Nephis' life was one filled with hardship.
It was something she had to understand since she was very young. After the first assassination attempt on her life, the one that took Sarah's life away, she lived in fear.
She lived to see every Memory her family had taken away from the Clan. To see every trinket, painting, and artifact their family owned be sold or stolen. To see half of the Clan going to Valor, and the other half being assassinated.
For most of her life, she believed both Great Clans were to blame, when in reality, only Valor went against her. Nephis' grandmother still believed Song was eating them, it was just that they were subtle about it.
Nephis' grandmother stood through it all, never complained, always kept her posture straight. An ever present smile that comforted the little girl that lost both her parents, saying it would all be well, a lie.
That lie became more and more forced as the Immortal Flame Clan lost more and more. It didn't take long for Nephis to see hollow eyes wearing a mask of a strong person.
A part of her died with her grandmother. That day, she promised to kill all the Ghouls that betrayed her father, Aster, Vale, Song… Once her uncles and aunt, now her mortal enemies.
She has walked a long road since then, discovered many truths and faced many challenges, fell in love, found friends, and been a part of schemes. But the Second Nightmare was where she had to face her most harrowing challenges… Her fears.
From facing her father to dying by the hands of the one she loved, the simulations were endless, scars embedded themselves inside her soul. The sight of her grandmother's disappointing gaze after knowing her relation with Song, the experience of being a thrall at the hands of the Dreamspawn, a puppet of the Raven Queen, transformed into a weapon by the King of Swords…
Dying by the hands of Broken Sword.
The so-called warden of the Fortress of Steel was the architect, she killed him for all the things she made her go through.
And now she will kill the corrupted version of him, burn the entire Box into ash.
Sunny emerged from the shadows, carrying both Nephis and Effie to the inside of the nightmare creature; unfortunately, he could only put them on the initial gate.
Effie almost fell over from daziness, it was the first time she experienced the feeling of being transported through the shadows. She quickly turned around to analyse the surroundings, not even thinking of teasing Sunless of his driving skills.
Nephis squinted her eyes, [Cruel Sight] in hand and the [Undying Chain] wrapped around her body, the headband that was the [Dawn Shard] as always on her head when she ventured into the Dream Realm, she raised her posture and lifted her guard, putting both hands on the hilt of her sword.
The entrance seemed completely different from last time, looking like a proper prison now, it was a proper entrance hall, with pathways leading into different sections and even a desk seemingly reserved for the guards. More importantly, no skeletons littered the ground, not even specks of dust were visible. The Terror had remembered about Serpent using the Lord of the Dead form to control them, so the Terror just destroyed them.
Sunny decided that it would be best to not venture too deep into the fortress lest be too deep into its domain, so they would slowly progress, conquer the creature from the inside while Nightmare protected them from the influence of its mind-hex.
Nephis would have rather just spawned in the bastard's core and blown him up…
But her thoughts were interrupted as a cold chill ran down her spine, she heard something that terrified her to the core. Because that was the voice of her father.
"Nephis…"
She turned to see a tall man with piercing gray eyes filled with disappointment and anger. Nephis felt her heart ache upon seeing the same thing she saw so many times in countless simulations, to hear her own father hating her…
His voice was distorted with rage, in the blink of an eye, he appeared before her like an apparition, grasping her neck with unnatural force, making her grasp for air. Her vision blurred as she heard painful words out of her father's mouth, the same words she heard so many times, yet they never stopped hurting.
"You dare forgive my killer?! To love her son?! Did you forget what she did to us?!"
She struggled to find words, letting the sword go and gripping the strong arm of the facetsmile of her father.
"I– did-n't… For-give…!"
"You did the second you fell in love with that spawn!!"
His face was twisted in absolute hatred while Nephis' world began to darkened…
"YOU SHOULD JUST DIE—"
The grasp on her neck disappeared in the blink of an eye, and so did the image of her father, becoming nothing but a fragment of imagination. She lost her ground as she fell, ending with her knees and hands on the floor to support herself.
