A strained silence hung in the air of his room in complete contrast to the deafening laughter that rang through it just a few minutes ago.
Sunny was watching Effie’s expressions shift every other second: from anticipation to disappointment, then to frustration and suddenly to interest and back to annoyance once again.
And so on it continued several times around.
While watching it, he was torn between being amused and uncomfortable at the same time.
The next second Sunny hissed as someone pinched his side and looked sharply at Kai, who nodded slightly towards Effie with furrowed brows and whispered to him: “Sunny, is that really your best idea for a first date?”
He blinked, dumbfounded, shifting his gaze between the two.
‘Are you two for real?’ He exhaled tiredly as he facepalmed and slowly massaged his temples with a humorless chuckle.
“What are you two drunkards even talking about? Marriages, dates… That’s enough booze for you two, I guess,” he muttered under his breath, and continued as Kai threw him a heated glare.
“You guys are totally misunderstanding something, okay? It wasn’t my intention at a–” Kai interrupted him then, agitation burning in his drunken eyes.
“Drunkards? Us?” Kai pointed to himself and Effie, amusement mixed with exasperation in his melodious voice.
“Sunny, you had drunk more than both of us combined! I can barely wrap my head around the fact that you are even standing right now.” he almost shouted in the end, which was not usual behavior for him at all.
The charming archer blinked as he caught an amused look from Effie from the corner of his eye and composed himself, coughing into his fist awkwardly.
“Anyways… What else was I supposed to think, with you two throwing glances at each other this whole time…”
It was Sunny’s turn to become agitated.
But before he could proceed with whatever rant he had prepared, Effie finally decided to join the conversation with a loud chuckle.
“Can you really blame me, though? I mean, I don’t remember having such a good time in a while! The drinks are good, the company is nice, the atmosphere is perfect. And I don’t even need to start to talk about food!”
To prove her point she took the last piece of roasted meat and slowly put it into her mouth.
A guttural sound of absolute delight escaped her throat.
She licked her lips seductively and slowly turned to Sunny once again.
He gulped visibly.
“And all of that is thanks to our wonderful host! I am a gal of simple needs, ya know? Keep me fed and watered, somewhat relaxed too, and other… needs of a more physical kind would start to arise…” Sunny gurgled from in front of her as he slid his hand slowly over his face.
He had really become unaccustomed to Effie’s antics after all those years.
“Anyways!” Kai thankfully decided to change the topic, seemingly uncomfortable being caught between two fires.
“I was wondering Sunny, how are you such a good cook? From how you described the outskirts, I thought you wouldn’t have much opportunity and… resources for that.”
Sunny exhaled in relief, deeply thankful for Kai’s situation awareness in this instance.
The theme of relationships was something he wasn’t ready to touch yet, if ever…
“Well, I am a fast learner, I guess. In the Academy I took only the Wilderness Survival course, and the professor who was in charge of me – Teacher Julius – was adamant about teaching me how to turn even some completely inedible things into presentable dishes. Also I quite liked cooking, so I had picked up a few things here and there. I even dreamed about opening a Café and Memory Boutique a long, long time ago — in another life, I’d say…” he chuckled mirthlessly as he took a random bottle of something strong from the table and took a swig.
Didn’t he promise himself to be more careful with alcohol just an hour ago or so?
‘Well, no plan survives first contact with an enemy or so they say’.
“Something like that, I guess.”
Two pairs of eyes were watching him silently this whole time.
Kai and Effie shared a short look, read the atmosphere correctly, and decided to drop the topic and postpone the previous discussion too.
Well, somewhat.
Effie smiled as she cleared her throat.
“Well, I’m glad you did! If you ever decide to proceed with that Café idea of yours, let me know. We’ll make it a family business!”
Sunny stared at her with a raised eyebrow, watching her giggle at his reaction.
He chuckled in the end too, shaking his head slightly.
Even if she was infuriating most of the time, he missed her and that personality of hers dearly.
After a few seconds of silence her expression changed to a serious one though, as she took a small sip of beer before proceeding.
“Anyways, what is your deal with that skeleton? I’m not a big fan of that guy, for your info. And I’d rather avoid the fucker if circumstances don’t force me to.”
Sunny nodded at that, taking a moment to compose himself, as he put a half-empty bottle on the table and threw a short glance in Kai’s direction.
He looked somewhat interested too, but Sunny could tell that the young idol must have been feeling uncomfortable, seemingly third-wheeling in this discussion.
“Well, actually it’s not like I wanted to invite only you to a hunt — Kai is welcome to join too if he wants. I would even advise it, as it’s a great opportunity to gain experience fighting a high-ranking Nightmare Creature in a somewhat controlled environment.” They gave him dumbfounded looks at that, as he chuckled.
“As I’ve said – somewhat. Regarding why I mentioned Effie, specifically… Well, it’s exactly as you’ve said, I heard that your old cohort members had died because of that murderous bastard, so I thought that you might have a debt to settle with him.”
