I looked down at my hand and summoned the Memory I had just gotten, the staple weapon for any Sleeper in the Forgotten Shore-the Azure Blade. Since Sasrir was counted as an Echo by the Spell, his kills were also mine. "Fetch the Soul Core and start cutting the better bits of meat. I want to check this baby out."
Sasrir scoffed at my selfish command but did as bid, forming a dagger from shadow and beginning to cut huis way through the dead monster's body for the glimmer of light. Paying him no mind, I admired the beautiful blade and the milky starlight contained within, reading the description gleefully. My first true Memory, earned by myself!...Well, by Sasrir technically, but he was just another me, right?
[Memory Name: Azure Blade.]
[Memory Rank: Awakened.]
[Tier: I]
[Memory Type: Weapon.]
[Memory Description: [On this forgotten shore, only steel remembers.]
{Enchantments: Wishing Star, Milky Blade]
[Wishing Star Description: Lights up when pointed in the direction or in the vicinity of your targeted wish.]
[Milky Blade Description: Blade grows stronger when light is shun upon it, including starlight and moonlight.]
"Did we get the abilities in the novel?" I called out to Sasrir, reading the Runes in contemplation.
"Not that I recall, though maybe Guilty three just...forgot to put them in. I don't think there was ever a Memory or Echo that lacked Enchantments entirely, right?"
"Well, maybe Sunny just received a dud," I shrugged. "Anyways, this sword isn't too bad at all. It can serve as a glowstick so long as my desires are strong enough, and the light from the Crucifix can improve it. Should make things easier for fighting and exploring. Now let's see if we can get another for you to use. While you shadow weapons deal soul damage, you're still just a Dormant, so this will still be useful."
"Alright-ah, found it!" Sasrir pulled his arm back, wrenching out a fistful of gore and blood, with a small and glimmering crystal held in his fist. A Soul Core.
We weren't like Sunny, for whom Soul Cores were useless. We filled up our Soul Core the same as standard Awakened, and so we needed to scavenge from the dead after each fight.
"Alright, let's get moving," I said, sheathing the Azure Blade at my hip. Its cool weight was a comforting promise of power. "We're burning daylight, and this place is only going to get more active."
Sasrir nodded, wiping his shadow-made dagger clean on the Scavenger's carapace before it dissolved back into darkness. He tossed the glistening Soul Core to me. I caught it, feeling a faint pulse of warmth as my Demon-Tier Soul Core absorbed its energy. The progress was infinitesimal, a single drop in a vast ocean, but it was progress nonetheless.
"We need a plan beyond 'wander and hope we don't get eaten,'" I muttered, my survivor instincts kicking in. I looked around the twisting coral corridors. "The Wishing Star enchantment. Let's test it."
I focused, pouring my intent into the Azure Blade. My wish wasn't complex: Safety. A defensible location. I held the blade out flat on my palm. I didn't bother asking it to lead me straight to the Dark City, such a thing would be beyond a mere Awakened Memory of the First Tier, but settled for something smaller.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, the milky starlight within the blade seemed to swirl, coalescing towards one edge of the blade. It glowed slightly brighter, and the blade itself tilted ever so slightly, pointing down a specific fork in the path to our left.
"It works," I said, a grin spreading across my face. This changed everything. We weren't just blindly lost. We had a compass.
"A compass that points toward vague concepts," Sasrir pointed out, ever the pragmatist. "'Safety' could mean a dead-end cave with one entrance. It could also mean the lair of a much larger predator that has eaten all the competition."
"Hey, optimism, remember?" I chided, though I knew he was right. The enchantment was a tool, not a guarantee. "We'll be careful. You scout ahead in shadow form, I'll follow with the compass. We move fast, we stay quiet, and we avoid anything bigger than us."
