Shadow Slave: Eternal Madness

Raphael looked around the convoy, making sure none of the refugees had died.

To his relief, no one had. There were injuries, but at least no lives were lost.

Sighing, he turned his gaze toward the old tunnel. He could sense it—True Darkness.

To his displeasure, he couldn't control or influence it by any means.

His ability, [Hades], allowed him to control the darkness of the underworld, a force that seemed almost sentient, responding to his commands rather than being dominated outright. However, this darkness was born of the abomination inside, rendering it beyond Raphael's control.

"We'll rest here for a few hours."

Hearing Sunny's voice, Raphael walked back to the Rhino and entered.

Sunny, seated in the lounge area, looked up at Raphael and spoke:

"Ah... Gehrman, I want to thank you. If it wasn't for you, we'd have been a feast for that thing."

"No, Captain. If it wasn't for you, we'd all be dead," Raphael replied, nodding his head before taking his leave.

Sunny frowned as he watched Raphael walk away.

'There are no injuries…'

Raphael didn't have a single injury. He'd been in the middle of the swarm and had used his blood spears, yet there wasn't even a scratch on him.

'And how did he manage to summon that many blood spears so quickly?'

Sunny sighed, glancing at Raphael, who sat quietly at the back of the Rhino.

'Not now, Sunny. Not now. Think about it when you've reached safety at least.'

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Four hours had passed since they entered the old tunnel.

One hour ago Sunny, Dorn, and Belle went to scout the tunnel. And it seems they have just came back.

The Irregulars, as well as Sergeant Gere, Professor Obel, and Beth were waiting in the command suite of the Rhino. Sunny received several reports.

The convoy had lost one civilian transport and one military vehicle as the result of encountering the Devouring Cloud. Luckily, it did not affect their logistics too adversely. After sacrificing the mobile infirmary to accommodate the displaced refugees, all they had really lost was a bit of firepower.

The remaining vehicles had all been patched up and ready to move. Sergeant Gere sighed.

"We don't have a lot of ammunition left, sir. Additionally, our reserves of drinking water are also severely reduced. We discarded a lot of it to lighten the load on the transports before the swarm arrived. It should not become a problem in the next several days, but after that..."

 Sunny waved a hand dismissively.

"Don't worry about water. I have a literally endless source of water."

He remained silent for a while, considering the options. They could either pass through the tunnel, or remain where they were and try to dig their way out when some time had passed.

Both options were less than ideal.

'It all comes down to how long I want to remain in the tunnel, it seems.'

The first option would allow the convoy to escape from underground sooner... if all went well during the drive to the opposite exit. The second option would force them to stay inside for much longer, but did not demand diving deeper into the chilling darkness. Neither was free of risk.

'Curses...'

In the end, Sunny just really disliked the idea of staying in the eerie tunnel even a minute longer than it was necessary.

He sighed.

"Start the engines. We're leaving."

A few minutes later, the Rhino came to life and rolled forward. slowly gaining speed. The beams of powerful spotlights installed on its roof cut through the darkness, forcing it to flee and cling to the walls of the tunnel. The civilian transports and the military vehicles followed, staying close to the massive APC.

The darkness flowed back and devoured everything once again behind them, making it seem as though the convoy was traveling inside a small, fleeting. fragile island of light.

Time passed yet they still didn't reach the end, it was like they never made a progress.

Of course Raphael knew the truth, this tunnel was a never ending loop, the only to break it is by attacking the Corrupted Terror which was evolving into at Titan.

....After a while, Sunny finally left the roof of the Rhino anti dove back into its interior with a darkexpression.

Walking up to Luster, be ground his teeth and said:

"That's enough. Stop the convoy."

Luster glanced at him questioningly, then shrugged.

The APC slowed down, and then stopped. The other vehicles followed suit, and soon, the whole convoy came to a halt.

Sunny left the Rhino and stood still for a few moments, staring at the weathered asphalt. Sergeant: Gere. and the members of his cohort soon approached from the direction of other vehicles, while Luster, Professor Obel, and Beth exited the Rhino through the hatch. Saint walked over to the edge of the roof, looking at them from above indiffereutly.

Most of the gathered people had grave expressions on their faces.

