"Yes, every time I use one of those attributes I end up losing fragments," Arthur replied to Sunny's question.
Sunny raised an eyebrow as they continued walking through the darkness. "But how does that work? First time I've heard of something like that."
"Yeah, me too. In theory, I'd say it works like this." He took a few seconds to think. "When I use those attributes, I'm putting pressure on reality itself. Somehow it has to get something in return, and that 'something' is the fragments. Since they are fragments of Aether, it's like reality is constantly replenishing itself."
Before Sunny could respond, he added, "It would be something similar to the hydrological cycle."
Sunny made an approving noise and added, "I understood the first part, but I don't know what a hydrological cycle is." He continued, "Not like I went to school to learn that."
"I forgot about that. Well, it's the water cycle."
Arthur and Sunny were on the way back to the Dark City and continued talking about their abilities. They had been traveling for about a week already and in less than a day they would arrive. So far they had not encountered any Nightmare creatures.
Sunny had his two shadows exploring the sides, while Saint was summoned a few meters behind them.
"Oh, and your augmentations?" Sunny asked. "You already know how mine work, my shadow detaches from the ground and sticks to my body. I can also attach them to my weapons or armor."
Arthur avoided a hole he detected with his Aether sense and kept walking. "Fun fact, that's another curious thing," he confessed. "My body actually has Aether circulating constantly. Every new core simply widens the channels through which Aether flows." After a few seconds he added, "So it's not that I increase three times, it's that I circulate three times more Aether."
They both jumped down from a ledge, landing calmly. Then Sunny said, "So you can't augment weapons or armor?"
"I can, it's just different. In those cases the Aether leaves through my pores and the Memory sort of absorbs the Aether, augmenting itself at the same time," he replied.
"You said Aether circulates in your body? Like how Awakened circulate essence?"
Arthur said, "Exactly. I actually use a similar technique."
If Arthur could see Sunny's eyes, he would notice them begin to shine faintly.
"Can you teach me? My new shadow helps me circulate a tiny amount of essence in my body."
"Yeah, of course. When we get back to the Castle I'll teach you."
Suddenly Sunny slowed his pace slightly, but before Arthur could ask what was wrong, he spoke. "Wait, how did you manage to form three cores if every time you use your powers you end up spending fragments!?"
Arthur laughed lightly. "Well, I have to thank my Aspect ability for that. It lets me absorb the greatest possible number of fragments from each kill."
Sunny caught up to him and added,
"Wait, if it's your Aspect ability, that means in the future you might be able to absorb Aether from the air and turn it into fragments for example?"
"I definitely hope so!"
Sunny let out a sigh. "That's so unfair."
Arthur turned his head, knowing Sunny could see him. "Did you forget that I also spend them every time I use my powers?"
He coughed lightly but argued,
"Well, it doesn't seem like it harms you that much. You have four cores, while I only have two!"
"Skill issue," Arthur replied with a shrug.
"You bastard!" Sunny spat.
There was a moment of silence and then both of them started laughing openly.
After a few minutes of laughing they stopped and Sunny asked again, "By the way, how many fragments do you get from killing a human?"
Arthur raised an eyebrow at the question. Eventually he replied,
"If their core is saturated, I get all of their fragments."
Sunny stopped dead in his tracks. "You're lying, right?"
Arthur stopped and shook his head.
"Spending fragments my ass! With one kill you could have formed your first core!"
Arthur laughed and decided to add salt to the wound. "Well, when I killed Harus I already had my second core formed, and with his kill I got halfway through the third."
Without moving, Sunny said, "Speaking of Harus… I thought I was going to be the one to end up killing him." After that he started walking again.
"Why?"
He replied, "Because he represented everything I hated."
Arthur jumped over a hole and added, "I apologize for stealing the kill then."
"As long as the bastard suffered, that's enough for me," Sunny replied while jumping over the same hole.
After that they remained silent for the rest of the journey and less than a day later they reached the Dark City.
Before climbing the wall, Sunny asked to take a break to eat something and soon they started cooking meat that Arthur had stored in his Memory Bound Vault.
