Shadow Slave novel Chapter 1203

Chapter 1203 Battle of the Black Skull (17)

The sky parted, sliced through by a narrow vertical rift. Behind it, the fabric of reality made way for a dark, harrowing abyss of nothingness — both light and darkness seemed to be twisted and changed near the Gate, breaking as they were destroyed.

The rift dwarfed the entire battlefield, stretching for hundreds and hundreds of meters into the shattered sky. The abandoned outpost, and the black fissure of the Nightmare Gate that led to the vicinity of the Black Skull, looked tiny and insignificant in front of it.

An invisible shockwave rolled outward from the point where the gargantuan rift touched the ground, exerting an almost irresistible force. Sunny braced himself, but still staggered as the wave passed through him, barely managing to stay on his feet.

His mind was drowned by the deafening, cacophonous howling of the Call — it was many times louder, more unbearable, and maddeningly demanding than it had ever been before. _{freewēbnoveℓ.com}

Sunny desperately resisted the overwhelming desire to submit.

All around them, the Awakened warriors screamed as they grabbed their heads and fell to their knees. Their eyes were wide open, but unseeing. Some were bleeding, and some seemed to be crawling toward the Gate. Some were thrown to the ground by the shockwave.

The invisible force made no distinction between those serving Valor and those serving Song — they were all the same in the face of the harrowing rift.

Mundane humans, if any had come to witness this battle, would have been outright killed by the pressure of the Gate.

Sunny staggered back and looked up at it in terror.

His lips moved.

"Four… it's a Category Four Nightmare Gate…"

And, just as he said those words…

The world shook again, and another rift tore through the sky.

The world convulsed, and one more sliced the fabric of reality apart.

Like three dark pillars holding up the heavens— or three vile spears cruelly thrust into the flesh of the world — three colossal Nightmare Gates surrounded the battlefield, cutting out all paths of retreat.

Not that there was a way to escape them.

The three armies — the valiant warriors of Clan Valor, the fearless soldiers of Clan Song, and those Awakened of the Evacuation Army that had come as escorts of Saint Cor —were trapped between the abhorrent black rifts.

...And then, something vast moved in the abyssal darkness of the first Gate.

Those who had enough presence of mind left to see witnessed something shift within the Nightmare Gate. A moment later, giant fingers suddenly pushed from it into the waking world, each as large as a tower. There were dozens of them, all dark and strangely human-like, with black, broken fingernails and torn, calloused skin.

The fingers felt around blindly, then grabbed the edges of the vertical rift and strained, as if trying to pull it wider.

The most horrifying part of it all was…

That they succeeded.

The world trembled, and a net of black cracks seemed to spread through the sky. Then, the gaping wound of the Nightmare Gate was torn open, and a seething mass of the same dark flesh flowed out of it like an appalling avalanche.

The flesh expanded, turning into gargantuan black tentacles, which then shot forward with stunning speed.

Sunny took a step back. His eyes widened.

Somewhere far away from him, on the opposite side of the battlefield, the towering tortoise Echo was ripped apart with a single swing of a black tentacle. The Awakened sheltered in the stone fort on its carapace were thrown into the air, and the Transcendent creature instantly exploded into a whirlwind of sparks.

Someplace else, the tentacles reached the massive figure of the titanic worm. The titan rose its repulsive body into the air to meet them… but a moment later, it was torn to shreds, destroyed, and consumed, disappearing without a trace.

A scrawny figure jumped onto the back of a black steed, who then raced away. A split second later, the Reflection of Silent Stalker disappeared under the tide of dark flesh, and a faint sound of breaking glass rang quietly.