Sunny's smile turned a little bitter. 'I guess that was expected, though. I just thought that my divine aspect would require fewer fragments than my father's.' Sunny thought that the details of creating shadows would differ from his father's aspect. He was wrong. It was still one hundred whole shadow fragments.
'I'll turn it into one when I have enough to spare.' He thought. Sunny knew exactly how useful shadows could be and would not pass up the chance to have a scavenger as one. He could not do that right now, though. He had already checked everything with his echo. It was time to exit his sea of soul and get back to the dream realm.
Exiting his soul sea, Sunny immediately summoned his echo and said to Nephis. "Here it is! We can have it carry and protect Cassie." Hearing this, Cassie spoke in a startled tone.
"Carry me? Like a mount?" She asked Sunny.
Sunny nodded his head, knowing Cassie couldn't see it. "Yeah! Exactly like a mount. This bad boy has more than enough space to fit you… and some extra cargo on the back."
"Oh… well. I guess that's fine." Cassie did not object to being carried by Sunny's new, shiny possession. With no one objecting, Nephis helped Cassie get on the echo and tied the golden rope around it for her to hold onto.
"This should be fine. Hold on tight." Nephis said, concern slightly seeping from her voice. Cassie nodded at her and held on to the rope tightly. She could not see herself, but she could still make facial expressions and gestures just fine. It was one of the things she had gotten better at over time.
"I guess we are good to go!" Sunny said with excitement. Nephis nodded at him, and they continued moving forward. Before both of them knew it, they had reached the base of a stone cliff. With the help of Sunny's echo, their movement speed increased dramatically. Even though they had chosen to hunt a fair bit of scavengers on the way, they still made it in time.
Sunny turned to Nephis with a questioning look on his face. "Should we circle around here and hunt more of them?" He asked in a whisper.
Nephis nodded slightly. Even though they trusted Cassie quite a bit, they did not want her to know about their purposeful hunts. At this point, she did not know that they had reached their destination. Sunny and Nephis could kill a couple more scavengers.
[Shadow Fragments: 62/1000].
Sunny had made considerable progress and was looking forward to more. The same could go for Nephis, albeit her strength had risen much more than Sunny's. Apparently, she had about four hundred soul fragments absorbed as of now. Which was staggering.
Eventually, they had set out to hunt more lone stragglers. Sometimes, they would cross groups of two scavengers as well. With Sunny's and Neph's newfound strength, they were not as problematic as last time. They had gotten a few memories, too. One of them was an azure shield faintly covered by the same carapace the scavengers were. Another one was an azure spear, exactly like Sunny's azure blade, but a spear. Sunny himself had received another azure blade memory. This one was a tachi, though.
Both Nephis and Sunny had no use for the shield, so it just sat there in Neph's soul sea. Sunny did replace his azure blade with the azure tachi, though, it was a weapon he liked more, after all.
Needless to say, other than the azure tachi, they had been disappointed with the memories. They were subpar, having no enchantments to speak of, and thus were useless to them.
Sunny and Nephis were ready to continue their hunt for strength, if it were not for Cassie's rushed and worried voice.
"D-Do you hear that?!"
"Hear what?" Nephis responded in her usual cold tone. Sunny seemed to be wary, though.
"N-Neph! I feel a vast shadow covering the labyrinth." He said.
Before they knew it, they had helped Cassie down from her mount to let her hear better. Cassie had one ear to the ground. When she stood up, she was confused.
"I hear… water?" Sunny was just as confused as she was. The light of understanding had flashed before Changing Star's eyes, though.
"A storm is coming." She said in a calm voice, almost as if the emergence of the dreadful, dark sea was not threatening to swallow their lives. Sunny panicked, holding Cassie and trying to get her back up on the echo.
"We have to go! Now! Help me with her!" He shouted at Nephis, demanding a helping hand. Nephis did not object, helping Sunny put the blind girl on the scavenger.
"What do we do?!" Cassie asked, feeling confused.
Nephis answered immediately. "We'll have to take the most straightforward path and cut through the monsters. Luckily, the cliff is not too far." Sunny nodded. That was exactly what he was thinking too.
The three had desperately started rushing towards the cliff, ignoring every monster along the way. Sometimes, some scavengers would choose to pick fights with them, but a couple of clicks from the carapace echo would deter them.