She gripped the stone and grasped for air, breathing heavily while cursing herself. Her teeth grinded, to fall for a hex so easily was humiliating, even with the protection enchantment of the [Undying Chain], she still fell for it.
She felt the shadows growing deeper in a terrifying form of a tenebrous steed beside her, malice and dread filling the air. Yet paradoxically, Nephis felt comfort and calm give space to the anguish she felt at the presence of it.
Nightmare leaned down and caressed her silver hair gently, the nostrils buffing to let air pass through her face. Something akin to worry in the deep ruby eyes of the steed.
Nephis raised herself to be on her knees, turning to the Shadow and caressing the bridge of his face with one hand slowly, keeping her eyes closed, her way to thank him.
Another touch reached her, a human one, yet with a presence eeriely similar to the steed's. She opened her eyes to see Sunny checking up with a worried gaze somehow evident despite his hollow eyes.
"Neph, are you alright now?"
His voice felt like a bucket of cold water cleansing her sanity. Breathing slowly, she calmed down and nodded.
"It is stronger than I thought. It won't happen again."
Sunny's eyes sharpened, his hand enrolling into a fist.
"It happened to me too… It seems the distraction won't be enough. Becoming Corrupted must have improved his multitasking."
He turned back to see Effie leaning on her spear, breathing heavily, a pale expression infecting her.
She looked up, not caring about discretion and barked:
"This is what you want to kill?! Are you crazy?!"
Sunny got up with a heavy gaze.
"You are free to get out…"
"Hell no!"
She turned to the pathways with hatred, her spear almost cracking under her strength.
"Now I want to kill this bastard!!"
Nephis let out a chuckle while breathing, sword now in hand, she grabbed Sunny's arm and pulled it, using it to help her get up.
"Get in line."
She heard no complaints from Sunny, he himself summoned his crimson odachi. Turning his head to his Shadow, he reached out his hand, a strange ripple occurred in the steed, a sudden armor appeared in Nightmare's skin. One that almost disappeared in the deep mantle of shadows that covered it.
A armor almost identical to the Shadow Saints, plates of onyx implemented into the vital parts of the steed, while dark cloths embraced the rest, wrapping around tightly on the skin of the steed, the emblem of a snake slithering through a crescent moon embedded on the cloth, the symbol of Song. It was as if there was no armor at all.
Along with the armor, Sunny infused one of his seven shadow helpers on the steed, apparently the newest one named Lazy… Nephis insisted on another name but whatever.
The others had their own roles, although she could swear each one of them reacted differently, now Nephis could see the names Sunny came up for each of them.
The one he called Gloomy seemed to roll his non-existent eyes before wrapping on his body. Happy, surprisingly, went to her, wrapping on her body as she instantly felt stronger than before, it looked almost excited. Creppy seemed to smile going for Sunless' sword. The Naughty and Haughty ones looked really annoyed for some reason, but they didn't complain much and went forward, they would be Sunny's scouts this time. And finally, Crazy wrapped on Effie's spear, doubling the strength of it.
"Remember the plan, protect Nephis, she burns the bastard while we search for its cores."
Effie rolled her eyes, annoyed.
"Yeah, yeah, I know!"
Nightmare seemingly disappeared as his form disassembled, in actuality, he turned into a mist, creating a small domain to protect the whole cohort from the mind-hex. He would make sure no hallucinations affected them while fighting the domain of the Box himself. That was why the augment was needed.
The Terror finally made its move, its actions delayed probably due to the battle outside. The Firekeepers and Shadow Watchers would have to protect the Soul-Devouring Tree while Saint, Igris and Wraith faced the fortress itself with Dreadwing supporting them…
At least in the beginning.
The walls of the building began to shift, at the same time, Sunny's eyes widened in bewilderment.
"Sky Tide? Azriel? Summer Knight?! What are they… Is that Silent's arrow?"
Nephis raised her brow as she glanced at him.
"What is it?"
