After sending his somewhat reluctant — after his famous heist — cohort members to the little ‘vacation’ in the castle, Sunny was very busy the subsequent days.
As his storage memory was close to being filled to the brim, he had to redistribute his possessions to other places.
And what better place could you find than the one guarded by one nasty bastard of a Fallen Devil?
Finally, Sunny was back at his old apartment in the ruined cathedral.
He also had to do a little bit of redecoration again: find furniture, make something akin to a stove, and clean the priestess’s closet so Effie wouldn’t find anything there to use for later teasing this time.
It took him a lot less time this round as he already knew, or at least remembered the general location, of the places he had looted last time.
So it was a busy day, all in all.
On some nights he also went ‘fishing’ again, but there was a problem — after the second night, which didn’t produce that many fragments anyway — any Nightmare Creature possessing half a brain didn’t come close to the location of the City, having seemingly already figured out that someone was purposefully hunting them down with a terrifying amount of success.
And those that did were usually too stupid, and consequently too weak for him to put in the effort and endure the shapeless weapon’s curse.
Still, he did gain quite a few Fragments anyway and now was short of less than half a hundred to finally acquire his third Core.
Something he was planning to fix today.
Also, in one of those few nights that he had decided to still summon the [Thief] and had created quite a ruckus, he had managed to attract the attention of another person, who was flying around peacefully and had decided to take a look from afar at what the hell was happening.
And of course that person was Kai.
It was a bit of an awkward first meeting, he admitted, almost as ridiculous as the one in his first life.
However, somehow, they quickly got along really well again.
It was concerning and understandable at the same time how much easier it was for him to interact with Kai and Effie rather than with Cassie and Neph.
In all of those two months of travelling through the labyrinth, there were probably just a handful of real conversations between them.
Most of the time they talked either about strategy and upcoming battles, or during training with Nephis.
It was like a wall was separating them.
It was understandable though, considering that both Kai and Effie were older and more socially skilled than the other two.
Well, Cassie had no such problems either before her blindness, but right now she was a bundle of nerves and self-deprecation, something that had started to improve, slowly though.
He also had no such complicated feelings towards them, and if he thought about it carefully, he was much closer to them in their previous life too.
The fact that he got acquainted with them both during his explosive fishing was kind of funny too.
‘Who knew that to find the best of friends in this god-forsaken monster-infested city, you just have to blow something up in the dead of night.’
And with Kai returning to his social circle, their amusing interactions had also returned in full force.
The beautiful archer always gave the most amusing reactions to Sunny’s antics, after all, and he missed them dearly, so he started to abuse his flaw almost immediately after.
Not only was it fun, but it was also a good way to bring them closer once again.
Sunny grinned.
But most of all it was amusing as hell!
Just remembering all those conversations made him want to burst into fits of giggles.
“Ehh… Do you mind me asking, friend… But what are you doing there?” the archer asked as he descended to the ground, warily shifting his gaze to the steaming sea from time to time.
“Oh! Can’t you see? I’m fishing! The haul is bad these days, tsk… After I slew that Corrupted shark, others are now reluctant to get close to the City. Maybe I should change the bait?”
“Sunny, did you hear the news? Well, you probably didn’t as you’re new here…” Kai took a cautious look around.
“Someone had robbed Gunlaug, the ruler of the Bright Castle! The whole City is being turned upside down.”
Sunny looked at him like he said something stupid.
He shook his head and grinned mischievously.
“Oh that was me, actually! Didn’t like the description my friend Effie gave about the guy, so maybe it would teach him a lesson…”
“Sunny, aren’t you worried about walking around the most dangerous parts of the City alone? Most of the monsters here are Fallen, after all…”
Sunny chuckled at that, a mad, greedy gleam igniting in his eyes as he shouted:
“I crave to meet them all! As many as possible, at that. You see, I plan to go hunt a Great Devil in a few days, so I need all the strength I can get!”
And so, as the girls were probably going mad from boredom and tiptoeing around the most sensitive subjects in the Castle, Sunny had finally reunited with his best friends and was having lots of fun!
He exhaled melancholically.
He missed them dearly after all.
And also they were planning to meet in two days to have a grand drinking party!
With Gunlaug being their main sponsor, that is.
Sunny chuckled.
He could only imagine the face that the bastard would make when he inevitably revealed that he was the one cleaning him up.
There was one problem with the party though — he was an Awakened, so it would be hard for him to get drunk.
The thing that was even funnier was that neither of his friends knew that yet.
