Lauri could barely feel his own body as the gaze of the Whispering King bore down on him.
He grew mute to everything beyond himself, left only with the sound of his heartbeat and the echo of his own thoughts pressing against his mind.
'Did Command know about this? Did they keep this out of the report on purpose?'
Someone grabbed Lauri by the shoulders and began to shake him.
'How are we supposed to kill that thing? A Corrupted Beast or Monster, sure, a Demon or Devil is pushing it… But a Tyrant, a Corrupted Tyrant, we'd need a Saint...'
Lauri's pupils trembled.
'Cor, please, I need you…'
For the first time in a very long while, Lauri felt genuinely helpless.
'Cor…'
The grip on his shoulders tightened again, accompanied by another violent shake.
"Captain!"
It was Danse's voice.
'Danse…'
Lauri's gaze finally dragged itself away from the Whispering King and settled instead on Danse's face.
Danse was shouting at him.
The words blurred together at first – his name, then captain, then his name again – repeated with growing frustration as he tried to force Lauri back to reality.
'Danse… You've always been so reliable…'
Light suddenly erupted from Lauri's Soul Sea.
A radiant glow shone through his skin as [Well of Light] ignited, light surged through Lauri, wrapping around him in warm waves that pushed back against the suffocating terror crushing his mind, body, and soul.
The fear didn't vanish – it was being caused by the Whispering King somehow, so it remained there, cold and heavy.
But it became manageable.
Lauri was an Awakened of humanity, an Ascended at that.
Fear was nothing to the protectors of humanity.
"Captain!"
Danse barked one final time, his expression twisting with anger and concern as he raised a hand to slap some sense into him.
Lauri caught his wrist before the strike could land.
Then he smiled.
"Sorry about that, everyone. I seem to have lost my cool for a moment there."
Letting go of Danse's wrist, Lauri turned back to the Whispering King, his smile growing a little forced.
"We were wrong, incredibly wrong. We were right about its class, it being a Tyrant. But we couldn't have been more wrong about its rank; that thing is a Corrupted Tyrant. So you know, I'm calling it the Whispering King from here on out."
Lucky's own smile vanished completely, his face going stiff with disbelief. Sansa's eyes widened as the colour drained from her face, while Mele unconsciously took half a step backwards. Katrina's grip tightened so hard around her weapon that her knuckles turned white. Even Vick's easygoing expression faltered for the first time since the Legion had appeared.
And Danse – Danse's jaw clenched hard enough for the muscles to twitch beneath his skin.
Katrina mumbled her words for a moment before clearing her throat.
"Wh… Why isn't it attacking us? The Knight… The Whispering King, I mean, it has so many minions, why isn't it doing anything?"
Lauri sighed.
"It knows it has the advantage; it knows its legion can crush us with ease. Once it's done here, I'm sure the Whispering King plans on continuing east until it reaches the coastal highway, where it will rejoin with the rest of the Whispering Legion."
Lauri clapped Lucky on the back.
"So let's roll out the red carpet for it."
Lucky turned to Lauri. It took him a moment to fully understand what Lauri had just said to him. But when he understood, Lucky's face brightened instantly.
"You mean, you mean, I can, I get to do it?"
Lauri nodded with a grin.
"Yes, Lucky. You get to do it."
Lucky hopped up and down a few times before scampering back to the Rhino. It wasn't long until they could see him again. The top hatch of the Rhino popped open with a sharp metallic clack. A moment later, Lucky's head emerged, followed quickly by the rest of his body as he hauled himself up onto the roof, blinking against the cold Antarctic wind. Blue sparks were flowing around his hand, taking the shape of something.
Standing atop the Rhino, Lucky took several deep breaths before shouting with all the breath in his lungs.
"You damn Nightmare Creatures are in for it now! This is what you get for coming to our world! For attacking us!"
His voice echoed across the frozen pass and out over the ravine toward the Whispering Legion.
Then a lantern appeared out of the blue sparks in his hand.
It had an old metal frame with clear glass panes and a sturdy handle. Yet the moment it manifested, the darkness around Lucky recoiled.
Within the lantern burned an intense brightness, bright enough to border on blinding. White light poured through the glass, illuminating the Rhino, the Irregulars, and the frozen cliffs around them while casting long shadows across the Whispering Legion.
Danse nudged Lauri.
"Uh, what's he doing?"