"Well… There are four Saints assaulting the Terror, I knew there were people watching us, but I thought they wouldn't get involved, I was wrong. Now Saints of Valor and Song are working together for some reason…"
Nephis and Effie regarded him with confused expressions, but they soon had to put all of their questions aside to focus on the walls that encased them, said walls began to shift and change.
A horde of golems began to crash onto the ground, knights walked out from the walls, all turning to the three Masters in the room.
Nephis could hear a terrifying laugh reach her ears, coming from beyond the halls, far from them…
She got even angrier.
Calling forth her Aspect, unbearable pain began igniting in her nervous system. The familiar feeling of her skin being burned returned like an old friend, yet it was nothing to her, it was just pain after all…
The feeling of seeing your own father strangling you is a thousand times more agonizing than simple pain.
She thrusted her blade to the ground, transferring the white flames from her sword to the stone she walked on. The temperature began to rise as the slits on the structure lit up in white light, burning the creature that was the Corrupted Terror, giving it the same sensation she felt every time she used her Aspect.
The pain must have angered it, the faceless golems were somehow expressing anger as they advanced towards the cohort.
Immediately, they got into position.
Effie took a step forward while Sunny took one back, delving into shadows, becoming one with them. Nephis imbued plenty of essence into the silver sword than let go of it, letting the blade burn as she held her other, dominant hand forward and summoning the blade that complemented her the most right after the [Dreamblade].
A pristine blade made of marble appeared out of white sparks, a longsword as white as her flames she acquired from the last Stone Saint. Soon, she would finish the requirements for the [Prince of the Underworld] enchantment.
Her gaze darkened as she flourished the blade, pointing it at the attacking golems.
A meter before the golems reached them, Effie swiped her grand spear horizontally to intercept them, twisting her torso to bring as much centripetal force as she could, hitting several beasts, even decapitating some of them easily.
As she twirled around, she swiped her lance once again in a swift motion, almost like a dance, destroying the golems as she did, twirling again and again while holding her spear on top of her head. More and more mindless creatures found their end in the hurricane that was Effie.
As she finished her twirl, she gave one last terrifying swipe of the spear, launching several golems behind, looking up to see the end of her work.
Unfortunately, it didn't do much, the number of golems seemed almost the same as they fell to the ground and swarmed the cohort of three. More importantly, one of the dark knights was right in front of her, in the process of striking at her.
Effie widened her eyes, the nightmare creature was mid swing, his sword falling like a guillotine, moments from cutting her face in two.
By sheer instinct, she was able to push herself to the side by bracing her knees and forcing to fall sideways. Unfortunately, she wasn't fast enough.
The steel blade struck her shoulder, stopping her fall and grinding against the metal, but not piercing it, her Transcendent protection stopped the Fallen blade from making blood spill, but it didn't stop the pain. Effie gritted her teeth and forced herself to ignore the pain, planning to raise her spear against the knight, she gripped the polearm of the weapon firmly.
Yet the black knight spasmed for a second, before falling backwards, a deep shadow behind the knight, a crimson blade of an odachi passing through it.
The blade was in the process of retreating back into the shadow, which began moving through the room after it did, each golem that it passed falling like it is nothing again and again after a brief figure of a human appearing to swing an odachi.
Sunny was swimming in the shadows, easily executing creature after creature with ease. Only making pause once a knight appeared in its way, seemingly noticing the presence of the dark aberration.
Even then, it was simple for him to go through them, using the crystal blade of the [Moonlight Shard] to catch them off guard and eliminate the shadow by briefly switching the shadow on his odachi to the dagger. After the knight fell, he delved into the shadows again and continued.
It was then Nephis' acted, before Effie could even lift herself, she dashed past the huntress and sliced the air of the prison. Flames erupted and wildly danced in the room, burning golems with eerie efficiency. She controlled it with her Ascended Ability, making sure they focused on the more powerful opponents while leaving the normal ones aside.
Effie almost shouted to stop her, as she could affect Sunny, but she stopped herself as she witnessed a shadow gracefully dancing through the flames.
Those she slain with her sword, cutting through the steel golems and knights. Many did survive the storm of flames, but they were melting, just like the walls that the Box was made of. They rushed towards the Changing Star with wild animosity, as if they felt no pain.