They reached their destination before the dark sea had caught up to them. Nephis tied the golden rope to Cassie as soon as she could and started climbing with Sunny. The echo was dismissed, though. Cassie was tied to Nephis with the rope and was holding onto her back desperately.
Eventually, when the sky had been covered by dark clouds, and nothing was visible to anyone but Sunny, they had reached the top. Soon after, the crushing dark sea had filled the crimson forest, but they were safe from its cold clutches.
Sunny, Nephis, and Cassie heaved a heavy sigh of relief. They had made it. Sunny chuckled, or at least tried to, his laugh came off distorted and uncanny through his panting.
"I… I guess we really are rock climbers, after all."
Nephis shot him a sharp glare. Sunny knew what Nephis was trying to convey with her action, which was along the lines of.
"I just climbed a massive stone mountain, running from a rising tide. This is not the time." Sunny could practically hear it. She ended up saying nothing, though. Cassie was tired, too. She was panting all over, and her body was trembling from exhaustion. Even though she had not run or climbed the wall herself, exhaustion was still washing over her. Nephis was easily in the best shape. The amount of soul fragments she had absorbed was staggering, almost ten times more than Sunny. One fragment was a noticeable, but not substantial increase, but when absorbing hundreds and hundreds of them, the difference they made was massive. She was still tired, though.
The team lay on the ground, uncaring of anything in the world. They were all tired and needed some rest. Wouldn't it be all right for them to close their eyes and fall asleep? But no, Sunny was not that careless. He would have to inspect the area at least. His shadow could inform him of anything that would rise from the sea, but if there was something already on the cliff, there would not be enough time. Sunny groaned as he stood up.
"I'll check around the island for monsters or anything that could be hiding here." He told the girls and focused on his shadow sense.
Through his shadow's eyes, the world was stark and dull. The colorful world had disappeared, replaced by different shades of gray. Sunny's shadow stealthily moved through the rocky terrain, scouting whatever beast might befall the group, and soon, it had found it. There was a lone scavenger lying on the ground… sleeping? The beast's shadow gave a weird, unsettling feeling.
Sunny smiled bitterly. "I found a lone scav-." His words were stolen straight out of his mouth, though. Because his shadow had noticed not one, but seven more scavengers on the island, all lying on the ground in various positions.
"Sunny… What is it?" Nephis said in a whisper. Sunny had a bitter smile on his face. Eight scavengers, there were eight of them. Sunny and Nephis could handle two scavengers. With the help of the echo, they could fight three, at least, but fighting eight of them was out of the question.
Suddenly, Sunny started laughing, though. His voice was dim and quiet, but he was unmistakably laughing. 'Wait?! Is this not exactly what my attributes and aspects are for? Indeed, the combination of his abilities was perfect for traversing through the shadows and striking from the dark. If he were careful enough, he could kill them one by one, without waking any of them up.
"Wait…" He said in a whisper, moving out to perform the best assignation on the forgotten shores, no doubt.
Sunny had quickly scouted the best order to kill the scavengers. He moved towards his first prey, azure tachi already in his hands. He aimed for the weak spot between their breastplate and head. Scavengers had three weak spots. One was a cavity on the back of the head that could be easily pierced. Sunny had used this one far too many times. He could not use it this time, though. The reasoning was simple, piercing the carapace made noise, and he needed to be stealthy. But there was a gap in their carapaces in between their breastplate and joints, too. In fact, these weak spots were probably also present for the higher classes of these monsters. That was because whatever needed to be flexible could not be hard. This was basic logic. Only the highest ranking creatures, the ones who could bend the world under their will, could ignore this fact. Luckily for Sunny, though, this one was just an awakened beast, so his sword pierced through flesh and reached the heart.
He was expecting the voice of the spell to announce his first ever successful assassination, but to Sunny's dismay it was completely silent.
'W-What?!' It took Sunny a second to realize, but his prey was already dead. He moved through his established route, piercing every single scavenger on the island, but they were all dead too. Each time, he could notice a massive wound dealt to their carapace.
Each and every single one of them had died, and whatever killed them was strong enough to easily tear through their hard armor.
Just this fact alone made Sunny's blood turn cold.