The Fall of Falcon Scott (52)
The special chutes built into the wall had mostly been destroyed or damaged, so the Awakened had to use other means to sortie into the killing field. Some rappelled down, some summoned Memories capable of slowing one's fall, some simply used the exposed framework of the great barrier to swiftly climb to the ground.
The few surviving Masters stationed on the southern wall went first to clear the landing. Saint mounted Nightmare, who leaped from one protruding sheet of deformed alloy to another, reaching the swarming abominations in mere seconds. Wielding the Cruel Sight, she quickly slaughtered the nearest enemies.
Sunny was not far behind. He glided through the air using the Dark Wing, then dismissed it a couple dozen meters above the ground and plummeted down, landing among the Nightmare Creatures like a cannonball. The Sin of Solace danced, effortlessly slicing through flesh and bone.
It took Sunny only a few seconds to carve out a small island of safety. The members of his cohort joined him, forming a beachhead. More Awakened followed behind them, grim determination shining in their eyes.
Everyone knew that for many, if not most of them, this was going to be the last fight. Nevertheless, no one tried to flee or turn back.
'...It is strange.'
Cutting down a lunging beast, Sunny glanced at the descending Awakened. Surely, all of them valued their lives... maybe if left alone, most would listen to their fear and their desire to survive, and choose to save themselves instead. However, they had all been swept up in the moment and lost their reason.
They were all individuals, but more than that, they were also parts of something much larger right now. A crowd, a mob... a collective had no fear of death, because the destruction of one of its small parts did not mean the destruction of the whole. Maybe that was how these people suppressed their utterly natural and reasonable desire to live, knowing that even without them, the larger entity they belonged to would continue to exist.
Was that what Professor Obel had meant when he said that humanity needed a bit of stupidity to survive?
In any case, the feeling was alien to Sunny. He had spent most of his life being refused and rejected by the collective, so naturally, he valued himself more. There was really nothing more valuable than himself, and things he personally held dear.
...And yet, here he was, charging into the horde of Nightmare Creatures with the rest of the Awakened of the First Army. Of course, his situation was vastly different - Sunny was pretty sure of his ability to at least escape alive, no matter what happened. But he was still taking a great risk for no apparent reason.
Was it stubbornness? Was it pride? Was it spite and unwillingness to admit defeat? Or had he actually become infatuated by the same sense of collective responsibility as these selfless people?
He truly did not know. However, the word "selfless" seemed rather vile and frightening to Sunny. After all, his self was all he had. Without it, what was the point of staying alive?
Gritting his teeth, Sunny brandished the Sin of Solace and pushed forward, cutting through one abomination after another like a ruthless, eerily graceful butcher. At some point, his three shadows joined him, wrapping themselves around his body - the fourth one he had sent to help Nightmare. Sunny was surrounded by a fine haze of blood, but whenever drops of it fell on his black tunic, they rolled off the soft silk without leaving the slightest trace.
The Graceless Dusk remained immaculately pristine.
He left the hundreds of Awakened behind and advanced into the horde, leading his cohort toward the river of black beetles.
Luckily, it was not very hard to reach, because the dark river was flowing forward to meet them, as well.
Before the Irregulars clashed with the claw of the Heart of Darkness, though, Bloodwave finally arrived at the battlefield.
The mighty Saint landed like a falling star, causing the earth to split and a shockwave to spread outward in all directions. Away from water, most of his powers would be of no use...
But a Transcendent was still a Transcendent.
Wearing dark grey armor sewn of sharkskin and wielding two curved swords, Bloodwave instantly turned into a whirlwind of steel, moving with such speed and force as to resemble an annihilating blur. Countless Nightmare Creatures disappeared into it, and the blurry twister instantly turned red from the mass of blood.
More than that, the champion of the House of Night was perfectly aware of his vulnerability on land. For that reason, his soul arsenal included many powerful Memories to account for that weakness... among other things.
As soon as Bloodwave appeared, three Echoes manifested by his side. One was a monstrous crab the size of a house, one resembled a towering golem of wet clay, and the last one was ethereal and elusive, like a creature made of fog.