Noticing the grim mood, Luster blinked a couple of times, then turned to Sunny.

"Uh... Captain why did we stop? is there a problem?"

Sunny looked at him silently.

"...Yes. there is a problem, you fool. Can't you tell?"

Luster scratched the back of his head.

"What, is there a Nightmare Creature ahead?"

Sunny sighed, then looked up.

"No... there's nothing ahead. That's the problem. We've been driving for about seven hours, correct? What was our average speed?"

The young man hesitated for a moment.

"Thirty kilometers per hour, sir."

They had not rushed and kept a modest speed, to be able to react in case danger appeared front ahead.

Sunny nodded.

"That is more than two hundred kilometers of going straight forward. And yet, there is no exit. Do you see the problem now?"

Luster's eyes suddenly widened.

"Oh... well, if you put it like that... it really is weird..."

Sunny gritted his teeth.

"It's not just weird. If there was a tunnel of that length in Antarctica, it would have been the longest one in the world, by far. Everyone would have known about it."

Luster paled a little, then studied everyone's faces.

"How come no one did, then? Sir?"

Sunny looked down and shook his head.

"There is only one possible answer. This tunnel... something is very, very wrong with it."

Raphael looked at Sunny and sneered inwardly.

'Took you seven hours to figure out.'

"Alright. Let's not panic yet."

Sunny looked around, then walked to the wall of the tunnel and struck it with his fist. A startling bang rolled through the tunnel, echoing in the darkness. In the place where his steel gauntlet had landed, a small impression appeared, with a net of cracks spreading from it through the cold stone.

"Get back into your vehicles."

Raphael sighed and went back to the infirmary.

After few minutes he saw Sunny running into the darkness while activating his [Light Eater] enchantment of the Cruel Sight to illuminate the path.

After few minutes Sunny came back and ordered for the convoy to continue moving.

The convoy moved for another ten tninutes. After that, Sunny commanded them to put the vehicles in reverse - the tunnel was not wide enough for the Rhino and the civilian transports to turn around - and drive back.

After a while, he gave the order to stop.

Raphael looked at Sunny and sighed.

'Should I give him a hint?'

In the end Raphael went against that, all of this was important in Sunny development, and he will only interfere if it was necessary.

The convoy traveled through the darkness, traversing kilometer after kilometer. More hours passed with nothing changing. Then, some more.

Eventually, an entire day was gone. Slowly, a sense of dread was spreading through the exhausted refugees and the mundane soldiers. Even the Irregulars seemed tense.

Sunny commanded everyone to stop and make camp. People needed rest, and nothing would improve if they persisted forward despite everything.

While the people of the convoy were settling in to rest, Sunny observed them with a dark expression on his pale face. Finally, he winced and headed back into the Rhino.

There, the Irregulars were waiting, unsure what to do. It was not like he had answers, either, but Sunny had to decide what their next steps would be.

He hesitated for a few moments.

"Luster, Samara, and Dorn. Go to sleep and report our situation. Perhaps Army Command has some. idea about what we are dealing with here."

Eight hours had passed, and Raphael stood watching as one of the panels slid away, revealing the insides of the pod. There, Luster slowly opened his eyes and looked directly at Sunny.

Then, the young man flinched back with a startled expression on his face.

"C-captain? What are you doing here?!"

Sunny silently brought the cup to his lips and look a sip.

"I am drinking coffee, fool. What does it look like l'm doing?"

Luster opened his mouth, then closed it He seemed to be very confused.

"No, I mean, what are you doing in my Citadel? How did you get here? That doesn't... wait..."

He finally looked around, realizing that he was inside the Rhino. However, Luster's confusion only grew.

"That... is not my Citadel..."

Sunny frowned, studying the young man's expression.

"Why would you think that you are inside a Citadel?"

Luster blinked a couple of times.

"...Well, that is how things work, right? You go to sleep in the real world, and are sent to the Dream Realm."

'Don't tell me...'

Sunny closed his eyes for a moment.

"So what you are trying to say is that you did not return from the Dream Realm? You fell asleep in the waking world, and woke up in the real world?"

Luster let out a nervous laugh.

"Ha! That's impossible. Awakened don't stay in the real world when we sleep. But also... yes? The last thing I remember is settling inside the pod... sir."

