1653-1654 eng

1653 Erebus

The monstrous Spire Messenger tore apart the gelid wind as it raced across the frigid vastness of the twilight sky. Behind it, a churning wall of dancing snow crawled slowly, devouring the world like a hungry beast.

There was a gaunt figure kneeling on the back of the flying monster, clutching at its black feathers with an onyx gauntlet.

Sunny did not look back, knowing that Serpent was much faster than the pursuing titan. In that, at least, they held an advantage.

'It will catch up soon enough, though.'

He was contemplating the results of sacrificing his swarm of thralls.

None of them had been able to withstand the lethal cold of the Winter Beast's domain for long, which meant that there was no type of resistance that could help Sunny survive there — at least none he could find in a short amount of time.

The thralls had perished swiftly, sapped of warmth of life. Their bodies fell into the snow, slowly turning into ice sculptures.

The conclusion, then... was that Sunny had to use something other than a living being to reach the heart of the snowstorm. That would suggest that an undead creature would fare better, but that was not true. There had been a few ghouls among the thralls, and they died just the same.

'But there is a much simpler solution.'

He didn't have to enter the heart of the sinister blizzard himself or send one of his Shadows. He could simply... use an inanimate object.

A projectile.

Indeed, the simplest solution was most often the correct one. The best way to kill the Winter Beast was to simply bring down a deluge of ranged attacks on its head... or whatever it was that it had instead of a head.

Sunny had not been able to do something like that in the past because there was no telling where the titan's actual manifestation hid within the vast snowstorm. Now, however... his shadow sense could extend across many kilometers. Even if he failed to find the Winter Beast's precise location, he could at least pinpoint the general area.

'That is if that thing even has a physical body. For all I know, it could be a sentient storm.'

That was one of the risks he had to face. The other problem was actually delivering a ranged attack across such a vast distance. Not only was it physically hard, but the fatal cold and the hurricane wind raging within the snowstorm would become an obstacle... the closer one got to its heart, the worse they became.

But where there was a will, there was a way.

And if that will was killing intent... someone was going to die by the end of their battle, one way or another.

Leaning forward to resist the frigid wind, Sunny smiled.

***

Some time later, he was sitting on the snow, shielded from the wind by a wall of onyx scales. That wall, of course, was Serpent's side — his Shadow's Soul Beast form had grown truly immense now that it was a Transcendent Terror.

Serpent was still far from reaching Daeron's size, of course, but it was rather daunting nevertheless. Its maw looked like it could swallow an entire military APC whole.

The two of them were in the middle of the icy plain that had been Erebus Field once. Most of the destroyed siege capital was buried under lava rock and snow, with only a few ravaged structures protruding above it like skeletal remains.

Sunny was sitting with the tall peak of Mount Erebus behind him. In front of him, far in the distance, the world was slowly disappearing beneath a veil of swirling snow.

The already dismal temperature was dropping by the minute, and the winds were growing more violent.

He looked disinterested, staring at the snow with a frozen expression. The deep darkness of his eyes was cold and placid... like the surface of an ocean ready to explode into a raging storm.

"It has finally arrived, huh?"

Sunny took a deep breath and finally looked up, studying the distant snowstorm. Its approach was deceptively slow, but he knew that the wall of snow would consume everything around him very soon.

Serpent hissed, the deep sound of its voice reverberating across the icy plain.

"...It's time to start, then."

Sunny's words hung in the frigid air for a moment and were swiftly swallowed by the howling of the wind.

As split second later, though...

The world shook.

Cracks formed on the vast field of snow, and far behind him, the mouth of Mount Erebus suddenly exploded with a gargantuan pillar of ash. A terrifying gust of hot wind rolled across the desolate landscape, pushing back the cold for a moment. Then, the volcano shone with an angry red glow, and a fountain of incandescent lava shot skyward with a deafening roar.

Mount Erebus was erupting.

Of course, it did not just happen to erupt precisely when Sunny needed it. Instead, he had sent Fiend into its depths to find a ripe magma chamber and cause an eruption when the time was right.

With Goliath having already destabilized the entire region, doing so was not too hard. And with Fiend's robust steel carapace and fire affinity, he could survive inside a volcanic explosion without much trouble. Granted... the little hoodlum would not be happy with its master once he returned.

If both of them survived what was coming next, of course.

As the wall of swirling snow approached Sunny from the front, devouring the world, a rolling cloud of ash spread from Mount Erebus behind him. The stench of sulfur permeated the frigid air, cold wind crashing into a wave of heat in an invisible collision. Sunny's hair danced as a vast darkness swallowed the sky, plunging the icy plain in its shadow.

As everything around him became enveloped in shadows, a sinister smile appeared on Sunny's pale face.

He stretched, and then slowly rose to his feet.

The cold darkness dwelling in his eyes finally exploded, turning into vicious glee.

Looking at the approaching storm, Sunny raised his fist and said, his voice trembling with barely suppressed rage:

"Hey, Winter Beast... do you remember me?"

Then, his voice grew calmer, and colder, full of murderous wrath.

"...Probably not. But I remember you."

