furious bellow shook the world, and something massive lunged at him from the darkness of the Gate. The barrier of corpses he had built in front of it exploded, and a giant beast — twice as tall as Sunny as weighing at least twenty times more — emerged from it in a cloud of blood and bone fragments, two empty eye sockets full of ghostly red flame.
Sunny stared at it with wide eyes.
The creature resembled a giant bison, its black fur mottled and rotten, a ridge of long, scarlet bone spikes piercing the hide along the spine. The head of the monstrosity was crowned with two jagged, bloodred horns.
'A Fallen… that thing is Fallen!'
The bison was also different from the hounds and larger beasts he had been fighting against, since it — just like the ancient hunters — was itself a wraith. A corpse reanimated by the malevolent spirit of red flame.
'Crap!'
Sunny hurriedly commanded the [Feather of Truth] to make his armor as heavy as possible and lowered his stance, knowing full well that he couldn't allow that thing to get past him.
In the next moment, two thousand kilograms of rotting flesh and sharp horns crashed into him at full speed.
'Cr…'
For a split second, everything became dark.
…Then, Sunny found himself bouncing off the asphalt and then rolling across it at a terrible speed, up until the moment a wall of a building stopped him and exploded, shards of cement flying into the air.
'Not... good…'
Disoriented, he shook his head, feeling drops of blood seep under Weaver's Mask, and then used the Shadow Serpent to help himself stand up. Then, he looked toward the Gate through the red mist clouding his sight.
The massive wraith was approaching the six terrified Awakened. Its speed, however, was slow, and its steps staggered.
There was a big hole in its forehead where the thick, adamantine bones of the skull were shattered and cracked, bits of bloody pulp spilling out of it and falling to the ground.
Just before the impact, Sunny had brought his armored fist down on it, summoning the Moonlight Shard at the last moment.
His plan was to pierce the big bastard's brain, but because of the violent force and momentum of their collision, he ended up doing that, and then punching a hole through the creature's forehead with his spiked gauntlet.
Sunny's thoughts were slow and astray, but he was already starting to regain his senses.
'I have a concussion, I think…'
Failing to breach the last few meters to the six Awakened, the bison stopped and swayed. Its legs suddenly caved, and it toppled over, sending a tremor running through the ground.
…A flood of abominations was already rushing into the breach it had created, though.
Into the empty space where Sunny had been.
Still disoriented, Sunny staggered, then raised the Soul Serpent weakly.
'Bad. This is really, really bad…'
Chapter 491: Desperate Measures
As Nightmare Creatures rushed forward, the six Awakened began to act.
The two with elemental Aspects attacked first. Something flashed in the air, and then one of them was suddenly surrounded by a swiftly spinning ring of fire. The fire disc then flew forward and collided against the mass of abominations, immolating one of the hounds and burning several more.
The other raised her hand, and a thin blade made of nothing but air whistled as it bit into the flesh of one of the hunters, severing one of his arms at the shoulder.
Sunny blinked.
[You have slain a Fallen Monster…]
The fastest of the Nightmare Creatures were already lunging at the defenders. The girl he had spoken to before took a step forward and attacked with a slender saber, striking at the neck of a spiked hound and opening its artery with a precise cut. Two more Awakened were covering her from the sides, both wielding a shield and a Memory weapon of their own — one a short sword, the other a steel pike.
The last one did something to repel the arrows that were already flying toward their bodies, but Sunny had no idea what.
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
The Awakened were performing well… they acted with sufficient coordination and foresight, doing everything in their power to slow down the tide of approaching monsters. Although not elites, each of them was a capable combatant. They were brave and determined.
…And yet, it was not going to be enough. Not nearly enough to survive, let alone prevent the invaders from escaping into the city.
[You have received a Memory.]
'What to do, what to do…'
Not fully realizing what he was doing, Sunny commanded the shadow to wrap itself around his body, and for the Soul Serpent to slither back onto his skin.