He giggled mischievously.
He would outdrink them both under the table for sure!
His thoughts ran back to the past for a second.
He didn’t like alcohol initially.
With the ‘Harper situation’ and his general dislike of having his mind clouded, he hadn’t even looked at it for a long time.
The taste also wasn’t to his liking, so he saw no point.
But later in his life, when… things had turned for the worse, the irresistible desire to get drunk started taking hold of him.
Sadly, at that time he was already a Saint, so it didn’t work on him at all.
But things are different now!
And until he becomes completely immune to alcohol again, he should take his chances and savour the taste.
So the drinking party that is!
But before the date, he still had a lot of things to do.
First things on his agenda were acquiring his Core and reuniting with Saint.
So today was bound to be busy.
Sunny jumped from the roof of the ruined building as Nightmare materialized behind him and Serpent slithered from his arm to the floor.
Right now he was close to the square that the Stone Saints occupied last time.
And it was part of the City that was heavily infested with monsters — a place where no sane person should visit alone.
He wasn’t sane though, and he had a purpose, so that was okay, he mused.
All three of them shot off in different directions, starting their hunt.
They had a lot of abominations to slay — not only did he need to unlock his third Core, but he also required a hundred fragments to spare to turn Saint into a shadow, so he was bound to use the [Thief] today too.
For now though, he would stick to the [Forgotten Repentance].
As the vengeful tachi materialized in his hand, Sunny was already sidestepping to the side as the black basilisk shot forward to, what seemed like, consume him whole.
Sunny chuckled.
The Fallen Beast was too small in rank to have the right to swallow him — the only creature that ever managed it was one nasty Great Titan in the Hollow Mountains, and by Sunny’s own volition, no less.
Something that bastard regretted deeply, he believed, as his Soul Shard later powered the [Heaven’s Promise].
The tachi whistled through the air, striking the beast on its side, but bounced back immediately, without doing any significant damage.
Its upper skin was probably as hard as, or even harder than, any kind of alloy the waking world could produce.
In his previous life, he had avoided these particular creatures, knowing full well that he was no match for them at the time.
Now, though, the situation was different.
Sunny dove into the shadows as the basilisk coiled into a spring and shot its tail with a bang and a gust of wind, determined to turn him into a pulp with a single strike.
However, before he shadow stepped, Gloomy and Happy had disconnected from him and flew under the monster’s body, solidifying as they reached their goal.
One of his shadows turned into a spring under the beast and threw it in the air just a little.
The other — into a rope that bound one of its ends to a boulder and with the other wrapped itself several times over the basilisk’s body.
And the moment the creature ended up in the air, Gloomy started to shrink himself, spinning it upside down.
Sunny jumped from the shadow of the building the next moment, as the beast hissed, trying to set itself free in the process, but it was already too late.
[Forgotten Repentance] met a comparatively soft and unprotected part of its belly and sunk its blade deep into its flesh.
The monster hissed painfully as it shot its tail upward, trying to throw the crazy human from itself, but that was a mistake.
Sunny relaxed his body and shifted his weight solely to the hand that was holding the tachi as he slowly glided downwards, disembowelling the basilisk in the process.
As the monster thrashed and coiled again and shot towards him, wanting to at least tear Sunny apart before it met its end, he was already dismissing the blade and jumping off its body and onto the shadows yet again.
He didn’t wait long before the violent convulsions of the dying creature ended and Spell announced the kill.
In the minute it took him to finish the Fallen Beast, it already whispered a few times — Nightmare and Serpent were very busy too, it seemed.
He stepped from the shadows and moved forward, already searching for his next target.
Today would be a very busy one indeed.
His hunting down the monsters served several purposes.
First, of course, was the influx of fragments and soul shards to spare, but that wasn’t the main reason, though.
After they came to the City, Sunny had a bit under fifty memories — that he received, weaved, or exchanged for shards with Nephis — that he wanted Saint to consume.
But that would still leave him halfway through his purpose — making her an Ascended as soon as possible.
With his hunting down monsters in the City by day and sometimes fishing at night, that number had almost reached sixty, but there was still a long road to cover.
So Sunny came up with the same idea as the last time, but more brilliant, he believed — to buy out the memories.
But not from Stev, though.
Well, not only from him — Sunny was still planning to visit the giant soon to buy out all of the junk and put his hands back on the [Mantle of the Underworld].
His idea was pretty simple: he had decided to buy out all the junk Sleepers of the outer settlement possessed.