Moments later a small fire could be seen next to the massive wall that separated them from the city where they planned to spend a few months before moving in search of another Citadel or a seed to challenge a Nightmare together. The plan was to clear the entire Dark City first to grow stronger and form as many cores as possible.
They had agreed that Sunny would make all the kills while Arthur would only keep the shards. That was because Sunny couldn't absorb them.
While they ate by the light of the fire, Sunny said, "I've been meaning to ask you this for a while."
Arthur raised an eyebrow while a spark from the fire popped softly.
"What thing?"
"What is the essence of combat to you?" he asked while bringing a piece of roasted meat to his mouth.
Arthur looked away from his portion and stared at the fire. "Good question," he said. "First tell me yours."
Sunny finished his portion and grabbed another piece. "Murder."
"Murder?" Arthur repeated.
Before biting into the new piece Sunny shrugged.
"Yeah. In the end you're trying to kill your opponent and they're trying to do the same. One of you ends up the killer, the other the killed."
Arthur remained silent for a moment without taking his eyes off the fire. Eventually he said softly, "I see."
"What? You think it's wrong?"
He shook his head. "No. But it seems very simplistic to reduce it only to the outcome."
A few seconds passed in silence where only the crackling of the fire could be heard. After finishing his portion Sunny said, "So what would yours be then?"
"To be honest, I wouldn't know how to answer."
Sunny summoned Endless Spring and drank some water before asking, "Then how do you achieve clarity of mind when fighting?"
Arthur raised his gaze from the fire and resumed eating. "I just do." Then he added, "So I don't leave you without an answer, let me think."
They continued eating in silence while watching the sparks from the fire slowly fade. Eventually Arthur lifted his head and looked at Sunny.
"Let me tell you about my first Nightmare, Sunny."
Sunny didn't respond but listened attentively.
Arthur looked back at the fire and began. "My first nightmare was strange. It consisted of four zones connected through portals." He continued, "The first zone was a long corridor where I had to fight four different chimeras. At that time I had no Memories or anything, so I had to improvise to survive. Eventually I did."
Then he raised his head. "What was the highest ranked creature you had to kill in yours, Sunny?"
"An Awakened Tyrant," Sunny replied.
Arthur looked back down at the fire. "I see… well, mine was a Dormant Demon."
"A Dormant Demon?" Sunny asked, frowning.
Arthur nodded. "Yes. In the next zone I found myself in a massive forest. The trees seemed to pierce the sky and everything was green. The place was beautiful, but it was infested with invisible Dormant Beasts."
"Eventually I killed them all, and I also killed the Dormant Demon that was the Alpha."
Sunny asked, "And the other zones?"
"The third zone was huge as well, but it was made of floating platforms forming a path toward the portal. Each platform had different colored edges marking the difficulty." After a few seconds he added, "On the first platform I had to fight a Dormant Monster and I killed it. On the second I didn't even manage to identify the rank or class of the creature before my world went completely black and the next moment I found myself in the final zone."
"I see… but I don't understand what that has to do with my question."
Arthur smiled at him. "I'm getting there." A few seconds later he continued, "I said my first Nightmare was strange because it wasn't about resolving a conflict. It was about gaining knowledge."
He lowered his gaze to the fire again. "Knowledge about Aether, obviously."
"In the final zone I encountered something strange."
Sunny had already finished eating and was just listening. "What?"
"I encountered myself," Arthur replied.
"…"
Eventually Sunny said in a bored tone, "Can you stop saying odd shit?"
Arthur laughed again. "Fair." He raised his gaze and asked, "What conclusions can you draw from what I just told you?"
Sunny shrugged. "Absolutely none. I can't understand your brain."
Arthur replied while looking at him, "Basically I just showed you three moments where my essence of combat was different." He continued, "Before my first Nightmare I would have answered that the essence was Protection. Protecting my loved ones. Protecting myself."
"In the first zone I would have answered Control. Controlling the chimeras' movements. Controlling my position. Controlling my advantages."