Immediately, he felt much more powerful, his head more clear. His muscles brimmed with raw strength, double what he had just a second ago. His breathing became deeper.
Sunny knew that he had to slow the abominations down, and then get back into the fight.
That was the only way...
Making a step forward, he swayed a little, and then grabbed the roof of an abandoned PTV to help himself keep balance.
…Bending down, he then grabbed the bottom of the heavy alloy vehicle with his other hand.
Sending all of his essence rushing through his body, flooding it with as much strength as he could muster, he then growled and dug into the alloy with his fingers.
And then, sending cracks through the asphalt, Sunny strained every muscle in his body to perform one devastating, explosive push.
The window of the PTV exploded, and as its frame deformed, the whole vehicle suddenly flew into the air. It breached the distance between him and the rushing tide of Nightmare Creatures and crashed into it from the side like a bizarre cannonball, turning several dormant beasts into bloody pulp, breaking numerous bones, and sending most of the front row of abominations tumbling down.
The runes shimmered in front of Sunny, and with no time to waste, he threw just one look at them, searching for the description of his new Memory. He was only interested in one thing:
Memory Type: Weapon.
'Good enough…'
Not bothering with reading the rest, Sunny summoned the weapon and used Shadow Step to appear amid the reeling abominations.
Some had avoided his improvised ram and were already either attacking the six Awakened or escaping into the streets.
He couldn't do anything about it now.
What he could do, though…
As an ancient spear with a head crafted out of a long and sharp piece of black obsidian materialized in his hands, he thrust it into the throat of one of the wraiths, then used its back end to slam another one in the chest.
Then, Sunny spun the spear and brought it down on the head of a lunging hound, shattering its skull with one terrifying blow.
While he tried to overcome the ringing in his ears and continued to fight, more Nightmare Creatures got past him… and more still were already emerging from the Gate
'Die, die, die… die, you damn wretches, die faster!'
***
"They breached the line of defenders!"
The voice of the headmaster seemed calm, considering the situation, so the children gathered in the combat training hall of the school didn't panic, either. Nevertheless, they could feel that the adults were frightened, and that fear spread like an infection.
The children were frightened, too.
For many of the younger kids, this was the first time they experienced being near an opening Gate. Those who were older knew what to do, in theory… only none of those things could be done. There was just not enough time to evacuate or reach the nearest shelter, and so, the lessons they had learned were useless.
Everyone was gathered in the most protected place in the school — the gymnasium — and huddled together. The younger children were placed in the middle, the older ones near the edge, with the teachers standing the furthest from the center.
The combat instructors were armed with actual Memory weapons, which looked menacing and beautiful… at least to Rain, who had never seen her teacher wield one of his real weapons before.
With him, the other instructors, and a couple of bodyguards who happened to be inside the school because of those children whose parents were really important, there were five Awakened among them, each armed and ready to fight.
The other teachers and older students were armed, too, albeit with mundane weapons. Rain herself was holding her training sword, realizing for the first time how flimsy and pathetic it was. Before, the sword had always seemed to weigh a ton and be unnecessarily sharp.
Now, she wished that it was a real weapon, and not just a training one.
'What is going to happen?'
Because she happened to be standing near the headmaster, she saw her combat instructor glance at him and say something in a low voice. Rain wasn't supposed to hear it, most likely, but she did.
He said:
"It's a miracle that they held that long, really. Only seven of them… I don't know who these people are, but they should have been overwhelmed in the first minute."
'Overwhelmed? But… but… if seven Awakened were supposed to die in less than a minute, then what about the five protecting us?'
Rain suddenly felt cold and scared. The whole thing didn't seem real… how can something like this happen? This school was so prestigious and expensive, and so many important people sent their children here. Surely, the defenses…
As if answering her thoughts, muffled sounds of firing penetrated the walls and sent shivers running through everyone's bodies. The automatic turrets had gone online, which meant that there were Nightmare Creatures approaching.