The shadow moved from the corners of the room to the center, dissolving as Sunny appeared from it, landing on the ground as he sliced a golem in half.
Nephis joined him, and both began slaughtering the rest of the enemies, as they stopped appearing after Nephis' wave of infernal flames touched the inner walls of the hall.
They moved with eerie synchronization, both utilizing an adaptable, unpredictable style of combat, deflecting attacks made on each other and slaying the monsters effortlessly. Sunless cut the arm of a knight and Nephis' sword met its neck. Her unleashed flames embedded on the monster's armor and his odachi cut them apart. He chained them with manifested shadow chains, and she ended them with purifying fire.
It all ended as they slashed down the final knight together, making an 'X' shape on its chest.
Effie had long raised herself up, the pain on her shoulder ending as well.
She chuckled as she approached the other two.
"Look at that! Not even a week dating and already moving like you are married!"
Both turned to the huntress with unamused eyes, both holding annoyed expressions. Their thoughts even complemented each other.
'This girl…'
'Inside a Corrupted Terror…'
'Is teasing about…'
'Dating?!'
Nephis let out a sigh and walked to the silver sword embedded on the ground, the fire in it extinguishing as she reached it to grasp the handle.
As soon as she did, she poured more essence into the blade, igniting it once more to transfer to the Box. The slits on stone lit up in white light once more, and the temperature rose even more.
Effie frowned upon feeling the heat reach her, but Sunny shot her complaint down.
"Don't even, we need to keep the Terror distracted by hurting him."
"Isn't four Saints enough for that? If anything, it just makes the thing want to kill us even more!"
Sunny rolled his eyes then turned for the pathway in the center wall that was covered by burnt steel.
"This way it suffers more."
Effie puffed, but didn't complain anymore.
The cohort proceeded onto the dark halls of the Box, encountering more and more golems in a mirrored event for the first time Sunny did so by using Serpent. Only this time, he made sure to use [Shadow Lantern] to make more shadows on the place, eventually filling the entire Box, hiding the three's presence in an effort to thwart any attempt to crush them with the walls.
With the fight outside and the constant pain it underwent with Nephis' constant flames, the shadows were able to cover their traces. In consequence, the number of enemies dwindled as soon as he began to use the lantern as the Terror lost track of them inside his own body.
But that didn't mean it never found them.
In some of the cases where they fought and destroyed some golems, the Terror was alerted, and immediately tried to crush them with its walls, only to fail as Sunny carried them all into the shadows to escape, running into the next set of rooms. In others it created spikes to target them while the humans battled the golems, inflicting them with harrowing wounds. But even then, they were healed by Changing Star.
In normal circumstances, maybe it would be able to close its entire body to leave no chance of escape, but it was no normal circumstance. With four Saints and multiple Transcendent Shadows attacking from outside, flames burning its soul that grew more and more powerful each time they touched it, it must have been next to impossible to crush its entire being.
But a Corrupted Terror was still a Corrupted Terror…
A deep shadow emerged from a slit in the wall, one that grew bigger the second it completely escaped the enclosed space.
Three humans emerged from it, each one in different conditions.
Effie breathed heavily as she cracked her neck, her Transcendent armor covered in dust and sweat, the remnants of a hole on her shoulder that became nothing but memories still stinging.
"Royalty! I still can't see!"
The one in question shrugged despite knowing the huntress couldn't see it. His uniform ripped in his arm and replaced by the gauntlet of his [Marble Shell], the uniform slowly repairing itself strand by strand.
"So? You can fight well despite that."
Nephis suppressed a sigh and extended her hand, lighting up fire as she illuminated the room for all of them to see.
It was different from the rest, bigger, looking almost like a mess hall or an arena. Nephis squinted her eyes, seeing the Terror's soul through her eyes, seeing something weird.
Sunny felt the same through his shadow sense: Its attention was there. The bastard had noticed the travel path of the cohort and planned to lead them there, probably faking being distracted…
Sunny pictured the disgusting face of the warden smiling mockingly at him.
