Shadow Slave novel Chapter 3037

The winter solstice and the weeks following it were usually the most tense and the most beneficial time for the embattled humanity.

That was, naturally, because Sleepers entered the Dream Realm for the first time on that day.

The Awakened warriors guarding the Citadels ventured into the wilderness to help them reach safety, which at times resulted in casualties among rescue parties and increased pressure on the weakened garrison forces. As a reward, however, the number of Awakened capable of defending humanity swelled, with new recruits joining the seasoned veterans and lending their strength to that solemn duty.

Familiar ways were slowly changing over the past few years, since there were more Sleepers who challenged the First Nightmare from within the Dream Realm, and those Sleepers who had conquered it in the waking world had more ways to enter the Dream Realm and tether themselves to a Citadel in advance — but the old challenges of the winter solstice still persisted.

In fact, this year, they were more dire than ever. Nightmare Creatures were on the move all across the Dream Realm, converging toward the Citadel Cities — so, a far more perilous journey awaited those Sleepers who met the winter solstice in the waking world.

Even if they managed to survive the journey and make it to the walls of the nearest Citadel City, there was a high chance that they would find a swarm of abominations laying siege to it and find themselves in the middle of a fierce battle. Correspondingly, those Awakened who had ventured into the wilderness to support the Sleepers faced far more danger.

And that was not all.

In the days prior to the winter solstice, several consecutive disasters struck humanity, sending both worlds reeling.

First, several Category Four Nightmare Gates opened across all Quadrants, unleashing swarms of powerful abominations into the waking world. That instantly threw the forces of humanity, which were already struggling with keeping Earth under human control, into disarray.

Almost at the same time, the situation in the Dream Realm took a turn from bad to worse, with drastically more powerful Nightmare Creatures emerging both on land and in the sea. Several Citadel Cities were suddenly under immense threat, forcing both Sunny and Nephis to scramble in an effort to protect them and minimize the casualties among the local garrisons. Although there was no confirmation yet, it was most likely a result of the realm boundary continuing to deteriorate, with pieces of America and Earth's oceans being integrated into the Dream Realm — and therefore pulling the Nightmare Creatures inhabiting them back.

The worst crisis, however, took place in the eastern reaches of the Dream Realm, where several Citadels had only recently been conquered by the subjugation crusade of the Human Domain. There, an eerie and inexplicable phenomenon emerged, swallowing one of those Citadels and putting the rest of them at risk.

That phenomenon was a wall of unnatural darkness that devoured the world, reaching toward the sky and spanning hundreds of kilometers across. Worst yet, the darkness was slowly expanding, swallowing more land with each day.

The easternmost Citadel had been covered by the darkness, its entire garrison perishing — all of the Awakened stationed there turned Hollow in their sleep, and both the Masters guarding the Citadel and the Saint ruling it vanished without a trace. Now, the darkness was slowly spreading in all directions, threatening the nearby Citadels as well.

Sunny and Nephis had ventured into the darkness, reaching the lost Citadel in hopes of understanding what had happened there. However, they did not find anything — no bodies, no traces of a siege, no signs of a struggle.

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