Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a few moments, staring at the distant figure wearing a bright vermilion cloak.

The clouds veiling the sky were not clouds, but a myriad of flying swords. The man standing on the ruined wall of the siege capital was not a mere mortal, but a Sovereign.

One of the three Supreme humans in existence...

Anvil of Valor, the King of Swords.

The Sovereign was facing a Great Titan. Sunny recognized that harrowing creature from the Battle of the Black Skull, where it had decimated the armies of both Valor and Song. The Titan was vast and abominable, its power inconceivable...

But the King of Swords was no less terrifying.

He was more like a force of nature than a human being, a walking cataclysm that tolerated no defiance. Where Anvil stood, his will was the law. Wherever his sword pointed was his kingdom.

And within the borders of his kingdom, his authority was absolute.

Whoever dared to disobey would be obliterated by a flood of slaying swords.

Sunny took a stifled breath.

'Crazy... it's crazy.'

That was what Nephis wanted to fight against?

He slowly shook his head and forced himself to look away from the awesome visage of the rain of swords. If each of them was infused with the power of a Supreme being... then Anvil was much more powerful than Sunny had ever imagined.

Considering that he was effortlessly controlling enough swords to cover the entire sky, this whole siege capital could be destroyed by the tyrannical Sovereign in a matter of seconds. There was no one in the waking world strong enough to stop him.

except for the other

in Antarctica,

descended, too. As for the most mysterious of the Sovereigns, who knew? His ways

settled on the

Nightmare Gate...

A Dream Gate.

his mind, and

course. It

lot about them — and about their power. What did it mean, exactly, to be Supreme? He had learned that the Sovereigns possessed a unique ability to create, rule, and expand their Domains. Even this piece of information was vague and shallow at

what

thinking about a more subtle

to the Dream Realm when they slept. Masters could enter it at will and physically, leaving a tether behind. Saints were like miniature Gateways, able to come and go between the two words as they

this facet of their power evolve when they rose to the Supreme

possessed? That they would not only contain a Gateway within themselves, but would actually be capable of creating a stable external

Nightmare Gates allowed abominations to leave the Dream Realm and enter the waking world. A

'...He is evacuating civilians.'

the dreadful expanse of the ocean to other Quadrants. The process was slow — after all, the seafaring alloy behemoths could accommodate only so

that the naval convoys faced at

Four Gates that had opened during the Battle of the Black Skull. With the Great Nightmare Creatures roaming East Antarctica, there was no hope of anyone surviving — the civilian population, the Evacuation Army, the small contingents of Legacy Awakened... all of them were

Antarctic Center had, with everyone who was not already evacuated perishing in the

Sovereigns must have descended, holding back the Great horrors and opening a new, much more efficient path

it was because they could not allow their children

could not abandon humanity that easily. The new world they were building in the Dream Realm had to be populated by someone, after all, and

any case, here it

Antarctica's salvation.

indecribably bitter as he looked at the towering Dream Gate. Relieved because his worst fears had not come true, and his mission... the Evacuation Army's mission... was not doomed to fail. All the sacrifices that he and his soldiers had made were not in

from those whom he despised the most — the Great