It was a simple plan, but in the Crimson Labyrinth, simple was best. With a shared glance, we fell into our roles. Sasrir melted into the shadows on the wall, becoming a silent sentinel moving ahead. I followed, my grip tight on the Azure Blade, its soft glow pointing the way. We were no longer just survivors; we were hunters, however inexperienced. And we had a direction now. I could use the Enchantment in bursts to slowly make my way out of the Labyrinth, towards the Bright Castle...where I would have to put up with a savage tyrant wielding a Transcendant Echo and a hundred madmen for loyalists. Yes, I sighed, Gunlaug was going to be a problem. Not that I had any intention to challenge the man, and in fact, planned to work my way up as one of his lieutenants. Still, casual brutality was something I deemed irredeemable, and how much exactly I could ignore, even I didn't know.
"Worry not about Bright Castle, Adam, just focus on the present" Sasrir spoke from within my mind. "And keep your heart focused: the Enchantment is flickering."
I corrected it as he instructed, paying attention only to my immediate surroundings and the present. After what felt like thirty turns but could have been only ten, we came to a mound that spiralled upwards. I didn't recognise it as anything, but it seemed to be a place where we could rest. It was high enough to allow us to spot any approaching monsters, but not nearly high enough to escape the Dark Sea, so we couldn't stay here during the night. "Seems your sword can only point to immediate solutions" Sasrir remarked, manifesting beside me. I nodded thoughtfully, glad to have figured it out so soon. "Well then, let's rest for a bit for your to get back your energy, then start hunting any stragglers or loners."
The small hill we'd claimed as a temporary lookout was a jagged tooth of crimson coral, offering a sweeping, sobering view of the Labyrinth's scale. From up here, the moving shadows below were clearly Scavengers—some in skittish packs, others solitary hunters. We watched their patterns for a long moment, two predators sizing up the competition.
"That one," I pointed with the Azure Blade toward a lone figure shuffling slower than the rest, its movements slightly off-kilter. "Looks like it's lagging. Easier pickings."
"Isolation is its own weakness," Sasrir agreed, his voice a low hum in the settling quiet. "The blade will guide us."
I focused my intent on that specific Scavenger, and the milky light within the Azure Blade swirled and brightened along one edge, pulling insistently toward a specific canyon mouth. "Got a lock. Let's move."
The hunt was methodical, almost clinical. The Wishing Star enchantment led us on a direct path, bypassing dead ends we would have wasted precious minutes on. We cornered the lone Scavenger in a narrow fissure. It barely had time to turn before Sasrir flowed into its shadow. The familiar, gruesome process unfolded: the choked shriek, the seep of black blood, the sudden collapse.
[You have defeated a Dormant Beast: Carapace Scavenger.]
No Memory this time, just another faintly pulsing Soul Core. Sasrir retrieved it while I kept watch. "Three down. We're getting the hang of this."
"Efficiency is key," he remarked, tossing the core to me. "Their numbers are their greatest weapon. Removing them while on their own is the optimal strategy."
We repeated the process twice more, falling into a seamless rhythm. It was on the return climb up our lookout hill that I saw it. The sun was beginning its slow descent, casting long, distorted shadows across the labyrinth. But one shadow didn't move. It was too regular, too geometric.
"Sasrir. Look." I pointed toward a high plateau in the middle distance. A stark, dark silhouette stood against the fading light. A statue.
"Sanctuary," I breathed out, the word itself a wish. I held up the Azure Blade, telling it my new desire, and it dutifully pointed the way. My Essence was quite drained by this point, so I turned it on and off intermittently to avoid too much expenditure.
"We can make it before full dark if we move with purpose."
The journey was a focused trek, not a panicked run. We used the Azure Blade's guidance to choose the fastest route, scrambling over obstacles with the practiced ease our months of training had granted us. We reached the base of the plateau as the sun dipped low, painting the sky in shades of deep orange and violet. The statue loomed above, its back to us, a monolithic guardian of dark, featureless stone. I still couldn't see which Hero it belonged to.
"Sunset's in less than an hour."
....
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