But it would be a strange and suspicious thing to do, considering his recent heist, so he chose to proceed more carefully.
By slaying huge amounts of monsters, he would come into possession of a lot of soul shards — from the outside perspective — and also of a lot of meat to spare.
So he provided a very good trade to the people on the outskirts — sell useless memories and get a week’s worth of food for free for each one.
By doing that, not only was he gaining a reputation, but he was also helping the Sleepers too.
He could, of course, go about it Nephis’s way — just give all the meat he had to the people, however, being seen as some kind of saviour was the last thing he wanted.
The recent conversation he had with Effie surfaced in his mind.
“Sunny, are you stupid? Why are you buying all this junk with those ridiculous conditions?”
He looked at her with a slightly raised eyebrow and chuckled, shaking his head at that.
“To you — it’s junk. But you have no idea how much one beauty I know loves such things!” he met her incredulous gaze and giggled, but then almost immediately his expression turned serious.
“And also…” he turned his head towards the outer settlement inhabitants going about their lives.
“I’m trying to help them too, you know.” He nodded towards where his gaze was directed.
Effie looked at him strangely.
“Well, why don’t you just give the food away, then? Why all these charades?” he hummed as he shook his head.
“That girl — was it Sid? — asked the same question just half an hour ago. And I’ll say the exact same thing I told her to you: if I were just to offer them food with no strings attached, they would either become suspicious — I know because I would have, I spent all my childhood and teenage years in the outskirts after all — or would paint me as some kind of saint — a kindness and selflessness incarnate. Which I’m not.” He scowled and gagged at the mere notion.
“This way they will still know that I’m helping and will be grateful too, but as it wasn’t completely for free, there won’t be any stupid ideas about me.”
Effie listened attentively, watched him as if she saw him for the first time — which wasn’t that far from the truth, as they had known each other for less than a week from her perspective.
And then she chuckled, nodding approvingly at that.
“You are one of a kind, Doofus…” He looked at her from the corner of his eye, his lips twitching as he mumbled: ‘Oh, you have no idea…’
And now, two days after that, he was running around the ruins again, slaying monster after monster, not slowing his momentum even for a second.
It had already been going on for a fair few hours, and he would also have to return to collect all the bodies, pull out the Shards, and then deliver them to the settlement.
He counted his kills slowly, checking his runes from time to time, and as he split the skull of the Awakened Demon, he finally knew — it was time.
He stepped into shadows immediately and fell on the rooftop of the building, preparing himself for the upcoming torture.
And finally, he felt it, even before Spell’s voice registered in his mind:
[Your shadow is overflowing with power.]
He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth as pain assaulted him.
It wasn’t the worst kind of pain he had felt — far from it — but it would still make it quite hard for him to continue fighting — and being surrounded by the hungry abominations would be a scenario he should avoid — so he was monitoring the number of his fragments almost obsessively.
[Your shadow is taking shape.]
He felt his Cores shifting, vibrating and being torn apart at the same time.
He was almost there.
After less than a minute of continuous torture, he finally felt his newly formed Core taking shape where there had been nothing just a moment ago.
And then…
[Your shadow is complete.]
He exhaled as relief washed over him.
Finally, he was a Demon.
And with that, he now possessed three shadows in total.
He looked at the newcomer and blinked and then exhaled, shaking his head.
‘Well, figures…’
The reason for his surprise was his newly reclaimed shadow, of course.
And staring at him was almost a normal, peaceful, and friendly figure.
He, however, knew… It was absolutely mad on the inside.
Instead of the Creepy, this time he reclaimed his crazy one… He shook his head, nodding with a smile to his newest helper, mentally welcoming him back.
To be honest, he had expected something like that.
After all, his shadows were just pieces of his personality, stripped of everything else, and hyperbolized to a comical degree.
It even surprised him somewhat that he still got Happy as his second one.
It seemed that he hadn’t changed that much after all.
He shook his head, dismissing useless thoughts, and closed his eyes, letting himself rest for a minute.
Spell continued to notify him from time to time, indicating that his faithful Shadows were still at work, making him feel a bit guilty.
He lifted his body and sat up, looking up at the sky.
It was an early morning yet, so he still had time.
However, if he wanted to make it in time today, he should hurry — there were a lot of things to do.
He stood up, as he dismissed his tachi.
He had initially planned to reach his Demon Core somewhere closer to the fourth month of his stay at the Shore and only then try to awaken.
But even with the clusterfuck that happened with the Tyrant and its aftermath, he achieved more and earlier than planned, thanks to Nightmare and, begrudgingly, to the [Shapeless Thief].