"In the second zone I would have answered the same thing you did. Killing the creatures and avoiding being killed by them."
Looking down at the embers he continued, "In the third I would have answered Knowledge. Knowing your opponent. Knowing the environment. Knowing yourself and knowing the tools you have." After a brief silence he continued, "Once my Nightmare ended my answer would have been Sacrifice. Sacrificing a move to gain an advantage. Sacrificing an arm to deal more damage."
"But now? I simply don't know."
"Well, thanks for nothing," Sunny replied.
Arthur laughed and looked up from the fire. "I suppose what I'm trying to say is that if you focus on only one aspect of combat, whether the result or the process, you would be locking yourself in a box that's impossible to escape." He continued, "Not every fight is about killing your opponent."
He was about to continue but Sunny interrupted him. "Then you're fighting wrong."
"I knew you were going to say that," Arthur said between laughs. When he finished he replied, "But if all your fights end in death… then you're not fighting, you're executing."
Sunny watched him in silence for a few seconds before responding.
"And what's wrong with that?" he asked calmly. "If I'm executing someone, that someone also wants to execute me."
Arthur tilted his head, as if he had expected exactly that answer. "Nothing," he admitted. "I didn't say it was incorrect."
Sunny raised an eyebrow.
Arthur leaned back slightly before continuing.
"I'm just saying that when everything reduces to that… the fight stops being a choice. It's already decided from the beginning."
Sunny remained silent for a moment, as if considering Arthur's words.
Arthur looked back at the fire before speaking again. "But tell me something," he said calmly. "What would happen if you found yourself in a fight where killing your opponent is not the correct decision?"
Sunny frowned slightly.
Arthur continued in the same calm tone. "What would you do then? If you enter the fight thinking the only way out is killing… how would you recognize another option when it appears?"
Sunny remained silent for a few seconds. Finally he shrugged.
"I don't know."
Arthur smiled at the answer.
"To finish answering your question… for me, the essence of combat is choice."
Sunny looked at him, waiting for him to continue.
"Not strength. Not technique. Choice."
Arthur moved a piece of wood in the fire. "In every moment you decide how far you're willing to go… what you're willing to sacrifice and what you're not. What knowledge to apply and what to ignore. What you're willing to protect… and what you're not." He paused briefly. "The moment you stop choosing… is the moment the fight stops belonging to you."
***
Two weeks later they were in the middle of a hunt in the Dark City.
Arthur and Sunny were hiding in one of the many houses waiting for their prey to move. They had been in the same place for nearly an hour and fortunately the creature they were watching finally began to move.
It was a Fallen Demon. It had a body similar to a spider, but instead of eight legs it had a dozen and each ended in a curved claw. Its joints bent at unnatural angles. Its abdomen was enormous and covered in cracked black plates, though those were not its weak point.
Between the plates a reddish glow shone like embers hidden beneath ash. But the most disturbing part was its head.
Instead of the multiple eyes of a normal spider, the creature had a single eye embedded in the center of its deformed face, surrounded by small cracks that looked like scars. Beneath the eye, a set of mandibles opened and closed slowly.
The beast moved with an unsettling mix of slowness and precision, but neither of them would be fooled. This Fallen Demon was much faster. From time to time it stopped, slightly raising its body as if listening to something they could not perceive.
At first this worried them, thinking it had detected them, but fortunately that was not the case, or at least the creature had not decided to act if it had detected them. It would be strange for a Demon to show that much intelligence, but it was not something they could afford to ignore.
After all, they were on a mission.
The part of the Dark City where they were was in the opposite direction of the Castle toward the north. It was an area neither of them had explored before.
They were there because of something Arthur had realized a few days after returning to the Dark City.
The Fallen Demon continued moving through the streets of the Dark City, its massive body occupying almost the entire width of the avenue as it advanced among the ruins of collapsed buildings. Each of its legs struck the stone with a sharp sound, leaving deep marks on the ground.
For several minutes it followed an erratic path through the ruins, occasionally stopping and slightly raising its abdomen as if listening to something in the distance.