Sunny's eyes glinted when he realized that the creature shrouded in fog was actually Transcendent itself. It would have been powerless underwater, but here under the walls of Falcon Scott, the Echo could exert truly devastating power.
A small shadow fell from the sky, and a familiar black bird landed on Bloodwave's shoulder, cawing something into his ear. A moment later, the Saint and his Echoes changed direction, heading for one of the four rivers of darkness.
'Maybe we can actually pull this off...'
Throwing all unnecessary thoughts out of his head, Sunny concentrated on carving a path toward the tide of beetles. Somewhere behind him, hundreds of Awakened were desperately pushing against the horde of frenzied abominations, killing and dying without holding anything back. An ear-splitting groan of tearing metal thundered as another section of the wall collapsed, unable to withstand its own weight after suffering severe damage to its inner structure.
He paid it no attention.
'How am I supposed to fight against the damned bugs?'
The Sin of Solace could cut through dozens with each swipe, but there were countless thousands of them. Trying to kill the entire swarm with a sword was no different from trying to cut the sea.
He had a couple of tools capable of mass destruction... Shadow Manifestation, the Strike of Thunder... he could also control the swarm, somewhat, with the Dying Wish. Best of all, the beetles would have to try very, very hard to bite through the Marble Shell.
Sunny was not too worried about his defense. It was the offense that posed an issue.
'I guess I'll just have to manage, somehow...'
A few moments later, the mass of Nightmare Creatures around them than consumed by bloodlust. It seemed that the Heart of Darkness cared diminished, and those who did lunge at the cohort looked more panicked not about whom it devoured - humans or abominations.
And there, behind these last few monsters...
The tide of darkness was rushing toward Sunny once again.
1035 The Fall of Falcon Scott (53)
As the river of darkness surged forward to devour Sunny, the small lantern of black stone hanging on his belt opened, and a tide of shadows rose from within it to meet the swarm of beetles.
He held nothing back, unleashing every wild shadow he had tamed, from mundane and shallow ones to those that were ancient, vast, and unfathomably deep. The night itself seemed to move, as well...
It moved to answer the call of the Master of Shadows.
Two dark tides met with a deafening thunder, and thousands of beetles were instantly broken, crushed, and ground into black dust. Some shadows were vanquished, too — and yet even more persisted. Permeated by Sunny's essence, they were as deadly and resilient as an Ascended weapon would be.
With no sun and no moon to illuminate the skies, there was nothing but dim starlight, and a few distant flames, to chase away the darkness. The whole world was shrouded in shadows, and so, Sunny had an almost infinite well of them to call upon. The only limitation was his essence.
However, the number of beetles was even more limitless. Despite thousands of them being destroyed in the initial confrontation, it was no more than a drop in the ocean. Already, even more were surging forward, crashing into the wall of shadows and tunneling into it with their sharp mandibles.
Gritting his teeth, Sunny poured more essence out, strengthening the wall and turning it into a tall dam. Almost instantly, cracks appeared on its surface, and a moment later, the river of dark beetles overflowed, spilling over the top of the dam and spreading wide to encompass it from the sides.
Funneled by the Dying Wish, all of them rushed toward a single point — Sunny himself.
'...Die!'
He launched himself forward, moving with enough speed to leave afterimages behind. The Sin of Solace lashed out, slicing through two dozen beetles with a single strike. Almost at the same, a radiant orb of charged essence shot past Sunny and violently exploded in the surging mass of darkness — Samara had joined the fight, using her Aspect Ability directly instead of channeling it through the tungsten rounds of a rifle.
Together, they managed to slow the beetles down a little. Sunny turned into a whirlwind of annihilating jade, delivering half a dozen swift attacks in an instant.
However, even though cutting through the small creatures was not too hard, the effectiveness of these attacks was low. Almost instantly, he switched to using the flat of the jade blade to crush them — with his strength, each blow sent a concussive wave through the mass of dreadful pests, damaging and breaking their tough little bodies.
His mind was split, one part commanding his body, the other controlling the manifested shadows to hold back the dark river.
...And yet, it was not enough.