Speaking of Nightmare, the Dark City was the place where he was prospering with astonishing speed.
More than a thousand Sleepers and about the same quantity of abominations were the perfect source of nightmares for him to consume, so Sunny would be surprised if he hadn’t unlocked his Terror ability before the end of the month.
Sunny yawned, stretching his neck as the Spell notified him of his — or to be more precise, his Shadow’s — latest kills.
Sleep was a rare pleasure he could indulge in these days.
But it was no time for rest yet.
There was simply too much to do.
He sent a mental command to his Shadows to join him as he shadow-stepped to the final destination before they would have to move to the square.
As the black smoke was materializing over his hand, he was already diving to the side, barely missing the fangs of the creature that was attacking him.
It was canine, but not quite so, a tall and muscular monster, covered with thick and hard ashen wool and possessing two bestial heads full of sharp black teeth.
It somewhat reminded him of the dog that guarded the gates of hell — Cerberus, was it?
— but with a few key differences, no need to even mention his two heads instead of three.
The spine of the creature was protruding on the surface, looking raw and gross — as if someone had pulled it out just recently.
The fur on its head was longer and jagged, colored in pale scarlet, hard as steel and barely covering three demonic horns on its head.
Each head had only one huge eye, covering almost half of its disfigured face, with countless pupils rolling crazily through it.
Instead of a nose, the abomination possessed a slightly curved sharp horn.
It was a Fallen Demon, and the final foe he had to slay before moving on to reunite with Saint.
He grinned.
That one was going to be interesting.
Or maybe not, who knows…
Black smoke shifted in his hand, changing itself into a familiar form of a long black odachi.
Its name was [Flawless Emotion] and it was one of three Sacred items he received for freeing Danteia — the last living Goddess that was imprisoned in the Death Zone, on which border they had spawned two months ago.
And while it wasn’t as impressive as the [Extermination Road] in terms of destructive power, it wasn’t nearly as uncontrollable.
On the contrary, this weapon required the perfect control of emotions to wield it effectively, to feel the world and let the world feel and help you too.
It pushed the wielder’s mind to its limit, but in a good sense — making it permanently sharper, structured and less susceptible to impulses.
It helped him a great deal in overcoming his madness all those years ago.
Among some other things too.
While it sharpened the wielder’s mind, it wasn’t that good at protecting it, though.
So he was still susceptible to [Thief’s Instinct], but on a far lesser scale admittedly.
The only weapon that would absolutely negate its effect, he believed, would be the destructive chain itself — a suspicion that was proved correct when he summoned it for a few seconds in their battle with the Tyrant.
He digressed, though.
While it wasn’t as powerful, he would still prefer using it instead of its older sibling at least until he was sure that it wouldn’t kill him on the spot.
And well… he still loved that sword.
The feeling of tranquility, the control over his own emotions, the unbelievable sharpness… It was incredible and indescribable.
And so Sunny shot forward, ducking to the left as the beast stood up on its hind legs and swung its claws at him.
He parried the next hit, pressing the sword closer to his right shoulder and lowering his stance until he was almost kneeling.
Sunny twisted his body slightly to the side, and lowered himself even more, almost touching the ground with his right knee.
The monster’s paw slid over the blade toward its tip as he shifted his balance a bit forward and slightly turned the blade in his hand.
He lifted his elbows, guiding the creature’s strike behind himself.
The beast lost its balance for a moment.
Sunny’s eyes glimmered.
He shifted his weight towards his left leg and straightened his right one while he guided the blade behind his back and twisted his body half a turn.
The steel sang its song as the sword made half a circle around him and flashed through space upwards from below from his left side.
His strike landed on the wrist joint of the Demon, severing its paw completely in the process.
The monster wailed and Sunny laughed as he jumped back, dodging the beast’s lunging heads.
As it was thrashing crazily in pain, its pupils jumping over giant eyes, Sunny dove into shadows and stepped behind it, already swinging the [Flawless Emotion] again.
As the beast’s legs were quite muscular, with thick fur and even stronger bones, he didn’t believe that he’d be able to sever its legs completely with one strike — without activating the sword’s enchantment at least — being only an Awakened.
But he wanted to do as much damage while the Demon was confused — which would be no longer than half a second, he knew.
So he decided to be effective — something that he had learned lately in his life, thanks to this very same blade — and cut through the tendon under the beast’s knee.
But he didn’t stop there, though.