Then it turned, entering a side street that was much narrower than usual.
The collapsed stone walls reduced the space slightly below what the monster needed to move comfortably. Its legs had less room between the ruined facades as it moved, forcing it to advance with less freedom. It was the perfect opportunity.
From the darkness of a ruined house, Sunny watched carefully. His two shadows had separated earlier and were moving silently across nearby rooftops and corners, watching the surroundings.
No other creatures were approaching. The area was clear.
A second later Sunny stepped toward Arthur and gave him a light tap on the shoulder. It was the signal they had agreed on.
Arthur nodded and without wasting time directed all his augmentations to his body. He felt himself grow stronger as his channels circulated Aether, reinforcing his muscles and reflexes.
In the same motion he summoned his armor. The dark metal plates formed around his body. In his right hand Dawn's Ballad appeared, and in his left Infinite Lash manifested, the long whip coiled and waiting to be unleashed.
The plan was simple.
Arthur did not need to kill it. He only needed to distract it, keep it occupied and if possible inflict as much non lethal damage as he could. Sunny would deal the real damage and when the final moment came Saint would deliver the decisive blow.
Arthur stepped out of the house.
The darkness of the Dark City was absolute, but he did not need to see. He extended his Aether sense and the world appeared before him as an incomplete map of currents and invisible tensions. The massive body of the Fallen Demon manifested like a turbulent mass, each movement distorting the flow around it.
Arthur breathed slowly and then attacked.
He extended his arm and launched Infinite Lash forward. The whip extended through the darkness. Guided by his Aether sense, the loop found one of the demon's legs and tightened around it.
Arthur pulled with all his strength, intending only to provoke it. He was not strong enough to move the Fallen Demon.
The leg tensed slightly and the creature's enormous body tilted for an instant before the rest of its legs reacted immediately. One of them lashed toward Arthur with brutal speed.
The Aether flow distorted violently in front of him. Arthur twisted his body aside and the claw passed centimeters from his chest, crashing into the ground and shattering the stone.
Another leg swept horizontally. Arthur jumped back and the claw scraped against his armor, producing a shower of sparks.
The demon was now fully alert.
Arthur released the whip and advanced instead of retreating. He raised Dawn's Ballad and struck one of the legs with a swift cut. The blade pierced the thick chitin and the demon lost its first leg.
That was enough.
Taking advantage of the moment, Sunny emerged from the darkness, sliding beneath the demon's body. Midnight Shard moved in a short precise arc and cut cleanly through a joint.
Two legs gone.
The demon released a sharp screech that echoed through the ruins and its massive body turned violently toward Sunny. Before it could attack, Saint emerged from the opposite side of the street.
She advanced with heavy steps and raised her sword. The strike was direct. The blade struck another leg and severed it in a single motion.
Three legs gone.
The creature lost stability, but that made it more dangerous. The remaining legs began attacking in all directions and Arthur once again became the main target.
One claw descended from above. Arthur rolled aside.
Another attacked from behind. He spun, feeling it pass centimeters from his back. The fight was completely blind. Only his Aether sense kept him alive.
Sunny appeared from another angle. Another cut. Another leg gone. Saint attacked from the opposite side, her sword tearing away another limb.
The Fallen Demon staggered and after several minutes following the same pattern, it was left with only two legs.
Pressing its abdomen against the ground and using its last two legs, it launched into a frenzy. Arthur barely sensed the distortion in the Aether in time and jumped back, but one claw clipped him. The impact sent him rolling across the stone.
His armor absorbed most of the blow. He rolled once more and stood up just as the same leg descended again.
He stepped back with a smile and Saint immediately took his place. The stone warrior raised her shield and with a brutal clash received the demon's strike.
Saint moved back a few centimeters from the impact while the monster slammed into the ground with a thunderous crash that shook the street.
While the demon was in that frenzy trying to kill Arthur, Sunny shot from the opposite side like an arrow and without hesitation drove Midnight Shard into the base of the neck at the back of the head.
