Shadow Slave: Bloodborne

A large ship slowly approached the shore of Antarctica, the large ice peaks on the horizon an oppressive sight. As the ship boarded, hundreds of soldiers, Ragna included, stepped out of it, setting foot onto the cold terrain. Ragna instantly felt the difference that came with standing on this continent.

The sheer coldness was on a whole different level, even for his awakened physique. But for some reason there was also something else that made him feel uncomfortable, something that didn't have anything to do with the climate- he couldn't couldn't find out what though.

All the Valor soldiers around him were seasoned veterans, having earned a lot of experience through harsh fights and environments. But even they were nervous, since Antarctica was a whole different breed. Just the amount of gates that opened on this place, releasing thousands of nightmare creatures into the real world, was completely overwhelming.

'Wait, if I think about it, where am I even supposed to meet Morgan ? They didn't tell me anything ! God, Madoc didn't tell me anything on purpose. I'm sure that either Madoc or Tyris, probably the latter, used her transcended powers to move them all directly to Antarctica.

Maybe it was Intuition, maybe it was fate but maybe also the uncomfortable feeling, that made him move through the soldiers

And wait on the outside. Ragna looked around, seeing nothing except for the snowy ground and icy peaks. But he knew that something was wrong.

What gave him the weird feeling was the bloodflow he felt in the radius around him. Of course there were the ones of the soldiers- but also one from a larger creature. And just when he realized, it was already to late.

A large creature, which stood on only two legs like a human, suddenly appeared out of thin air and impaled a soldier on one of its thick horns, before throwing the dead body onto the ground and disappearing again.

Many hastily ran away from the corpse, not having expected to get attacked this soon and being confused since the creature appeared and disappeared just like that.

And just like that, hell broke free. Screams and sounds of flesh being ripped apart tore through the mass, a soldier dying every second.

They were all elites, but no one could do anything against a monster that seemingly just turned invisible and disappeared, everyone except for Ragna. His ability to feel the blodflow of creatures around him made it easy to locate where and how fast the Creature was moving. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to fight that thing alone, so he thought of a plan.

He summoned Cera, the little Echoe appearing in just a second.

(Cera, I'll tell you the situation quickly. There's an invisible monster, which I can feel though. You need to cover it in blood while I fight it, so the others know where it's located. You can do that, right ?)

(Of course I can ! I'm the best heheh.)

Ragna rolled his eyes but couldn't contain the smile on his face, because of his weird echoes thoughts. He dashed forward, his sword already summoned and held tightly in his hand, following the invisible body of the Creature, who ran after the soldiers.

In the meantime, Cera flew a few meters into the air, so she could aim without hitting any soldier on accident. Ragna augmented his legs, since the creature was too fast for him to follow without.

Ragna's heart pounded wildly, each second feeling like an eternity. He concentrated on only the creature, the sounds around him muffled.

Just before the creature was about to kill another soldier, Ragna appeared from behind it, parrying the blow with the Mirrorblade. As they continued clashing, shockwaves pushed the soldiers around them away.

(Cera, NOW !)

Cera shot out a large amount of blood, her mission not to damage the creature but just to cover it. As the blod hit the beast, the outline of its body got visible to everyone around, making the soldiers gain confidence again.

Ragna, seeing no reason to continue the fight anymore, fell into the background, letting everyone else handle the beast.

'Aren't they all soldiers from Valor ? The elite of the elite ? If I didn't act, they all would've died. Shouldn't like multiple of them have an Aspects or Memory that make it possible to find out where the creature was ? Or they at least could've done what Cera did, cover the creature in something so they know where it is.'

Cera flew down again, quickly landing on Ragna's head, like she often did before.

(Why did it take you so long to summon me ? I spent months in your soul sea ! And where are we anyways ?)

(Yah, I'm sorry for not summoning you sooner. And uhh, a lot of things happened in that time, I'll tell you more later. Just know that we are in a cold place with a lot of Nightmare Creatures we need to beat.)

(Sounds like vacation.)

As Ragna turned around, he noticed how the soldiers had already killed the beast, the healers already working on maybe saving the hurt.

'So what happens now ? I don't really know how to find Morgan now. I could just fall asleep and wait in Bastion till I find Madoc or Morgan and then ask them, but for that I first need to find a safe place. Hmm, but the chance of seeing them in bastion is pretty low. Who knows when they will go there the next time.'

Before he could think of anything else, his thoughts were cut off because he saw a multiple, large APC's approaching, which would soon lead the soldiers to a siege capital and station them there to fight of against Creatures. But this wasn't why Ragna was here, he needed to join the special convoys and fight with the- he didn't know how though.

The APC's were quickly filled with soldiers, not giving Ragna enough time to think what he was going to do. Ragna was the only one left on standing on the snow, not knowing what to do, making so someone yell at him from the entrance of an APC.

"SOLDIER, GET INSIDE HERE !"

Ragna quickly complied, stepping into the APC, which then drove off into towards a mission and siege capital he didn't know. He was going so somewhere completly different than he intended to, and this would lead to a lot of bad things in the future.