One of his shadows slipped under his feet and transformed itself into a semi-corporeal puddle, still partially wrapped around him, moving Sunny by the inertia just a few meters forward as he twisted his body again and cut the second one.
As the beast’s balance was a bit off after he severed its limb, losing its hind legs was fatal, and it fell to the ground.
But it was mad and not stupid, so it quickly started to turn itself onto its back.
But Sunny had already predicted that it would do so, besides, the fur and skin on the top were too thick, so it wasn’t his goal at all.
He shadow-stepped again, this time emerging in front of the creature, as it was still in the process of turning around, still vulnerable.
The black odachi whistled through the air, meeting the Demon’s horrendous eye and splitting it in half.
The beast growled, screamed and thrashed yet again, while he was already sliding on his shadow puddle toward the second head.
The creature wasn’t stupid, though, as it had seemingly predicted what he was planning to do, as it twisted itself back and shot its monstrous maw forward, barely missing Sunny’s hand and closing its teeth over the blade.
Their eyes met, and all of the dozens of pupils froze and stared at him in vindication.
He was immobilized.
He would either have to leave the blade for now and dive back into the shadows or try to struggle it out, leaving his sight open for the Demon’s claws and fangs of the other head.
However, his expression didn’t contain even a hint of concern, something that bothered the monster, making it stop in its tracks for a moment.
And then Sunny grinned.
The beast made a mistake.
A grievous one.
He twisted his body on the spot as he took a small step forward, seemingly continuing his attack.
But it was a stupid move, from the outside perspective.
No matter how strong he was for an Awakened, he wasn’t nearly close to the strength and durability of the Fallen Demon, especially one as mighty as this one.
The next moment, it understood, however.
As Sunny’s shadows wrapped around his body, he finally activated the blade’s enchantment.
The heat of a thousand suns ignited the edge of the [Flawless Emotion].
The Demon’s pupils widened as it made the move to let the blade go and duck back, but it was already too late.
Sunny’s figure blurred through space, losing its form, as if blending him into the world itself.
Well, it did in a sense… The blazing blade ran through the beast’s flesh and bones as if a hot knife through butter and simply split it in half horizontally.
The motion, however, didn’t stop, as the very next moment the inferno given shape met the creature’s neck upward from below, decapitating it completely.
The surging heat stopped and the world stopped its chase.
Sunny exhaled wearily, regaining his form and dismissing the Memory, as Spell announced his kill.
That was quite a fight and quite the feeling too.
The [Contradicting Harmony] was a powerful enchantment, but for him as a mere Awakened to fully activate it wasn’t the best choice, it seemed.
Not even a whole second of letting the blade connect him to the world put his body under quite a strain…
But it was worth it, though!
Even feeling the after-effects of the [Thief’s Instinct], he could also feel his mind surging.
He had never encountered a single item in his whole life that had such an effect.
And it was also somewhat permanent!
He was in a predicament once again: whether to use the [Shapeless Thief] more frequently.
He was already breaking his own promise to limit its usage to only life or death situations, and he was afraid that it would put his already unstable mind under strain even more… ‘But, damn, it’s so convenient!’
Not only could it transform itself into anything he wished while also gaining new enchantments in the process, it also had a bunch of its own ridiculously good ones on top!
He opened his runes and took a look at his Shadow Fragments section.
Shadow Fragments: [121/3000].
How could he not fall into temptation, looking at that?!
He had gained more than one and a half thousand fragments in less than a week and almost all of those thanks to the [Grave Robber] enchantment the [Thief] possessed.
The other ones, except the Bird’s curse, were pretty useful too… ‘Damn, it’s so hard to be rational sometimes.’
But thanks to the [Flawless Emotion], he could shake off the damn Bitch’s — and his own too, he admitted — greed.
So now that he was able to turn Saint into a Shadow, there was no immediate need to use the shapeless weapon for now.
At least he hoped so.
As he was musing on his thief dilemma, his Shadows finally entered the street.
They stopped in their tracks, giving the dead Demon a quick glance and then looked at Sunny simultaneously, waiting for the next command.
He grinned.
“Yeah, yeah. I know I’m awesome,” he chuckled as the Stallion rolled his eyes and exhaled, while Serpent remained suspiciously quiet — whether confirming or denying his statement, he wasn’t sure.
“Well, while I’m going to meet your big sister Saint, could you…ehh… collect all the bodies that we left?”
***
The square met him with a lot of empty space, still air and complete silence.
It was the first time he came to this place since their arrival to the City; however, he still peeked here involuntarily a few times with his shadow sense.
