'Ah… it hurts…'
Sunny had escaped the dark cave fast enough to not be eaten alive, or even to a serious degree. Just as he had joked, he ended up only being eaten a little.
There were a few bites on his body and one on his cheek. The most serious wound by far was the one he had inflicted on himself to get the last beetle from under his skin. The Moonlight Shard had cut deep, but, guided by his steady hand, missed both his heart and anything else that was important.
Still, it stung. Not that Sunny had time to pay it any attention.
The Rhino was speeding forward, almost flying through the shuddering tunnel. All around it, the darkness was rippling and shifting, as if out of control. It felt like the thing they were inside of — whatever it might have been — was convulsing. Not exactly in the throes of death, but maybe in agony.
Sunny was pretty sure that the blow Saint had delivered to the black sphere was not fatal to the unknown being, since he never heard the Spell announcing a kill. The source of the true darkness was not destroyed, just damaged.
…Or maybe set free.
"Captain! That… that is new!"
Hearing Luster call out to him, Sunny looked forward and saw an unfamiliar shape appear from the darkness. It was a rusted frame of an old personal vehicle, which they had never seen before. The implication made a pale smile appear on his face.
'It's broken…'
The strange anomaly that had been keeping them inside the tunnel seemed to be no more. They were actually moving forward instead of traveling endlessly through a never-ending sea of darkness.
Destroying the black sphere had really broken the binding.
He let out a shaky breath.
If he had not received a message from the outside… things might have turned out differently. Sunny would have ventured into the side passages eventually, but probably without leaving one of the shadows behind. Even if he did, he would have definitely taken the rest of the Irregulars with him.
Then, they would have died.
Actually, he still struggled to believe that everyone survived.
…For now.
'We are not out of the tunnel yet.'
Suddenly cold, he looked at Luster and said:
"Top speed! Get us out of here!"
The Rhino flashed past the rusted vehicle, pushing it aside with its ram. The rest of the convoy followed, and soon, they could feel the floor of the tunnel starting to slope up. That had not happened before, so Sunny took it as a good sign.
Sadly, good things had ended after that.
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 seething flowed into the underground passage.
Sunny shuddered, realizing that it was 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 sentience. 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.
'Crap!'
All Sunny could do was pray that they would pass the swiftly growing crack before the stone wall shattered.
Somehow, they did.
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.
It was still night outside, but at least there were the stars, the ghostly flames of the aurora, and maybe even the moon. Although small, the difference between the true darkness of the underground tunnel and the mundane darkness of the outside world was apparent.
They almost made it…
No, they were going to make it!
Sunny gritted his teeth as he watched the distant exit approach while the tunnel was breaking down around them.
'Just a bit more… just a little bit…'
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 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.
He felt a sudden chill spread through his wounded chest, and belatedly summoned the Undying Chain back. Their battle might not have ended just yet.
But how could he fight something like that?
No, their only chance of survival was to run. Even Cassie had said that he had to run. So, that was what Sunny planned to do…
Luckily, the convoy 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.