Millipede Queens' Stronghold

After his first victory over them, the Shadow Legion grew stronger with every defeat it inflicted, as the monstrous millipedes that had fallen in battle joined his banner as shades. Even though shades of the Supreme and higher Ranks did not possess the Will and were not as powerful as the beings who had cast them, they had grown into an obstacle the wounded tribe could no longer overcome. The Millipede Queens attempted to resist with direct battles, fierce ambushes, and countless small skirmishes, displaying a rare level of control and strategic complexity for Nightmare Creatures, but none of it could stop the advance of the Shadow Legion. Their resistance was finally broken when Sunny reached the first of their seven nests, where they were decimated, and the swarm broke and fled.^[1]

Sunny then burned the nests one after another, sending his shades and the Rat King on an all-out hunt through the depths of the charred tangle while he pursued the Millipede Queens with his elite shades. Guided by Slayer, who tracked the retreating swarm unseen with her keen senses and Transcendent Ability, he destroyed five more nests before arriving at the final one. Expecting the Millipede Queens to defend it to their last breath, he was prepared to lay a deadly siege, but instead conquered the final nest and laid claim to his second Citadel without any battle at all. In its depths, he found the half-devoured carcasses of five of the six Millipede Queens, who had sacrificed themselves to feed their very essence to the seventh. That final Queen had abandoned the nest and fled north into the deeper Burned Forest with a small brood of young millipedes, escaping into lands inhabited by far more terrifying beings. With her escape, the war against the Black Millipede tribe was over, and Sunny had finally conquered the southern outskirts of the former Heart Realm, securing his second Citadel.^[1]