The first time it happened, he was terrified.
The space was empty — there was no group of Stone Saints there.
His heart squeezed painfully at that, the implication of that statement making his head spin and all air leaving his lungs.
He was simply unable to breathe.
No matter how much he appreciated his other Shadows, Saint was different.
She was with him almost from the very beginning, a constant presence in the back of his mind.
The moment he lost her, and the way that happened… It would always leave a deep scar on his heart.
So even the possibility that his actions somehow might have caused her demise yet again was tearing him from the inside.
His self-imposed torture wasn’t long, however.
At the very edge of the square, he had finally felt the presence.
It was different, though.
Much stronger than the first time they met, and also alone.
He could already predict what could have led to it, but now that he was standing in the square…
He looked around, and his breath caught in his throat.
His suspicions were proven correct.
Broken stone bodies lay lifelessly in different parts of the square.
All of them possessing visible similarities to each other and…
All of them fell by the sword.
Her sword.
She had killed them.
All of her siblings — the other Stone Saints.
She had freed them from the madness of corruption.
And by doing that…
The figure shifted on the other side of the square, interrupting his musings, and finally made itself known as it took a step from the shadows.
Ruby eyes met his black and held a gaze for a moment.
In front of him stood a Marble Saint.
After she had disposed of her stone siblings, she seemingly consumed the parts of True Darkness their Cores contained, which in turn kickstarted her subsequent evolution.
And here she stood.
An Awakened Demon instead of the Monster, like the last time…
‘My cute Shadows are trying to impress me,’ he chuckled at the idea, but it only seemed logical.
‘One upped a Rank while another a Class!’ Sunny let out a shaky breath, his heart fluttering.
All of that meant only one thing.
‘She remembers me too…’
At that moment, Saint hit her shield twice with her sword and then shot forward, trying to decapitate him with one strike.
He ducked, parrying her next strike with the [Forgotten Repentance].
‘Well, somewhat…’ Even though he could see that Saint recognized him, she was still corrupted for now, and also… She was an honorable knight, so it would be beneath her to simply give up her life without a fight.
He chuckled, as he stepped forward and ducked under her swing, his bent knees straightening like a spring coil as he made a piercing strike from his inside right.
The taciturn knight’s eyes narrowed as she took a step back and ducked to the side, taking his next strike on her shield and letting it slide off harmlessly.
She pressed her weight forward just a moment before the blade completely left the surface of the shield in an attempt to create an opening.
He took a step back and bent his knees immediately, not letting her throw him off-balance.
He smiled.
That was his Saint!
There was probably no other creature on these god-forsaken lands who was as capable as she was.
She was one true battlemaster after all.
And to defeat her would pose a real challenge.
‘A challenge I would welcome of course!’ he thought, a happy smile slipping on his face.
And so their dance continued for a while.
The sound of metal and stone hitting each other could probably be heard even on the other side of the City, but any creature that was stupid enough to try and take them from behind in the end met their idiotic end not from one, but two blades wielded by weapon masters.
From all of the creatures he had met on the Shores in his life, Saint was the only one who posed him a significant challenge — not even Fallen ones made him sweat and race his thoughts that much in a fight.
Most usually, they didn’t, to be honest, as a strong mindless beast was still a mindless beast.
He even had a few open wounds now, not very deep, though.
Saint was a bit worse for wear, but still pretty lively.
He could swear he could see a smile under that helmet too.
Sunny could, of course, have dived into his knight’s shadow and read her next moves, thus ending the fight in under a minute.
But he didn’t want that, of course — he respected her too much to do that.
And it was very fun to have a worthy opponent after a while!
Both of them already knew how each other thought, how they fought and how they moved, so it made it only more interesting.
And so they clashed, sparks flying, blades singing, feet dancing and minds running thousands of thoughts per second.
But all fun always had to end anyway.
It did in this case too.
As he dove under Saint’s swing, he suddenly closed the distance between them, almost being hit by the shield in the process — not the best move from the outside perspective.
He, however, wanted exactly that.
As the shield flew past him, his left hand landed on its edge and then pushed.
At the same moment, as he was already side-stepping around her, his right foot found its mark under the knee joint.
She lost her balance.
He knew that it wouldn’t take her even a second to regain it, so he had to be fast.
His heart gripped itself painfully, doubt overcoming it just like when he had to kill Nightmare.
His mind, however, was sure.
There was no other way for him to clear her of corruption and turn her into a shadow anyway.
