1011 The Fall of Falcon Scott (29)

For a moment or two, Sunny's mind was empty. He crawled back, looking up at the
familiar figure
towering above him.

Verne... it was Verne. There was no mistake.

...Or something wearing Verne‘s corpse, at least.

His shadow was much more vast and dreadful than a human's shadow was supposed to
be.

The hollow gaze of the dead Master pursued Sunny, his face still and unmoving like
a mask. Behind
him, the dark waves stirred, and more figures rose from the water. Men, women...
dozens of them,
hundreds even. They marched forward like an army of the dead, silent and
emotionless, their eyes
drowning in darkness.

All their shadows were wrong.

The people of L049 that Sunny had left to die. He recognized all of them, staring
at the undulating
surface of the ocean in horror.

'The... the Terror...'

Strangely, it was the contemptuous laugh of the cursed sword that shattered his
paralysis.

"Look, Lost from Light... your sins have come to haunt you!"

Sunny shuddered, coming to his senses.

'What sins, you bastard? I did everything I could to save them!‘

The insidious voice laughed again, then whispered, its hissing words falling like
drops of poison:

"Weakness is also a sin, you pitiful worm... it is the greatest sin of them all..."

Sunny snarled, then rose to his feet and froze for a split second, thinking
feverishly about the situation.
After chasing the Tyrant, he was now behind the city. There were tall cliffs
between the ocean and the
northern wall of Falcon Scott, so nothing could escape the shore without being torn
to shreds by the
defensive armaments... granted, most of the First Army forces were currently
concentrated on the
southern side of the wall, fighting against the Devouring Cloud.

The port fortress was nearby, though, and defended by its own garrison. Bloodwave
and the Awakened
of the House of Night were also there, protecting the anchored ships and overseeing
the loading of the
refugees.
A thousand enthralled corpses were not going to put a dent in the defenses of the
port. As for the Terror
itself...

Just as that thought flashed through Sunny's mind, he saw something that made his
blood run cold.
There, behind the slowly advancing figures of the drowned residents of L049, the
black water seethed
and boiled, releasing even more thralls. Nightmare Creatures... thousands of
them... were rising from
the waves, all moving with the same silent, harrowing dispassion.

He took an involuntary step back, then steeled himself and raised the Sin of
Solace.

The Terror's thralls could not be allowed to reach the port. Hundreds of thousands
of refugees were
currently there, with even more already on the ships. Thankfully, the elevator
platforms leading to
Falcon Scott were empty, the evacuation stopped briefly on account of the Devouring
Cloud.

The defenders of the city had also spotted the new threat. Powerful beams of light
fell from above,
illuminating the silent horde. A instant later, a hail of bullets was supposed to
tear into it...

But it didn't.

The spotlights moved on, as if not noticing anything. Instead of an obliterating

barrage of heavy
rounds, all that came were a few sporadic streams of rifle bullets.

The armaments on the wall of the port fortress were silent, too.

Sunny felt a chill run down his spine.

'The hex...‘

He did not get a chance to finish the thought.

Verne suddenly disappeared, moving with much more speed than he had been capable of
as a human.
Sunny shifted, trying to deflect the incoming attack, but his reaction was too
slow. A devastating blow
sent him flying backwards, the breath knocked out of him entirely. He. crashed to
the ground and rolled,
feeling cold numbness spreading through his chest.

'Curses...‘

He had been mistaken to assess the enemy's strength based on how powerful the
thralls had been
before falling prey to the Terror. Whatever the creature had done to them... had
made them into... was
much more dangerous than their former selves.

"You are a forgetful fool, aren't you?"

Struggling to inhale, Sunny gritted his teeth. Indeed, he was... he had already
known that the hexed
residents were capable of showing unnatural strength. Why would the thralls be
different? If anything.
their change would be greater.

One Master, a hundred or so Awakened, close to a thousand mundane soldiers, several

hundreds of
civilians... and thousands upon thousands of Nightmare Creatures, all controlled
and changed by the
Terror.

With everyone seemingly blind to their existence.

The situation was not good...

Feeling true fear for the first time in a long while, Sunny forced himself to rise
once again and look at
the hollow-eyed horde.

'No, not everyone...‘

Although most of the defenders seemed to be ignoring the Terror's thralls, some
were still firing their
rifles. That meant that the creature's hex was not absolute. With so many residents
around, it could
only do so much.

There was a restriction to its power. Which meant that it could be defeated.

There was a sound of metal scraping against stone behind him. Looking back, Sunny
saw Dale
approaching, his buckler raised and dripping with blood. His heart skipped a beat.

"Dale! Do you see them?!"

The heavily armored Master turned his head slightly, darkness nestled in the slit
of his visor. His voice
sounded a little muffled:

"What are you talking about?"

Sonny's heart fell, but then, Dale continued:

"How would I miss thousands of creatures crawling from the ocean? Of course, I see
them. Question is,
why are the wall armaments still silent?"

More and more Nightmare Creatures emerged from the water, flooding the shore. Sunny
found Verne
and shivered, noticing that the dead Master was staring at him, as well.

"It's the Terror of L049! The wretched thing is messing with people's minds! We
need to..."

The hollow horde suddenly stopped moving. Thousands of heads turned in unison,
countless etnpty
eyes all staring at a single point...
Sunny.

He shivered.

'...I guess it recognized me, as well.‘

The horde rushed forward.