The creature died instantly.
Silence returned to the street and only Arthur and Sunny's breathing broke the stillness of the Dark City.
Approaching him, Arthur asked,
"Memory? Echo?"
Sunny was already extracting the shards so they could leave quickly.
"Neither," he replied.
Arthur did not answer and went to help him. Minutes later, after removing the shards and storing pieces of meat, they continued the mission.
In this remote part of the Dark City there were not many creatures, so the rest of the journey was relatively quick. Moving through alleys and jumping through windows and doors, about half an hour later they reached their destination.
In front of them stood a house. From the outside it had nothing interesting architecturally, just a simple stone building with walls cracked by time. But the important part of that house was not what Sunny could see or what Arthur perceived through his Aether sense.
Sunny moved first and pushed the door. It opened with a creak.
The interior was surprisingly well preserved considering where it stood. The walls were still intact and the roof still covered the structure, though time had destroyed the furniture.
A table lay in the center of the room split in two. Several chairs were scattered across the floor with broken legs. An old wardrobe leaned against the wall with its doors hanging crookedly from their hinges.
The windows were completely shattered. The wooden frames remained but the glass had long since disappeared, letting the cold air of the Dark City drift inside. Shards of old glass still lay on the dusty floor.
Neither of them paid much attention to that.
The important thing was at the back of the house. There was an open doorway leading to something that had been calling them since they returned to the Dark City.
Behind that doorway began a gigantic staircase descending into the depths.
Arthur approached slowly.
The structure was absurd for a house of that size. Each step was nearly half a meter tall and the staircase itself was several meters wide. A dozen people could descend side by side without touching. The surrounding stone walls were perfectly carved with no signs of erosion.
The staircase stretched downward and downward until it disappeared into darkness.
Sunny whistled softly. "This definitely doesn't belong in a normal house."
Arthur did not respond, already analyzing the structure with his Aether sense. He detected no irregularities and no presences, but something about the place created a faint pull.
Without speaking Arthur directed all his augmentations to his body, strengthening his muscles and senses. Sunny did the same and then summoned Saint.
The stone warrior appeared before them and moved ahead as they began descending.
At first the sound of their steps echoed clearly against the stone, but as they continued the echo seemed to be swallowed by the darkness around them.
The descent continued. Step after step. Minute after minute.
The staircase seemed endless. The air grew colder the deeper they went and the silence was unsettling.
Finally, after what was probably thirty minutes of descending, something appeared ahead.
The staircase ended and gave way to a corridor of the same size, and at the end of it stood a gigantic door.
Both of them stopped while Saint raised her shield.
The door occupied the entire width of the corridor and stretched several meters upward. It was made of dark polished stone without any sign of wear.
Arthur extended his Aether sense. Nothing. Not a single trace of danger.
Sunny sensed nothing with his shadows either.
After a few seconds of silence Sunny stepped forward and placed his hand on the door.
There was no resistance. The door simply opened.
A deep rumbling sound echoed as the massive structure moved.
Both of them went on guard and prepared for the worst.
But behind the door a gigantic chamber was revealed.
The air left their lungs and Saint advanced slowly with them behind her.
The room was even larger than the throne hall of the castle. The walls stretched into the distance illuminated by a long line of torches burning with steady flames.
Orange light danced across the stone walls, casting long shadows.
But the strangest thing was that the chamber was almost empty except for one thing.
In the center of the room stood a massive portal.
When Arthur saw it his eyes widened and a familiar feeling filled his mind. As the realization of why he had felt drawn to this place arrived, a smile formed on his lips.
The portal was a gigantic rectangular structure rising several meters from the ground. Its surface did not glow and emitted no visible energy. It simply stood there, as if it had always existed.
Sunny observed it silently for a few seconds, then turned his head and noticed Arthur smiling.
Sunny frowned.
"Do you know what that is?"
Arthur kept looking at the portal before slowly turning toward him, the smile still on his face.
"Tell me, Sunny…" he said after a small pause. "Are you interested in visiting the Relictombs?"