At least not yet.
So just a moment before his blade connected with her neck, through a broken piece of her helmet, he could see her lips moving.
No sound escaped her, as usual; however, he read what she wanted to say perfectly.
It was a simple sentence of two words.
Just a second before Spell announced his kill, his Shadow, comrade, and friend, for the first time in her long and arduous life, said simply: “Thank you.”
Tears rolled down his cheeks as he wept.
All the memories they had together surfaced in his mind.
All those years, challenges, and happy moments too.
She was always there.
Always supporting, honorable, and faithful.
And then how she died.
How it broke him even more that cursed day…
His lungs burned it was hard to breath a bile rose in his throat that he couldn’t even swallow.
And then Spell whispered helpfully, pulling his mind out of the gutter.
[You have received an Echo.]
He stilled in stupor for a second and then some indiscernible sound escaped his throat as he let out a short breath.
He wiped his tears, as the sorrowful expression was finally replaced by a happy smile.
He shivered, looking at the sky in gratitude.
He did it.
He got her back too.
It felt like the weight of the world had finally left his heart.
He felt so light.
But also tired.
So very, very tired.
He wanted to rest.
But he shook his head, in the end banishing drowsiness away.
There was still a lot to do.
And first of all…
From the outside perspective, it took no more than a minute, but for him it felt like an eternity was passing by as he watched her turn into a Shadow, a melancholic and somewhat worried expression on his face.
And when the process was finally complete, he summoned her immediately and shot forward, pulling her into a tight embrace.
“The hell do you mean ‘thank you’?! It’s me who couldn’t thank you enough! Thank you for being alive! Thank you for remembering this crazy bastard that I am! And most of all… thank you, for everything you ever did, Saint! And sorry… I’m so sorry… How can I even look at you now? You have no idea… Well, you probably do…”
He rambled his mind out but then stopped suddenly as he felt her arms wrapping around him too.
His body went still.
He shifted his gaze to her face, and unexpectedly she had dismissed her helmet.
She was looking at him with a smile present on her face.
Her ruby eyes were full of warmth, her whole expression a rare picture of pure emotion.
His eyes watered again, as he squeezed his embrace tighter, too afraid that this moment wouldn’t last.
That the very next second he would open his eyes at the very bottom of the Great River.
Corrupted, dying, alone.
But he knew that was true.
He didn’t want to believe otherwise.
And so he allowed the tears to roll once again.
He was becoming too emotional in his thirties, it seemed.
But that was okay.
That was good!
Everything was good now.
And he would do everything in his power so that it would stay that way.
Neither Gods, nor Deamons, nor even Fate itself would be able to stop him otherwise…
***
After the emotional meeting with Saint, Sunny still had a lot of things to do.
First of all, collect all the bodies, pull out the shards, and transport some to the outer settlement for sale.
In the first part, his faithful Shadows managed that quite quickly, and having Saint back with them increased the speed of their progress even further.
The last few days before their ‘Saint Rescue Operation’, he spent on weaving a simple storage Memory.
Well he wouldn’t call it that…
To be honest, it was something between a carriage and a huge box with four simple wheels.
Its insides though were increased several times and weight it carried reduced.
It couldn’t store the items within his soul, but it served one simple purpose — to transfer a huge amount of meat and even bodies to the settlement.
Neither he nor Nightmare especially liked the fact that he had to pull it like some kind of cargo horse, but well, there was no better solution, at least for now… And that solution, or at least the means for its realization, he was planning to acquire today.
Yep, he was planning to siege the Soul Devouring tree and finally reclaim the Blood Weave.
Something told him that it was a terrible idea, considering that Shadow’s Lineage turned out to be a rather useful one in the end too.
And even though the side-effect that Weaver’s Lineage brought — the possibility of waking up a corrupted deity — was a huge downside, its upsides were still larger on his scale.
So he had to try, even if he wasn’t sure what would happen this time.
So he still had to finish his business in the City and be quick about that too.
Their entrance to the settlement was quite a sight today, by the way, he chuckled: him riding a lustrous Black Stallion, both covered in blood and pulling a carriage filled to the brim with a mountain of monster bodies, half of those Fallen.
As he had already gained a reputation amidst the inhabitants, he had quite a queue of people looking to sell their junk Memories to him.
But today, he had no time for pleasantries — as they had to cover quite a stretch of land to reach the Ashen Barrow before the day’s end — so he didn’t bargain too much, giving away even more meat, as he had a lot of it to spare today.
Not that he felt bad about it — quite the opposite really.