Rain's father worked for the government, handling matters having to do with the logistical support of the Awakened, and although he didn't like to talk about work, she knew more about these matters than most kids of her age. Because of that, she understood how ineffective mundane weapons were against the creatures of the Spell, especially ones of higher Ranks.
So she just hoped that...
Something broke with a deafening crash, and the whole gymnasium suddenly trembled.
'...C—curses!'
Rain gripped the hilt of her sword tighter, and turned toward where the crash had come from with a pale face.
Her eyes widened.
***
Hundreds of meters away, in the mass of Nightmare Creatures, Sunny sent another abomination to hell, threw its body away, and growled.
There were so many of them! Too many!
Through the shadow hiding beside Rain, he saw that those monsters that had gotten past him and the other defenders had reached the school.
He also saw more and more creatures arriving through the gate… beasts, monsters, and demons, Awakened and Fallen… there was simply no end to them!
And he was dead tired and growing weaker, fast.
His body was at its limit, his reserves of shadow essence were running dry, and even the Mantle of the Underworld was showing signs of straining to resist the neverending rain of blows he was not able to evade anymore.
Feeling blood streaming down his face, Sunny briefly glanced toward the distant school, then back at the gate.
And then, he shivered.
Something had changed.
Something was... coming.
In the darkness of the Gate, a new silhouette appeared.
A moment later, all the beasts that surrounded him froze, and then howled triumphantly, as if to welcome the new creature to the waking world.
The Gate Guardian had arrived.
Chapter 492: Gate Guardian
Sunny stared at the Gate, momentarily paralyzed by dread. Then, he snapped out of it and fought through exhaustion, rushing to kill as many abominations as he could before the Guardian came out of the Gate.
He had an inkling that after, there would not be an opportunity to pay them any attention.
'Is… is it the Guardian? How many minutes has it been?'
He had no idea. Somewhere along the way, Sunny had lost count of the time. All he knew was that it had not been long enough…
Meanwhile, a hulking figure emerged from the darkness of the Gate, and as it did, the red flames burning in the empty eye sockets of the ancient wraiths flashed brighter, their dead mouths opening to produce a litany of menacing howls.
'C—crap…'
The Guardian was more than four meters tall, his desiccated body resembling that of the primeval hunters and demons Sunny had fought, but at the same time much more frightening. He wielded a long spear, its blade cut out of a single slab of obsidian and covered in so many stains of ancient, dried blood that it seemed as if the stone itself had absorbed them and turned dark red.
The giant was wearing an intricate leather armor, much more robust and imposing than those of the lesser wraiths, with strips of strange, bluish iron woven onto it. His wrists bore dozens of bracelets made out of iron and bone, and on his shoulders was a cloak fashioned out of the hide of some terrifying monster.
The skull of the creature served as his helm, and his face was covered by a disturbing burial mask, its features twisted and bestial.
The mask — and the skull on his head — each had three eyes, all six emanating intense, malevolent red radiance.
Sunny felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
'What… what is that thing…'
He didn't know what kind of a creature the ancient chieftain was, but had no doubts that he was a Fallen Tyrant… and a very powerful one, at that. Maybe the barrow these wraiths were coming from had been built to entomb this ancient menace, to begin with.
And his mask had three eyes.
…Anything with three eyes made Sunny shudder, for reasons he did not fully understand. After the Forgotten Shore, he knew that this was a sign of something too terrible for him to know.
Could he kill a Fallen Tyrant?
Maybe if he had a lot of time to prepare and study his enemy, and attacked from the shadow.
But now, with Sunny exhausted and battered, his shadow essence running out, and hundreds of Nightmare Creatures surrounding their master in bloodthirsty exaltation, he stood no chance. None at all.
Well… maybe a very tiny one.
And what else was he going to do other than try and fight, put his tail between his legs and run away?
Well… sure! Why the hell not? Sunny was not some kind of a hero, nor had he ever wanted to be one.
...But he wasn't going to run away just yet.
As the Nightmare Creatures renewed their assault with even more frenzied rage than before, he gritted his teeth and brandished the obsidian spear, feeling the primal battle style of the ancient wraiths seep into his very bones.