He shook his head, dismissing the thought.
Nightmare, who had been focusing on protecting them until now, manifested itself next to his masters, a wary frown was somehow expressed in the stallion's eyes…
Sunny caressed Nightmare's neck in understanding, agreeing with his decision. If Nightmare was here, it meant one thing: the Box gave up on infecting them with the mind-hex. And that meant it had a trick up its sleeve.
Nephis and Sunless' eyes widened as they felt a terrifying chill pass through them. The ceiling had moved, severally. As in, a whole chunk was being rejected by the structure.
They raised their weapons, and in that moment, the chunk fell.
In mid air, what was a cube changed, shifted and dislocated, like a rubix cube being ripped apart and acquired a new form. In a second, it reached a humanoid figure and crashed on the ground.
It resembled the standard golems of the Box, but this one was 15 feet tall and had much, much more armor, one that was developed, supporting brass knuckles and defined plates made of the big muscles it had.
The main resemblance was the head, plain, solid, no expression, yet still glaring at the humans.
Sunny hesitated, his eyes widened.
"Neph… That is no thrall, he has no shadow. No, his shadow is…"
She nodded, grimacing slightly.
"I know… That is simply a part of the Terror's body."
The giant was the same Rank as the Corrupted Terror, it was simply a part of its body after all, personified specifically to face them.
Nightmare beared his wrathful gaze to it, but as soon as he put one of the hooves forward, he hesitated, looking around with an erratic gesture. Huffing, the stallion devolved into a dream being once more, the Terror had resumed the mind attack, forcing Nightmare to defend the cohort once again.
But the automaton of the Terror didn't care. With an unnatural speed impossible to a being that size dashed towards them while winding up a punch.
It was so fast Sunny barely reacted before activating his Shadow Step and entering the shadows, his breath quickly leaving him as he almost lost his head.
The punch landed on the wall that was behind him, the fist cracked open the wall with surprising ease considering the two things had the same Rank.
Effie took a second to react before quickly snapping herself to position, her spear piercing the air and aiming to cut the other arm of the automaton.
Nephis on the other hand ignited her blades, grabbing the [Cruel Sight] from the ground and wielding the two swords, slashing the leg and piercing the steel thigh.
Sunless emerged from the shadows, unleashing his odachi and slicing the shadow of the automaton apart.
The attack of Effie didn't do much. Despite her monstrous strength, the automaton easily blocked the spear, even ignoring the crack on the palm that was formed. Nephis did more, the slash full of white flames incinerated the steel, cutting through the leg of it, while the sword that she used to pierce infused the automaton with the fire. And Sunny's attack didn't even make the thing react.
But even then, even when igniting the creature in fire, even attacking its shadow, it continued to move unbothered.
Sunless cursed internally.
'Of course, it is only a piece of the Terror, if it even feels pain, it is only very little.'
He couldn't linger in his thoughts as the automaton encased in white flames, without even looking at him, attacked.
It pushed Effie away with the same hand that it blocked her spear. It pushed her so hard she was launched to the other side of the room, crashing her into a wall. It then used the same hand to quickly reach Sunless.
He jumped back, avoiding the hand that was now in fire by inches as he fell back and activated his Awakened Ability, delving into the shadows once more and running as the hand crushed the floor.
No matter how much Nephis infused essence burned the thing, it just didn't. Her flames just didn't adapt to the steel fast enough, barely even beginning to melt.
The fist embedded on the wall was finally taken out as the automaton bared his gaze at Nephis, his full body now turning to her…
Her gaze bared fury as she pulled the blade from its skin, interrupting the essence flow, making the automaton stop burning. She turned around and began to run, fully aware that the thing would follow her.
Sunless appeared on the other side of the room. Looking sideways, he saw the crater where Effie was launched in. The dust parted to reveal the huntress struggling to get up.
He looked back at Nephis, and understood she was in more trouble.
Ordering Crazy to leave Effie's spear, he made him come back to him, but didn't use him to augment his body, instead just making it form a normal shadow beneath himself. Then he delved into the shadows once again while manifesting shadows to help Effie get up.
