Shadow Slave

Sunny's plan was rather simple. Since the mental protection granted by the Undying Chain was not enough to break through the mind hex of the unknown horror, he just had to get better defenses.

Of course, he could have summoned Saint, who was completely immune to that kind of attack. If he had no choice but to fight the abomination, which Sunny suspected to be a Corrupted Terror, he would do exactly that... but at this point, he was simply trying to understand what exactly was happening, and how.

Considering that Saint would not be able to communicate what she saw, he had to try breaking through the hex himself, first.

Several minutes later, Verne summoned the officers of his Awakened force, and then sent them away with a simple task - to get every Memory that could offer at least some form of protection against mind attacks to Sunny. Considering that there were still around ninety Awakened soldiers at the facility, at least a couple of them had to have something like that in their arsenal.

Soon, Sunny found himself in possession of several loaned Memories. He was wearing the Undying Chain, which was his best tool to solve this situation. There was a new charm hanging around his neck, a strangely mercurial cloak on his back, and a flint dagger with a handle made out of weathered bone in his hand.

The dagger came from Verne itself, so it was especially powerful.

There were many people in the security center now, including Verne, Professor Obel and Beth, all six of his soldiers, and several sleep-deprived Awakened officers. Sunny was sitting in front of a screen, holding the memory storage device.

Taking a deep breath, he wrapped all four of his shadows around the Undying Chain and felt its bleak steel become stronger, more durable, and more powerful.

Then, he inserted the memory device into the socket of the terminal and accessed the recordings stored on it.

Everyone watched the video feed of the undulating ocean with a morbid sense of curiosity. However, none of the people present in the security center noticed anything special about the recording.

After a while, Beth said in a tentative tone:

"I... don't see anything?"

However, when she looked at Sunny, there was a grim expression on his pale, tired face.

Because, unlike everyone else, Sunny was seeing things that he had been unable to notice earlier. To him, the recording showed an immensely macabre reality.

The things he saw on the screen left him disturbed, shaken, and dismayed.

'Damnation...'

As the recording went on, replaying the shifting landscape of the lightless beach from the past two days at enhanced speed, Sunny slowed it down to a crawl several times, seemingly for no apparent reason. Every time, his expression turned more and more ugly.

...He had known, of course, to expect something like that. However, watching himself nonchalantly make way for the mesmerized victims, only to forget about their existence a moment later, was deeply unsettling.

Sunny had witnessed dozens of people being swallowed by the cold waves, and yet, this was the first time his consciousness managed to become aware of that fact.

As it did, the hex was broken, and suddenly, all the memories that had been suppressed before flooded his mind.

Sunny shuddered.

'Gods...'

Noticing his strong reaction, Verne leaned forward.

"What is it? What do you see? What kind of Nightmare Creature is it? How does it capture people from within the facility?"

Sunny lingered for a moment, and then stopped the playback with a trembling hand. He stared at it in confusion and made a fist, causing the tremors to stop.

Finally, he let out a heavy sigh.

"...I was right, mostly. There is indeed a mind hex affecting everyone in this fortress. It makes us indifferent and unaware of the victims, and the traces left behind by them. However... I did not see the creature itself. It never appeared. The victims... they just walked into the ocean themselves, and vanished. Some right in front of our eyes. It seems that the bastard is somehow controlling them to come to it, and us to be blind to their passing."

Verne gritted his teeth.

"... There has to be a way to stop it."

Sunny hesitated for a long time.

"In my experience, the only way to deal with a creature like that is to run away from it. While we can."

The other Master shook his head with a resentful expression. That resentment was not aimed at Sunny, however... instead, it was aimed at the dreadful being that hid beneath the waves, the Chain of Nightmares, and the sorry state of the waking world in general.

"Leaving LO49 now would be no different from suicide. We won't make it across hundreds of kilometers of rough terrain alive, not with hordes of Nightmare Creatures prowling this region of the Antarctic Center seemingly unopposed, with no intelligence about the state of the territory and cut off from Army Command."

His eyes grew cold.

"...We have to remain here and wait for the Ariadne to arrive. It should be here in two days... or if not, soon enough. We can survive this abomination for two days."

Sunny looked at him for a while, thinking. Although remaining this close to a potential Corrupted Terror made him extremely uneasy, he had to admit that what Verne had said was reasonable.

The Ariadne, indeed, was their best chance.

He sighed.

"So, what do you propose we do in the meantime? Just let the bastard continue gobbling up humans?"

Verne crossed his arms and frowned.

"No. Now that we know what is happening, we can prevent more people from vanishing."

Sunny raised his eyebrow.

"And how do you propose we do that?"

The other Master looked at him. deep in thought. After a few moments, he said calmly:

"Well. Someone just has to prevent the victims from jumping into the ocean. Right?"

A palė smile appeared on Sunny's face.

Somehow, he already knew who was going to get that job.......

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