Sunny was not done spilling blood…
He had a little bit of fight left in him, still.
***
In the gymnasium, silence and fear gave way to mayhem and panic.
The walls of the school had been breached, and Nightmare Creatures crawled inside, madness burning in their terrifying empty eyes.
"Back! Get back!"
The children were pushed against one of the walls, teachers standing between them and the terrible monsters with mundane weapons in their trembling hands.
The Awakened were engaged in a ferocious battle, but just the five of them were not nearly enough to stop all the abominations. It was inevitable that sooner or later, some of the abominations were bound to get through.
And soon, they did.
A giant, harrowing beast that resembled an infernal wolf, jagged red spikes growing through its black flesh and drops of saliva falling from its maw, tore free of the battle and lunged at the children.
Rain had never seen something so unstoppable.
How was anyone supposed to fight such a thing? No human possibly could…
The teachers tried, however.
Several of them drew their bows, but the arrows simply slid off the mottled black fur of the hellhound. The headmaster tried to stop the creature with a heavy pike, but was simply thrown away, the weapon flying out of his hands.
And then, there was no one else standing between the monster and the defenseless children.
***
'God… goddamit…'
Sunny was at the end of his rope. Which, in a sense, was precisely where he wanted to be.
He wasn't trying to stop the flood of Nightmare Creatures by killing all of them anymore. That was simply impossible, with how many there were, and how many were coming from the Gate every second.
He was, however, trying to draw as much attention as he could.
All of the attention, really.
And to accomplish that, he had to do one simple thing.
He had to attack the Tyrant.
How hard could it be?
'Let's find out…'
Sunny wasn't planning to get into a prolonged fight with the damn Barrow Chieftain, or whatever that thing was called. He was just going to exchange one… maybe two strikes with the scary bastard, hopefully deal him a tiny wound, and Shadow Step into safety.
Enough was enough...
He knew his limits.
Tearing through the mass of abominations, Sunny cut a bloody path toward the hulking tyrant, and finally appeared in front of him.
As soon as the burial mask with three burning red eyes turned his way, Sunny suddenly felt small and weak. The pain he felt in his battered body surged, and an involuntary groan escape from his lips.
He just wanted to stop and fall to the ground.
To kneel…
'Argh… a mind attack?! What, that is all?! Bastard, you should have met Gunlaug… learned how to really make people cower…'
And also, his own mask was much scarier than the crude thing covering the tyrant's face.
Fighting through the oppressive hex, Sunny lunged forward and raised his bloodied spear.
He didn't get a chance to attack, though.
Although it didn't seem as if the Tyrant of the Barrow was moving with haste, his hand shot toward Sunny with such terrifying speed that he barely had time to react. The giant didn't even deem it necessary to use a weapon, intending to crush him with a fist.
Making the Mantle of the Underworld as heavy as he could, Sunny turned the shaft of the spear around and held it with both hands, knowing to deflect the blow instead of blocking it.
He should have been able to…
The fist of the desiccated giant connected with the ancient spear…
…And easily shattered it, as though it was a mundane stick and not a Memory of the Ascended Rank.
Before Sunny could even feel the terrible impact reverberate through his bones, five massive fingers closed around his torso like a steel bear trap.
And squeezed.
'C—crap!'
[Your Memory has been destroyed.]
What a shame... he didn't even get a chance to learn what it was called...
The stonelike metal of the Mantle of the Underworld groaned, but held.
His bones, reinforced by the steadfast temperance of the Bone Weave, held too.
Not that Sunny was having a good time. It felt as though he was being slowly crushed to death, unable to draw in a single breath. It hurt as hell, too… much worse than that, actually...
But worse still, while the tyrant had him in his grip, he couldn't use Shadow Step.
He couldn't escape.
'I... I think... I messed up…'
As Sunny struggled in the tyrant's iron grip, the giant tilted his head a little, and easily lifted him off the ground, bringing his prey closer to the three burning red eyes.