The automaton was wreaking the whole room while trying to get a hold of Nephis, tearing walls, floor, and even ceiling as consequence of its attacks, Nephis was barely dodging, only surviving thanks to her Titan physique and the augmentations from both her flames and Sunny's shadow.
But it eventually got her, not because she didn't dodge an attack. She lost her footing as the ground itself shifted and parts of it were raised to become sharp and rugged, spikes deliberately made as soon as she got a rhythm to dodge.
She let out a pained grunt as her feet were both pierced by sharp steel bars. The wound wasn't the problem, the problem was that she couldn't move anymore.
Nephis looked back up to see the fist of the automaton coming directly to her at lighting speed, she didn't even have time to raise her guard.
She braced herself for the impact, but her eyes widened as the world got dark all of a sudden.
A sphere of shadows encased her, one created by none other than Sunny, who had materialized next to her and was now using manifested shadows to protect both of them, the sphere was being augmented by two shadows, by all accounts, it should hold at least one strike from the thing…
But it didn't. The sphere broke almost on contact, breaking through the shadows, the enormous fist of the automaton of Corrupted steel reached them both, and struck them both, launching them in different directions.
Nephis was launched further, as she was the main target and received most of the impact, the one beside her, Sunny, was mostly grazed, as such, he was able to recover himself. The girl colided with the wall at an unnatural speed, if she was an
Awakened, she may have been dead.
Nephis lost her consciousness for a second due to the sheer strength of the attack, but as she woke up, she felt a few things in her body being broken, mostly some of her ribs and one of her legs, it didn't bother her, she already summoned her flames to begin healing. Looking up, she saw Sunny facing the Corrupted one single handtly, with Effie supporting him by throwing her spears at him.
Sunny manifested shadows to create weapons and chains, trying to distract and hold the automaton, but even that didn't quite work as the space itself began to work against him, spikes, small walls to interrupt his movements, the Terror was making sure he wouldn't be able to grab a foothold, constantly forcing him to exhaust essence.
Eventually, Sunny would run out, she could feel it, like herself, he was already at half of his reserves.
Nephis began to get up, she wouldn't let Sunless alone against that…
A chill ran down her spine, looking up, she widened her eyes, several spikes were created right above her, sharp, covered in barbed wire, explicitly made to cause pain. All aimed at her body, all already dropping down at her.
She had yet to finish healing her leg, and it was inches away from hitting her.
[Neph! Run!]
Sunny's scream through their Connection did not fell on deaf ears, but there was nothing she could do, the spikes were about to mangle her body. She was already gritting her teeth and unleashing more of her healing flames.
But in the next moment, instead of feeling the pain of being impaled, she felt the dread of Darkness engulf her very soul.
The shadows on the hall suddenly seemed weaker as a denser, more empty power invaded the coliseum-like hall. One that dwarft both shadows and light alike.
The spikes threatening Nephis were immediately shattered by several slashes done by a monstrously sharp blade, they were so efficient, precise yet numerous you'd think they were done by multiple people sharing the same skill. But no, they were done by one person only.
Darkness filled the room and devoured the shadows, making all of Sunny's powers almost useless as the constructs of shadows were dismissed. But differently from their fight against the Forsaken Knight, instead of feeling dread, a knowing smile spreaded on his face.
The Darkness concentrated, moved, flowed, like a dancer in the middle of a grand performence. It focused all power on one thing: the automaton.
A mass of darkness pierced the air and went through the automaton. Landing on the other side of the room.
For a moment, nothing happened, nothing reacted…
That was before the right arm of the automaton fell on the ground.
All turned to the culprit behind such a monstrous feat. It was a woman wearing light leather armor, two enormous bat wings on her back looking like onyx blades with two horns on her forehead.
Getting up from her crouched position, she turned around, her alabaster face twisting into a angry expression.
Revel was extremely irritated.
"Not only did you hurt my book buddy, you hurt my little brother… Prepare to die, bastard!"