The corner of Sunny's mouth twitched.

Raphael stood up and spoke:

"Captain, this is bad. Not only this tunnel never end, but also stop Awakeners from entering the Dream Realm. This worse than we thought."

Without saying much, Sunny reached within himself and tried to sense the familiar pull - the pull of his anchor in the Dream Realm. Usually, as long as he concentrated on the anchor, he would initiate the process of traveling across worlds.

However, this time, there was nothing. No matter how hard he searched, his soul scented devoid of the Dream Realm's pull.

His connection to the Ivory Tower was gone, just like the Call.

Suddenly cold, Sunny glanced at the sea of darkness surrounding the fragile island of light where hundreds of refugees were trapped, shivering as they slept.

'...What the hell is this place?'

————————————————————

Four days passed since they found that they couldn't go to the Dream Realm.

Raphael sat on top of the infirmary, watching as the convoy stopped their march again in Sunny order.

This time, however, there was one significant difference to the place Sunny had chosen to set camp - it was situated near one of the side passages, which they had avoided at all costs in the past.

'It seems that they replied to his message.'

Sunny plan was simple, send a message to Nephis through shadow bond to ask Cassie how to get out of the old tunnel.

After everyone gathered Sunny started explaining his plan.

There is gonna be two teams, one who is going to enter to the side passage and find the abomination which constract of only Sunny, and the other team will wait for the signal and launch the convoy escaping the old tunnel and reaching the surface.

Raphael sat on top of the infirmary waiting for the signal, at first there was nothing, suddenly the tunnel started shaking.

Before he order Luster to start driving, the Rhino had already moved.

As the Rhino rolled into the darkness, swiftly accelerating, the rest of the vehicles promptly followed.

Raphael looked in front and saw the shape of the tunnel started changing, the loop broke.

The convoy moved as fast as it could, but they weren't fast enough.

The mountain seemed to be coming to life around them. it shook and trembled, more and more cracks appearing on the walls and the roof of the tunnel. At some point, one of the walls collapsed just as the last vehicle passed it, and a flood of something dark and soothing flowed into the underground passage. Sunny shuddered, realizing that it were the beetles.

The tide of them rushed into the tunnel like a river of black liquid. However, that liquid was behaving as if it possessed a maleficent sentienee. Instead of spreading in every direction like water would, it seemed to deliberately rush in pursuit of the convoy.

Up ahead, a deep crack appeared on another section of the wall, and a few tiny bodies fell from it on the road.

At that point, it seemed like the whole tunnel was ready to collapse. The civilian transports struggled to keep up with the Rhino, climbing up the quaking road. Behind them, the endless flood of dark beetles was gaining speed, swelling as new streams of them poured in. Dust and pieces of stone were raining from above. 

...But ahead of them, in the distance, a circle of dim light appeared.

The exit.

Seeing this Raphael quickly summoned a wall of darkness blocking the river of black liquid.

'This should bye us sometime.'

But to Raphael displeasure the wall of darkness was destroyed in a second.

'Nope I take my words back.'

Finally, the Rhino shot through the round opening, escaping into the chilling cold of the polar night. The vast expanse of the black sky appeared above, looking more beautiful than ever. Sunny who was inside the Rhino grinned triumphantly.

Then, his grin disappeared.

Finally able to see, he sent his shadows to take a look outside, and studied their surroundings.

The tunnel had led them quite high into the mountains. Behind them, the stone slopes were cracking and breaking, with giant boulders rolling down into deep gorges with deafening noise. Rivers of darkness were flowing out of the mountain, all twisting to take aim at the escaping convoy.

The damned beetles were continuing to pursue them even now.

In fact, the wide streams of black insects seemed more like limbs of a colossal being than swarms of tiny creatures. They stretched and slithered, looking like giant tentacles... very much like those that Sunny could create himself, but on a much, much larger scale.

Luckily, the fleet appeared to be a little bit faster than the flood of darkness.

"Oh crap!"

Hearing Luster's shout, Sunny felt the Rhino come to an abrupt stop. It was so violent and sudden that he was thrown off his feet, while Beth and Professor Obel grimaced in their seats, secured in place by durable straps.

'What... what is he doing... has that bastard lost his mind?'