Chapter 493: Advent of Death
Sunny gritted his teeth and groaned, feeling his whole body being slowly crushed by the monstrous chieftain of the Barrow Wraiths. One of his arms was pressed against his body, and the other one was, too… but just barely.
If only he could free it…
But no matter how hard he tried, the tyrant's hold was just too strong.
…Back in the gymnasium, the terrifying beast was lunging at the defenseless children. Its maw was wide open, the red shine of the ghostly flames burning in its eyes reflecting from the jagged, sharp fangs.
It was flying directly at Rain, moments away from closing its jaw on her throat.
She felt paralyzed by fear, desperately wishing to run, but unable to move.
Was this how she was going to die? No, no… it couldn't be!
But it was...
Suddenly, a spark of a strange, dark emotion ignited in Rain's heart.
'Die? No… not like this… I refuse!'
She was holding a sword, was she not?
Even if that thing was going to devour her, Rain was determined to die fighting, just like she had been taught to. She was going to remain human, not a cowering animal only good enough to be the stronger beast's prey.
She owed that much to her parents, at least.
Knowing full well that her dull training sword was not going to stop a Nightmare Creature, Rain stubbornly made a motion to raise it. Even though her mind was panicked and her thoughts scattered, the body remembered countless hours of practice…
Not that it was going to do her any good.
The hound was already so close that she could see every harrowing detail of its hideous snout and frothing maw. There was no escape...
'Unfair! This is unfair…'
This childish thought appeared in her mind, as it had undoubtedly appeared in the minds of countless people just before they were killed.
...And then, something strange happened.
Suddenly, two beautiful magenta lights ignited in the darkness to the side of the lunging creature.
A moment later, a dark blade of a strange, stonelike sword flashed out of the shadows and easily sliced through the abomination's neck, separating its head from its torso.
A round shield made of something that resembled stone then appeared and swatted the headless body away from Rain, not allowing even a drop of blood to fall on her.
As she froze in shock, a graceful woman wearing menacing black armor stepped out of the darkness, two ruby flames burning behind the visor of her closed helmet.
Rain had never seen someone so terrifying, yet so magnificent.
The woman glanced at her with indifferent calmness, and then turned around to easily pierce another hound with her stonelike sword, then sever one more in half with a swift, vicious strike. It was as though the flesh of the abominations offered her no resistance.
'Three… she just killed three Nightmare Creatures…'
And not only that, but she also killed them in the span of a second, with a confident, relaxed ease.
'Who… who is she?'
Before Rain knew what she was doing, she heard herself saying in a small voice:
"Who are you?"
The beautiful knight did not answer and simply stood between the children and the advancing monsters, her back straight and solid like a stone wall.
Rain stared at that back, feeling as if nothing was going to get past this frightening, taciturn warrior.
A burning desire suddenly appeared in her heart.
She didn't know whether the menacing black knight was a human, a spirit, or a strange Nightmare Creature. But she knew one thing...
'Strong… I want to be strong, someday. Strong like her…'
***
In front of the gate, Sunny was slowly suffocating in the iron grip of the Fallen Tyrant. He was being brought closer and closer to the three burning red eyes, and as he did, it felt as if life itself was being sucked out of him, his mind balancing on the verge of breaking apart.
'What… the hell…'
There had to be something that he could do… some trick he could employ to wrestle free. A Memory he could summon, an enchantment he could activate…
But no matter how hard he tried, nothing worked.
Sunny's vision was slowly starting to grow dark.
'Dammit! I… I need to…'
He could have summoned the Cruel Sight if his hands were free, but they were not. He could have turned the Mantle of the Underworld too heavy for the tyrant to lift, but it was already as heavy as the [Feather of Truth] allowed, weighing as much as a small mountain… what else was there in his arsenal?!
Sunny was almost ready to panic, and then… a subtle change suddenly happened to the world.
If was easily missed or discarded, more of a feeling than an actual shift. Sunny only noticed it because it felt strangely familiar.