"Didn't you hear?"
Lauri grinned.
"Lucky is the most lucky Awakened in the whole world, two worlds even."
Lucky stood atop the Rhino, his lantern blazing in his hand like a second sun, shouting defiantly at a Corrupted Tyrant and its legion of Nightmare Creatures.
And somehow – surprisingly – nobody found this particularly strange anymore.
After all, Lucky was widely considered to be the luckiest Awakened in existence.
Rumours about him often circulated amongst the Awakened and even mundane soldiers who knew of him. Most people assumed they were exaggerated.
They were not.
It was said that during his Winter Solstice, Lucky had been dropped directly into the middle of Bastion. Not outside its walls. Not somewhere nearby. Directly inside one of humanity's strongest fortresses in the Dream Realm.
As fate would have it, a Saint had happened to be walking past the exact location he appeared. Said Saint had apparently been "in an accommodating mood" that day and escorted the terrified Sleeper all the way to the nearest Gateway.
Stories like that followed Lucky everywhere he went.
During one operation, he had reportedly tripped over loose rubble during combat and accidentally caused an Awakened Devil to plunge off the side of a cliff to its death. On another occasion, he had unknowingly chosen the only intact room in an entire collapsing ruin to sleep in.
Once, he had even discovered an Ascended Memory beneath his bed.
Nobody knew how, nobody even understood that part.
Least of all Lucky himself.
It reached a point where people had stopped questioning whether improbable things would happen around him. Instead, they began to wonder what absurdity reality would produce next to keep him alive.
And standing there atop the Rhino, lantern blazing against the Antarctic night while the Whispering Legion awaited their first move.
Lucky somehow still looked convinced things would work out fine.
"Things will be fine, I know they will, because the Whispering Legion isn't the only legion here!"
Lucky held his lantern high above his head.
"Arise, my minions!"
A grin spread across his face.
"My Lucky Legion!"
Blue sparks immediately began to appear around him.
At first, there were only a few drifting motes of light dancing through the cold air. Then dozens. Then hundreds.
The space around the Rhino rapidly filled with sparks until it resembled a cloud of stars caught in a violent current.
And that cloud soon became a storm.
Essence howled through the Antarctic night as spiralling torrents of blue sparks erupted outward in every direction. The lantern's brilliant light began to dim little by little, its radiance feeding the phenomenon gathering around Lucky.
The others stared upward in stunned silence.
Even Lauri blinked in disbelief despite knowing what was about to happen.
"…Lucky gets Memories from the Nightmare Spell, unlike anyone else. He once told me he sells most of them and donates the money to orphanages, charities… places like that."
He said quietly, eyes fixed on the storm of essence overhead.
"But there's one thing he's never sold..."
Something changed in the sparks; vague shapes began to emerge from within the storm.
"His Echoes."
Then the monsters appeared.
Hundreds of them.
Creatures of every imaginable shape and size materialised from the storm in bursts of blue light – towering beasts covered in scales, skeletal horrors wielding rusted weapons, winged predators with burning eyes, massive insectoid abominations, floating horrors made of teeth and tendril, lupine creatures cloaked in shadow, serpentine nightmares, armoured giants and many more.
No two looked alike.
Different colours. Different forms. Different species.
An entire army gathered around the Rhino, filling the frozen battlefield with growls, screeches, roars, and heavy footsteps as Lucky's legion answered his call.
The light from the lantern was gone now, so Lucky dismissed it. His smile was as big as it had ever been.
Mele's mouth hung open, she gestured to Lucky's legion of Echoes in complete, utter and genuine disbelief.
"HE COULD DO THAT THE WHOLE TIME!?"
A quiet chuckle slipped from Lauri as he gave a small shrug.
"I had him keep it in store for a rainy day, and as Fate would have it… That rainy day found us."
Lauri took a step forward, away from the Rhino, and toward the Whispering Legion.
"Everybody listen up, I don't want any of you to come to my aid, even if it looks like the Whispering King is about to kill me. Do not try to assist me, because you will die too. That is an order from your Captain."
Danse reached out as if to stop him, but Lauri pressed his arm lightly against Danse's forearm and held it there for a moment – a quiet gesture that carried far more meaning than words ever could.
"I'm not going to have the ability to focus on anything else, so I'm leaving the rest to you, Danse."
Without another word, Lauri dissolved into light.