Although Awakened were still fighting the remnants of the Scavenger swarm, the battle was more or less over.
The Gate Guardian was dead, and Verne had handled the other Corrupted abomination with Kim's support. Belle, Dorn, and Samara had hunted down the most dangerous Fallen while the local garrison eradicated the rest. By now, only the weakest Nightmare Creatures remained.
They were still deadly, of course, but the Scavengers did not seem too dangerous unless they were old and had devoured a lot of powerful enemies. The lesser ones even succumbed to their bestial instincts and got distracted from the fight, forgetting everything to sink teeth into the flesh of the slain members of their own kind.
For them, any world was a dog eat dog world.
Sunny prowled the battlefield for a while, searching for Fallen abominations in hopes of earning a shadow fragment or two. Sadly, it seemed that there were none left. The rest of the defenders of LO49 were quite thorough. Eventually, he gave up and joined the soldiers of the garrison in cleaning up the remaining enemies.
What followed was a swift, but tedious chore. They quickly swept the field where the ground was drenched by blood and littered with the revolting corpses, slaughtering the last of the Scavengers.
At some point, Sunny found himself back near the corpse of the Corrupted Demon he had defeated. Since there was nothing much left for him to do, he decided to dig out the soul shards from the massive carcass. With these, both Luster and Kim would probably be able to fully saturate their cores, thus bringing the cohort to its optimal strength.
The other members had long achieved full saturation, leaving only these two. Still, even they were awfully close.
Heading for the dead giant with greed shining in his eyes, Sunny accidentally heard the subdued voices of the Awakened from the local garrison.
"Gods… look at that monstrosity."
"Damn. I heard rumors, of course, but to see it with my own eyes. He really went and killed a Corrupted Demon alone."
"Yeah, it was scary. I couldn't see much, but their battle must have been a fierce one. One third of the whole swarm was destroyed simply because the bastards got caught in the crossfire, can you believe that?"
"...I guess they call him Devil for a reason."
Hiding a small smile, Sunny stepped close to the carcass of the Myriad Eater and raised the Sin of Solace, planning to cut through the tough bone plate on its chest. Then, however, he tilted his head a little.
There were strange sounds coming from the other side of the dead giant.
"Nyam-nyam… crunch… nom-nom… slurp..."
Frowning, he noiselessly jumped on top of the massive corpse and looked down.
There, a tiny Scavenger was greedily biting into the tough flesh of the dead demon. The pathetic creature looked like a gaunt, starved gremlin that was only as tall as Sunny's knee. It had a mouth full of sharp triangular teeth, though, which were doing a surprisingly good job of tearing into the Corrupted corpse.
'Huh. I guess even Nightmare Creatures have runts.'
As Sunny watched, the little imp tore a piece of bloody meat off with its teeth, raised its head, and swallowed the chunk of its former master's flesh with an excited snarl.
…It was then that the vermin noticed the human looking at him from above.
Perhaps because of the [Omen of Dread] enchantment of the Sin of Solace, or perhaps because the adolescent abomination had enough brain to feel terror in front of a superior predator, its eyes widened in fear.
The tiny Scavenger froze for a moment…
Then, it shrieked and dashed away from the carcass of the Myriad Eater, trying to run away.
Sunny blinked.
'Well, that's a first.'
Since he didn't want to waste essence on Shadow Manifestation, he simply summoned the Prowling Thorn. By the time the heavy kunai manifested itself into his hand, the vile critter was already far away.
Not bothered too much, Sunny aimed and sent the kunai flying. The Scavenger was a split second away from dying, but at the last moment, it tripped and pathetically tumbled down. As a result, the blade of the kunai only sliced two fingers off its hand.
Sunny scowled and pulled on the invisible string, summoning the Prowling Thorn back to throw it again. This time, he wasn't going to miss…
Suppressing the whispers of the Sin of Solace and the oppressive pull of the Call, he banished every other thought away and concentrated solely on the tiny figure of the fleeing imp.
It was then that someone said, in a tone of cold disdain:
"Fool."
Sunny flinched and looked around.
'Huh? Who said that?'
Although the familiar voice sounded as if it came from somewhere very close by, there was no one else around.
Come to think of it… Sunny knew that voice very well. It was his own voice.
Confused, he scratched the back of his head with the tip of the Prowling Thorn.
'Was that an intrusive thought?'
Because of the sudden distraction, the wounded Scavenger was getting farther and farther away.
…More importantly, though, Sunny's concentration was broken. All the information he had been ignoring to make a good throw flooded into his mind.
His eyes widened.
'Professor!'
Sunny flinched and turned around, staring in the direction of the research installation.
There, deep below one of the science buildings, around a hundred civilians were locked in a heavily reinforced shelter, nervously waiting for the soldiers of the garrison to announce that it was safe to come out.
Professor Obel and his assistant, Beth, were among them.
There was also another person in the shelter… someone who had been quietly sitting in a dark corner.
Dozing off…
Until a few seconds ago.
'No, no, no…'
Sunny jumped off the Demon's corpse and dove into the shadows, stepping through them to appear in the shelter.
However, he knew that he wouldn't be able to appear there in time.
A few moments was more than enough for the worst to happen.
…So, he made a swift decision.
In the short moment that it took him to complete the shadow step, a sharp pain suddenly pierced his very being.