…It felt as though the whole world suddenly became colder by a couple of degrees.
But why would it?
Before he could properly consider the meaning of the subtle change, though, something flashed through the air, and suddenly, Sunny could breathe again.
He could do so because… because the hand holding him wasn't connected to the tyrant's body anymore, the arm severed cleanly at the elbow.
'What…'
Sunny fell to the ground and rolled away as a fountain of seething blood shot out of the stump that used to be a Wraith Chieftain's arm, evaporating and turning into a cloud of scorching red mist.
'What just happened?'
Steel reeling, he struggled to stand up and saw someone landing on a piece of rubble next to him.
It was a beautiful woman who seemed to be in her late twenties. She was wearing a dark blue uniform with silver epaulets and leather boots, her short hair as black as a raven's feather, and her skin as white as snow.
Her icy blue eyes were colder than the deepest reaches of a frozen hell.
In her hand, the woman was holding a somber glaive, drops of boiling blood swiftly turning into ice on its slender blade.
She looked like... like Death herself.
'Master Jet!'
Indeed, it was Soul Reaper Jet.
...The cavalry had arrived.
Chapter 494: The Cavalry
Sunny had never been that happy to see anyone in his entire life. Master Jet arrived just in the nick of time, saving him from having to regret the decision to send Saint to aid Rain.
…Not to mention that she was really pleasant to look at.
More importantly — taking off a Fallen Tyrant's arm with one strike! Even for an Ascended, this was an incredible feat. Tyrants were not creatures one usually dared to challenge alone. Instead, they were dreaded horrors that were capable of decimating whole cohorts of experienced, battle-hardened fighters.
Masters rarely worked together, simply for the fact that there were too few of them and too much for each one to do. But facing a tyrant was one of the things that pushed them to band together. And even then, not everyone was guaranteed to return from the fight.
Truly, Teacher Julius had not been exaggerating when he said that even Saints were wary of Soul Reaper Jet.
And yet… although her entrance was spectacular, would she be able to battle the tyrant and survive? Even though the chieftain was seriously wounded, that wound came from a surprise attack. Now that she lost the advantage, things could change really fast.
As if answering his thoughts, Master Jet glanced at him.
Despite the fact that they were surrounded by piles of corpses, the terrifying giant looming above them like an omen of doom, an unexpected smile suddenly appeared on her cold face.
"...Cool mask."
With that, Soul Reaper sprung forward, turning into a blue blur. Her movements were so fast that Sunny had only been able to perceive them because he was an Awakened, his senses vastly superior to that of a mundane human.
Several things happened at the same time.
The somber glaive flew away as it spun fast enough to appear as a blurry circle. It cut a bloody swath in the mass of abominations, eviscerating dozen in a matter of a second as it moved in a wide arc.
At the same time, Master Jet streaked across the bloodied, broken asphalt and appeared behind the tyrant, then caught the glaive and immediately lunged forward in a devastating thrust.
The chieftain was much faster, though.
His spear seemed to almost teleport into the path of the glaive, positioned for an indomitable block.
Something weird happened then.
Master Jet's weapons suddenly turned ghostly and eerily luminous, and simply passed through the shaft to the spear, then effortlessly pierced… no, phased through the creature's armor, burying itself deep in his chest.
Right where one of the soul cores should have been.
'What the…'
Things didn't go as she had planned, though. Sunny got that suspicion because of a slight frown that appeared on Jet's face, and the fact that the tyrant did not slow down even one bit.
Instead of having its soul damaged or one of his cores destroyed, the bastard simply took a step forward and raised his spear, which suddenly ignited with blinding light and flooded the area directly in front of the Gate with menacing red radiance.
Sunny sighed.
"Well… that's my cue to get the hell out of here."
This was not a battle he could handle, at least not in his current state. Master Jet seemed to have the situation under control — even if she ended up as no match for the Barrow Chieftain, she would at least be able to stall him until the rest of the government forces arrived.