1654 Opening Salvo

As ash rained from the sky and the ground quaked, Sunny inhaled deeply and extended his shadow sense as far as he could. Soon, his mind was flooded with an avalanche of sensory data, almost making him dizzy.

He was still unaccustomed to how vast his sight was now. Of course, he didn't actually see anything... but after years of perceiving the shapes and movements of the shadows, it was not much different. Sunny had tested his limits while relying on his shadow sense to stay alive in the ocean, but the dark depths were different from land. They were unfathomable and empty, with nothing but the cold currents to see.

Here in the Antarctic Center, though, there was almost too much to sense.

Further, further, and further still... Sunny filtered out the useless data to keep his Transcendent mind from overloading and reached across many kilometers of cracking ice toward the approaching snowstorm.

Soon, he sensed the shadows trembling from the lethal cold. Even they were not spared from the cruel tyranny of the Winter Beast.

'Somewhere between forty and fifty kilometers... this is as far as I can reach.'

His shadow sense reached further than his actual sight, which was limited due to the curvature of Earth. And yet, it wasn't enough to find the heart of the vast blizzard — at least not until it got closer and enveloped him.

'Still, it is already close enough for the initial greeting.'

Sunny extended a hand. A thin pillar of darkness rose from the ground, growing to stand at almost twice his height. Then, it solidified, turning into a inky-black javelin with a needle-sharp tip. He grasped and weighed it, looking at the towering wall of swirling snow with a cold expression.

He had created the javelin in the image of the Siege Souvenir — a similar weapon he had once fashioned to slay Goliath. The original Souvenir had been made from the quill of a Corrupted abomination, while this one was merely a manifested shadow. However, that shadow had been suffused with his Transcendent essence, and was thus equal to a Transcendent weapon.

A uniquely powerful one at that, due to the fact that his soul had been altered by Soul Weave.

Sadly, the shadow javelin lacked the powerful enchantments that the real Siege Souvenir had possessed. Still... it was not bad for an opening salvo.

Exhaling slowly, Sunny took a step forward. Using the full augmentation of his five shadows, he infused a torrent of essence into his muscles and tendons, pushed against the ground with his feet, and strained his entire body to whip his hand forward and send the javelin into the dark sky.

The moment he threw it, the world quaked again. A cloud of ashen snow exploded from under his feet, and a thunderous boom tore through the roaring of the eruption. There was an invisible shockwave that pushed the snow and the falling ash away, creating a sphere of clarity around his ominous onyx figure for a few fleeting moments.

The javelin was like a black comet as it shot across the lightless sky, its speed immeasurable. However... the actual process was rather dull. It actually took it an entire minute to reach the wall of snow and disappear into it. Twenty or so seconds later, Sunny felt his connection to the infused essence disappear.

At the same time, he sensed the javelin plummet into the snow and shatter into countless shards of ice, which then dissolved into an intangible shadow.

The corner of his mouth twitched.

'...Not enough.'

With the volcano erupting behind him and the gargantuan wall of snow that connected heavens and earth racing to swallow him from the front, Sunny stared forward with a dark expression and did some mental calculation.

'I am no better than an artillery cannon, distance-wise. Granted, that javelin of mine was about twenty-five times heavier than an average artillery shell. Still, I would need to be inside the storm to reach its eye.'

He grimaced with displeasure. All these mathematics... was not exactly what he had wanted. What he had wanted was to get up close and personal with the Winter Beast, and feel its blood flow down his hands. However, reality was never what one wanted.

Well... maybe not, considering that Sunny had gotten exactly what he wanted. He had gotten his freedom. And everything else that had come with it.

In any case, the distance was not that important. Much more important was the fact that the javelin had been able to survive for more than twenty seconds in the outer reaches of the snowstorm. That... was something Sunny could work with.

Of course, he still did not know how long his missiles would last in the inner hell of the Winter Beast's domain.

He shook his head, let out a resentful sigh, and glanced at his Shadow.

"...War is a boring affair, isn't it, Serpent?"

Serpent raised its gargantuan head into the air and hissed, perhaps expressing its solidarity.

Sunny smiled.

"Let's make it a bit more exciting, then."

As the first torrents of snow swirled around him and plunged the world into unbearable cold, Sunny raised his head to the dark sky and laughed.

A few moments later, his laughter disappeared abruptly, and his face suddenly turned still. Only his eyes gleamed with a strange, dark excitement.

Something stirred in their depths...

And at the same time, the darkness around Sunny stirred, as well.

Dozens of inky-black pillars rose from the ground, followed by dozens more. They rose into the swirling stow like the fangs of a dragon, their needle-sharp points parting the wind with shrill whistles.

Then, just as many tendrils of darkness wrapped around the shadow javelins, turning into inky-black hands. Each hand had seven fingers, ending with sharp claws.

Sunny raised a hand, and at the same time, the shadow hands raised the great javelins.

He stared into the swirling snow with a cold smile.

He was not satisfied with being a Transcendent siege engine. To welcome the Winter Beast, he was prepared to summon forth an entire division's worth of devastating artillery.

"I'm going to drown you, bastard."

Letting out a low growl, he waved his hand forward.

The world seemed to shatter from the thunderous roar when countless black javelins tore the swirling snow apart and shot into the depths of the raging blizzard.