Before even standing up, Sunny commanded his shadows to look away from the approaching tide of black beetles and try to see what had made Luster stop.

What they found made him utter a curse.

'Damn it all...'

Right in front of them, there was a vast canyon that seemed so deep that it might have as well been bottomless. There was a long, wide vehicle bridge connecting the two sides of the canyon.

...Sadly, the bridge had collapsed at some point in the past, maybe decades ago.

Now, all that remained of it was a piece of broken road that hung over a dark abyss, and Rhino had stopped precariously just a few meters away from the edge.

Raphael looked at the bridge, he gritted his teeth and started jumping on top of the vehicles reaching the Rhino.

He opened the hatch end entered inside.

"Captain, you need to do something, these things are closing!"

Sunny gritted his teeth. There was not much time to think, so he did the first thing that came to his mind, without even stopping to consider if it was possible to pull off. If it was impossible... he would just have to change that.

His essence surged, coursing through his veins with tremendous speed, and then flowed outward. His face paled as his eyes turned into two pools devoid of any light.

Just as the darkness disgorged by the mountain moved, the shadows covering its slopes moved, too. The deep murk drowning the deep canyon boiled, rushing upward. Two black pillars suddenly broke through the snow covering the sides of the shattered road and rose into the sky, growing taller and taller with each second.

At the same time, the tide of shadows rushing from below reached the edge of the broken bridge and bent, freezing for a moment above the bottomless canyon like a wave that was about to break.

But, instead of breaking, the shadows continued to spread forward and solidify, as if forming a dark path above the abyss.

...If there was no bridge for them to cross, Sunny would just have to build one of his own.

On the far side of the canyon, two more pillars rose, and another surge of shadows stretched into the air, growing meter after meter to meet the first one. Long tentacles of darkness shot from the tops of the pillars, turning into unbreakable chains. From them, dozens of smaller chains fell, fusing into the black surface of the growing bridge.

 Sunny was not concerned with how much essence. he had, however, he was worried about the structural integrity of the hurried construct, and the speed with which he would be able to connect the two parts of it.

There was not much time left...

But there were very few people in the world who knew more about forming connections out of chains. After all, he had spent so much time in the ruined Kingdom of Hope, traveling from one island to another across the heavenly chains that bound them together.

Chained together... inseparable... and stronger for it...

Seeing this Raphael quickly looked at Luster and screamed at him.

"What are you waiting for fool! Go! Go!"

The young man looked at him with wide eyes, then glanced at the eerie black road that hung above the abyss, connected to nothing and only supported by dozens of swinging chains.

Then, with trembling hands, he sent the APC rolling forward. Its massive wheels soon abandoned the cracked asphalt of the broken road and touched the black surface of the shadow bridge.

The manifested path of shadows shook slightly... but held.

it bore the full weight of the Rhino, and then that of the next vehicles that drove onto it. And then, the next.

Soon, the whole fleet left the solid ground and entered the aerial road built by Sunny. He grabbed the metal handle on the hatch of the last vehicle and allowed its momentum to pull him with it, then climbed onto its roof and crashed down on the cold alloy.

After several seconds, Sunny glanced back, at the approaching wave of darkness. It was already so close... too close.

But at the same time the Rhino crossed the shadow bridge, but it didn't stop. It continued driving forward and the other vehicles followed it.

After the last vehicle crossed the Shadow bridge, Raphael looked at Sunny and screamed:

"Captain, Now!"

Sunny didn't need to hear Raphael he quickly released his control over the shadows.

The shadow bridge suddenly turned ghostly, collapsing into shapelessness, and then dissipated into the night. Myriads of dark beetles plummeted down, and even more of them continued to flow front the slopes of the battered mountain, plunging into the abyss of the canyon like waterfalls of pure darkness. But the fleet was safe.

Raphael took a heavy breath and entered the Rhino sitting on one of the seats in the lounge.

He raised his middle finger, and whispered:

"Fuck you, Weaver."

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Man, this arc took way more words than I expected. I was planning to fit two arcs in this chapter, but if I add another, the chapter will end up being at least 6K words.

Anyway, see you tomorrow!👋

Also, don't forget to leave a review for both this chapter and the fanfic.

This chapter stopped at the chapter 943 in the original novel.