Sunny, on the other hand, would probably just be erased from existence by the destructive fallout their battle was bound to produce.
Since Saint was doing fine in the gymnasium of the school, protecting both the children and the teachers, he didn't have to worry about Rain, as well.
All that was left was to do…
Was to get more shadow fragments and, hopefully, an additional Memory or two while Soul Reaper was doing the heavy lifting, of course!
'It's a good thing she arrived way faster than thirteen minutes, though… what an exemplary employee! I am starting to understand why Master Jet always seems sleep deprived. I hope the government gives her a raise…'
With that, Sunny picked himself off the ground and used Shadow Step to appear near the six Awakened, who were on the verge of being overrun by the advancing Nightmare Creatures.
Honestly, it was a miracle that all of them were still alive.
Summoning the odachi once again, Sunny cut down a hunter who had been aiming at the familiar young woman with a bow, and gave her a cursory glance.
Something exploded behind him, in the direction where Master Jet was fighting the tyrant, painting him with shades of deep red.
"L—lord Mongrel! What should we do?!"
Wasn't that obvious?
'Run, you idiots!'
Grimacing behind the fearsome black mask, Sunny opened his mouth and said, his voice full of resentment toward the fact that he had to tell such an obnoxious lie:
"Stand and fight."
The girl stared at him, a sudden expression of shame clearly written on her face.
"Of course… of course… that is what an Awakened ought to do…"
Suppressing an infuriated groan, Sunny strained his aching muscled and raised the Soul Serpent.
'What a joke! I better not see that quote going viral on the network…'
***
In the end, the Gate was contained with, miraculously, no civilian casualties.
Soon after Master Jet appeared, the government strike force finally arrived. Several swift air carriers descended from the skies in the howling of jet engines, and dozens of Awakened jumped down, all clad in high-quality armor and wielding powerful weapons.
Almost at the same time, armored vehicles appeared on the road and opened fire on the mass of Nightmare Creatures, their spelltech cannons managing to obliterate the weaker abominations and herd the more powerful ones away from the city streets. Operated by mundane humans, these machines were meant to control the battlefield and make it easier for the Awakened to eliminate those creatures too tough for human weapons to destroy reliably.
More cohorts, machines, and mundane soldiers followed.
Master Jet, unbelievably, ended up actually killing the tyrant. The break in their battle came when she suddenly shifted from attacking the chieftain himself to aiming for the three-eyed skull he wore as a helmet.
As soon as she managed to crack the skull, the red flames burning in the eyes of the wraiths were extinguished, leaving them disoriented and weakened. Many simply fell to the ground, losing their perverted unlives.
The tyrant staggered, and then collapsed in a hip of rotten fur and desiccated flesh, sending a tremor through the bloody battlefield. This time, he was truly and utterly dead.
After that, the scales of the battle tilted drastically in the favor of humans.
Noticing a dedicated team of Awakened enter the school to secure the students, Sunny dismissed Saint and glanced at the scene of slaughter one last time.
His heart was in agony.
…Not because of the havoc and destruction that seemed to envelop once peaceful streets, but because of all the soul shards and contribution points he was going to miss out on.
'Such cruelty! Such injustice!'
Well, at least he received a very large number of shadow fragments, several Memories, and even learned a new, profound and deviously deadly battle style.
This thought did not console him very much, though.
Almost on the verge of crying, Sunny sighed…
And dissolved into the shadows.
Without saying anything or demanding any credit, Mongrel was gone just as suddenly as he had appeared. All that was left behind were scores of dead Nightmare Creatures and the memories of those who saw him fight.
And some time later, in a dark and empty alley, Awakened Sunless, who avoided the summons to defend the Gate, walked toward an especially remote corner and bent down to pick up the Covetous Coffer, which was furtively looking out from behind a big garbage container.
Taking his communicator, Sunny patted the box on the lid and dismissed it, then stared at the screen with a dark expression.
A heavy sigh escaped from his lips.
"Ah, it's good to be a coward…"