And so, just an hour or so before noon, he had crossed out that item in his agenda for today and was finally leaving the City behind, riding his faithful steed and enjoying the rays of the Nameless Sun.
It was a bit hotter today, though, somehow…
As he and Nightmare made their way towards the statue that his cohort had taken refuge on several times in his past life, from the corner of his mind he felt a strange movement in the dirt beneath them.
He blinked and then chuckled as they stopped suddenly.
He looked at the ground, his eyes narrowed but a smile playing on his lips.
He summoned the [Knight’s Oath] — as that sword had a somewhat strange ability to be launched almost as precisely as a spear — took aim, and threw it toward the spot he was staring at.
As the blade connected with the ground, it made a short screeching sound — a strange thing considering the ground should be relatively soft.
But the next moment, Spell announced the reason for that occurrence — and for Sunny’s strange behavior too.
[You have slain an awakened monster, Rolling Stone.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
And then, after a short moment of hesitation, Spell whispered again, making Sunny smile melancholically and chuckle.
[You have received a Memory.]
He’d got the [Ordinary Rock] back!
***
As they had to go around the canyon — as he didn’t want to dive there yet — they had to spend quite a bit of extra time there.
But as they were traveling through the shadows most of the time, their speed was still tremendous, so they reached the barrow while the sun was still relatively high.
And the sight that met them just past it made his heart race a bit, with excitement.
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he clapped his hands excitedly, his eyes shining with greed.
“I want that! I want that!”
The reason for that was simple — from the east, towards the Ashen Barrow, two Carapace Centurions were quickly making their way.
That wasn’t what excited him, but the things they were carrying instead.
Each of the Centurions held a Transcended Soul Shard after all.
And Sunny could think of a thousand ideas of what to do with those.
And so, when they finally emerged from shadows near the tree, Saint materializing behind him and meeting the Carapace Demon’s gaze, with Serpent slithering out from his hand to her aid.
The Demon roared in rage and attacked.
Nightmare, on the other hand, jumped back to the shadows and was making his way towards the two Centurions.
Sunny — not having a particular need to join the battle, as all creatures were relatively weak and easily manageable for his Shadows — looked at the Tree with a menacing stare, feeling it trying to probe his mind and meeting an impassable resistance.
Sunny giggled menacingly.
“Whose mind do you dare touch, brain-dead stick?” he tutted after that.
“Wait a bit, your turn is soon too.”
He jumped on the nearest branch, feeling the Tree’s unease turn into fear, but he ignored it for now as he slowly climbed, listening to the Spell announcing the Centurions’ deaths.
The Demon was still alive though, as they had to reach the statue to get the Midnight Shard from it.
So at this point it should be a limbless piece of meat, not quite dead but not a threat to anything.
However, something felt wrong.
The unease he started feeling the moment they left the City intensified with each meter he climbed higher.
He swallowed.
Something wasn’t right.
He bit his lower lips.
He didn’t like that premonition at all.
It didn’t take him long to reach the right branch and find that hole where the nest had been the previous time.
And indeed it was there.
The hole, the nest and even the egg.
And he didn’t need to touch it to know that it was The Egg.
Everything was exactly the same as the last time.
The unease didn’t leave him, though — it only became stronger.
He summoned the [Shapeless Thief] and turned it into a form of [Flawless Emotion]; the curse attacked him as usual, but he felt a vengeful glee.
The deadbeat mother killing its unborn offspring, how fitting.
A perfect vengeance indeed.
But as the blade pierced the shell and reached the embryo inside it, and before the Spell whispered into his ear, he understood what was wrong.
Well, he had understood it much earlier, but only now was he sure.
And the silence that met him afterward confirmed his fears.
There won’t be a Blood Weave for him in this life… Because…
His thoughts were interrupted, however, as the Spell had finally decided to speak, out of pity most likely.
He blinked, pupils widening.
‘Is that even possible?
Two times in a day?!’
What it said was simple, but not the usual sentence, nonetheless.
Especially for Sunny…
[You have received an Echo.]
Hi!
How have you all been?
I’m writing late once again (3 am or so right now), decided to finish this one sooner.
No drinking party though, as the chapter grew too much, as it usually happens.
It would almost certainly be in the next chapter, though.
Anyways, loved writing this chapter even considering that it turned into another behemoth.
Would like to hear thoughts, as your comments are the biggest motivation to write sooner.
The next one should be out in 2-3 days, I guess.
So see you soon and take care.
Bye 🙂