'Damnation!'
No matter how fast Sunny moved and how many blows he delivered, the number of beetles was down as many small creatures as he could. Kim, with her rapier and buckler, was the least suited for 15:13
this battle, but she did her best to lessen the pressure on the two formidable warriors.
simply overwhelming. Already, many had flowed past him — some tried to turn around to attack from behind, but the pressure of the thousands more pushing forward brought them away, forcing Belle, Dorn, and Kim engage the creatures in melee.
Out of the three, Dorn was able to destroy the most with his Aspect Abilities and the heavy sledgehammer. Belle used himself as bait, phasing from place to place and using his sword to cut down as many small creatures as he could. Kim, with her rapier and buckler, was the least suited for this battle, but she did her best to lessen the pressure on the two formidable warriors.
Behind them, Samara continued to charge small beads of alloy with essence and flicking them into the mass of beetles, each streaking through the air like a bullet and exploding into a wave of destructive force. Once her supply of alloy beads and needles was exhausted, she would have to use the crudest form of attack and simply toss out projectiles formed of unrestrained, wild essence.
...They were holding, for now, but the tide of dark beetles was growing more and more overbearing with each moment. Their number endlessly swelled, and the dam of shadows was being continuously destroyed and rebuilt, consuming Sunny's essence like a gluttonous beast.
Some distance away to his right, Bloodwave and his Echoes had engaged another tentacle of the Heart of Darkness. To his left, Saint and Nightmare were holding back the third. And further still, behind them, Jet and her cohort were fighting the fourth.
'This isn't working... this is not enough...'
Sunny knew that, if nothing changed, he and his soldiers would be devoured by the appalling vermin. Already, many of the dark beetles had gotten past his defenses and bitten into his skin. Their sharp mandibles only leaft shallow scratches on it, which almost immediately healed, but still... the memory of one of these vile creatures crawling inside his rib cage made him shudder.
It was only a matter of time before several bites would turn into a dozen, then a hundred, then a thousand... would the Marble Shell be able to withstand countless thousands of mandibles plunging into it? Even if it did, it was only his skin that was so resilient. Once he was buried under a cold, slithering carpet of darkness, the beetles crawling into his mouth, into his nostrils, into his ears, into his eyes... would he be devoured from within?
The Sin of Solace laughed.
"Wouldn't that be a sight to behold? Ah, yes... yes, it would... I can't wait!"
Uttering a silent curse, Sunny tried to pay the whispers of the jade sword no attention and concentrated on eviscerating as many of the beetles as he could.
'I... I need to think of something...'
He could always use Shadow Step to escape... not, not quite. The last time, a few beetles were pulled along with him as he stepped through the shadows. Most likely because the small creatures were not, in fact, alive.
'...Not alive?'
A bizarre idea suddenly appeared in his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. Even if it worked, he would only be buying himself a few seconds of respite, at most.
What Sunny really needed was to enhance his offensive ability, to find a way to destroy much, much more beetles every moment. However, he was only human... there was only so much that his small body, no matter how strong, could do.
No, his best hope was Shadow Manifestation. He was already using it to hold the river back and grind many beetles into dust... but that was not enough. Was there anything else he could do?
Summoning a dozen shadow hands to crush and obliterate the beetles would work, for a bit, but it would also burn his reserves of essence with terrible speed. Those hands would not be able to strike with as much strength as he himself could, as well...
'Damn it! If Serpent was here, I could have ordered it to assume the form of a massive monster, and crush thousands of the damned vermin with each step...'
Consumed by revulsion and fear at the thought of being eaten from the inside, driven to his limits, and desperate to find a way to defeat the river of darkness... at that feverish moment, Sunny suddenly felt something click in his head. Scraps and pieces of previously accumulated experiences connected together, forming a tentative hint of a revelation.
The revelation was strange, unclear, and dubious.
'That... should not be possible, right?'
However, he really could not see why not.
Sunny sensed the endless ocean of formless shadows around him, all malleable and ready to answer his call.
If Soul Serpent was not here to assume the shape of a dreadful monster...
...Why not try to turn into one himself?
