’A Gate... there is a Gate...’
Before Sunny even comprehended these words, he was trembling, cold fear rising from the depths of his heart to swallow him whole. This was not a conscious response, but an instinctual reaction — sothing that his body had learned to do in the past, the terror that all modern humans ca to bear in their very bones.
The grating, echoing ringing ant only one thing — run! Run if you wish to live, if you don’t want to die in a manner so harrowing that words could not describe it.
But Sunny wasn’t a mundane human anymore.
Strangling the instinctual fear, he threw it aside and stared at the screen of his phone with a dark expression on his face.
The notification was similar to the ones he had seen several tis in the past, heard from the decrepit phone his family shared.
Previously, when he lived in the outskirts, he had learned of the devastation an opening Gate could bring firsthand. Wherever you lived, you were bound to hear that sound once every few years.
On Earth, there were countless Gates that went unsupervised across the wilderness, which ant that countless Nightmare Creatures road around without Awakened interference. The cities themselves weren’t safe, since there were no Awakened to protect the civilians.
At the sa ti, it could be said that the lack of Awakened might have been the reason they survived for so long.
Nightmare Creatures prefer to feast on Awakened souls, so Gates tend to open in places where there were more of them. The frequency of Gates opening near cities was low, and if there was a Gate that close, the IPC would send so people down to neutralize it. Then they would leave again, leaving the planet defenseless.
Those actions had always confused Sunny, but now wasn’t the ti to ponder on it.
Usually, Gates were detected by the sensors the IPC has spread across the Universe, which can reach across entire star systems. That seed to have failed here, however, since the notifications were usually at least ten minutes, and sotis entire days before the disaster.
This gave most people ti to evacuate out of the impact zone, and also allowed the Awakened forces to arrive before the flood of Nightmare Creatures broke free of the opening Gate and cut through the ranks of the nearby Awakened who tried to stall it.
Two hundred seconds... that was nothing. Less than nothing. It was not nearly enough ti for people to run, and not nearly enough for help to arrive. Such a small ti window ant only one thing...
That unless sothing happened, there was going to be a massacre.
Jarilo-VI was an isolated planet, so the citizens of Belobog probably had no idea. Sunny wondered if Gate disasters were common on the planet. They certainly had enough Awakened to make it sowhat common.
He was safe, though. He could just Shadow Step away at any mont. There was no way that Sunny could hold off hordes of Nightmare Creatures for that long. At least, not alone.
Besides, he was in the middle of Jarilo-VI’s snowscapes. There wasn’t much danger for...
...But Nightmare Creatures were attracted to human souls. Considering how close this was to Belobog — less than a hundred kiloters away — the city would certainly be assaulted. Not only that, but there forces were lacking, with their strongest fighter currently incapacitated.
Staring at his phone, it seed that the Gate was likely to be at Category Two. That ant the worse he’d face would consist of Fallen abominations.
And now, Sunny had to make a decision.
He had to either run away or respond to the call to arms to stand in front of the Nightmare Gate, hoping to slay all the monsters that invaded the world.
Well... it wasn’t that hard of a decision, really.
Sunny knew that he was going to stay — not out of any sort of moral obligation, but simply because he wanted to.
He was equally as reluctant to turn tail and allow the Spell to invade his world with impunity as he was to see countless nice, mundane humans die in the maws of Nightmare Creatures. Like the waitress who served him pancakes, or the old man that made him coffee.
This was his world, his city, and his fellow humans. Before, Sunny was always weak and had no choice but to run, hide, and tremble in fear.
...He was done living his life in fear a long ti ago, though. He was also done allowing anyone — or anything — to take what was his without a bloody fight.
He was done being weak.
Sending one last look at his phone, Sunny sent a quick ssage to Bronya. He told her to gather Belobog’s Awakened forces to the west side of the city in preparation for a Nightmare Gate. Although he could try to call for the others to get here, there was a high probability that they’d get lost. Jarilo-VI was vast, and even Sunny was unsure where he was. He just knew that he was vaguely west, and that the Gate would open nearby.
It was fine. If things got too tough, then he’d just Shadow Step away and hope that the others could hold the line.
One hundred and eighty seconds remained.
"This is going to be... a wild, wild ride..."
Summoning the Covetous Coffer, he tossed his phone inside. He couldn’t have it getting damaged in the oncoming fight.
Then... he started to summon mories.
Mantle of the Underworld, Weaver’s Mask — not to hide his identity, but for the amazing protection a Divine mory could give — Cruel Sight, Blood Blossom, Ghastly Hunger, and Evelyn. He held the short blade in his right hand, and the parched pistol in his left.
With Serpent circulating Essence through it’s coils, Sunny used Shadow Step to reach the Gate.
Light and shadows were behaving very strangely, the hue of the light slightly wrong, the movent of the shadows slightly erratic.
The sound was strange, too. It was deadly quiet, but at the sa ti, Sunny couldn’t get rid of the feeling that there were barely audible noises coming from all directions, assaulting his ears like an inaudible cacophony of muffled, distant, dented screams.
There was a strange pressure rising in the air, getting stronger the closer he got to the nascent Nightmare Gate.
The Gate itself was easy to recognize. It looked like a tall vertical depression in the fabric of the world, a place where light refracted in unnatural ways and the inaudible screams were the loudest... not a rift in reality yet, but a hint of one.
Summoning Saint, he handed her a few mories. Sky Reacher, a greatsword that can extend it’s length, making it great against larger opponents, and Everwinter Night, which would increase her strength in cold climates. He didn’t give her the Broken Oath, since it would harm Sunny himself if he got too close to Saint.
Looking towards his Ascended knight, Sunny calmly asked:
"What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s just a Nightmare Gate..."
His legs, however, were trembling slightly. He had no idea what to expect.
Just at that mont, an especially strong tremor ran through the ground.
The shadows exploded in a mad dance, the sunlight growing dim and ghostly.
The wind howled through the empty snowfield, as if the air was being sucked into the widening rift.
And then, an invisible shockwave spread out of it, making the snow explode into all directions.
Sunny resisted the push and suddenly felt the familiar feeling perate his soul. He felt it before his First Nightmare, and once more when exploring the Ivory Tower.
...The call of a Nightmare.
The Gate had opened.
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