A strained atmosphere returned once again after that, as everyone took a deep dive into their own thoughts.
Effie was tapping methodically on the table’s surface, while Kai was completely lost in thought, slight signs of apprehension showing on his handsome face.
Sunny knew that it wasn’t an easy decision to make on the spot, after all they were just Sleepers trying to survive in this hell, and to try and take down a Fallen Tyrant — a being of two Ranks and four Classes higher than them — was madness.
Suddenly the tapping stopped and Effie slowly raised her head and met his eyes, an expression he couldn’t quite read written on her face.
“If any other person asked, I would tell them off with some hard language. But something tells me that if I don’t take you up on this offer, you’ll go and kill the fucker yourself. And I actually do want to crush that big skull of his… That or my drunken mind can’t think straight.” All three of them chuckled simultaneously.
“Okay, I agree, but with one condition: I’ll be the one to make the last hit. I want the last thing that bastard would see was my smiling face.”
Sunny nodded, with his arms crossed, corners of his lips slightly tugged upwards.
“That’s the whole point.” he nodded slowly.
After a second or two of silence Kai cleared his throat next to them, to which they shifted their glances.
“I agree too, if you two will take me, of course. Well I… don’t actually have any grand reasons for that, but like Sunny has just said, it would be a good experience. Besides, it might sound strange but… I trust both of you with my life somehow, even though we don’t really know each other that well…” Effie nodded and mumbled in agreement to that.
“Oh, but we know each other very well, you two just don’t know it yet…”
Sunny giggled behind his hand.
In that lighting, being drunk, borderline ugly and giggling… this way… he probably really looked like some real gremlin.
Effie sighed as she rolled her eyes and Kai gave him some strange look, before proceeding.
“I’m not that great in close combat, though. Just so you know who you’re letting in.” Sunny motioned his hand dismissively at that.
“That’s f-i-i-ine. Your archery would be more than enough in this fight. Besides, we’ll get you into shape soon enough.” Kai stared at Effie shortly, his posture strained a bit, to which she just shrugged her shoulders.
“Also relax a bit, guys. You have the two most competent Awakened Demons with you; a vicious Ascended Demon and an ancient and no less experienced Ascended Terror with you. Nothing can ever stop us!” Sunny said with a grin as he took a final swig from the bottle and shot it through a crack in the floor at the Devil’s head again, giggling like a little child as it hit a bullseye.
Effie frowned at that, scratching her chin thoughtfully, and opened her mouth to point at the obvious inconsistency, but Kai beat her to it.
“Wait, something doesn’t add up. There is a Nightmare which is an Ascended Terror, obviously – that’s already crazy enough, but okay — then there is your Serpent, which is an Ascended Demon, I guess,” Sunny nodded to this, his grin growing wider.
“You said that you got a new Shadow yesterday, which I believe is an Awakened Demon. Where does the other Awakened Demon come from? And where does that leave you — you didn’t mention yourself the—”, he stopped as he saw Sunny’s grin almost reaching his ears, eyes shining with amusement.
“No way, you’re kidding, right? It can’t be what I think it is… How is it even possible? Maybe my Flaw is really broken…”
Effie followed Kai’s monologue attentively, her mind reaching the same conclusion as Kai with each word escaping his lips.
She looked between them, expression of pure shock, her drunken gaze making her look almost comical.
Sunny couldn’t control himself – he laughed.
“But, I’m not joking. And that is exactly what you guys are thinking!” As Kai made a choking sound, Sunny laughed shortly once again, and continued with a toothy grin on his face.
“That wasn’t how I planned to tell you this, but I’m too drunk right now to care.
So guys?
Are you two ready for one more crazy story for tonight?
Or well,” he chuckled, looking at the first rays of the Nameless Sun breaking through the dawn.”…today, I guess?”
*** This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
As their next hunt was promising to be somewhat tricky, they decided to take one day to prepare for it as well as they could.
That included Sunny and Kai going to buy some memories from the Stev’s market with the thieving Shadow being the sponsor for their group, as he had more than enough shards to afford it.
In the worst case scenario he could always rob Gunlaug once again.
Maybe set his bed on fire too… ‘This thought has potential’, he mused with a chuckle.
Effie meanwhile… was having a terrible hangover, looking even more dead then the Fallen Tyrant they were planning to hunt, so they let her off the hook just this once.
Now with slightly improved gear, recovered, and overall in a good mood, the newly built group was making their way through the catacombs very swiftly and barely meeting any resistance at that.
Initially Sunny wanted to wait for Nephis and Cassie to return from their week of imprisonment inside the walls of the Bright Castle and proceed with a complete cohort.
It would make the whole thing slightly easier, but he decided against that in the end.
There were several reasons for that decision, of course.
First and the main one — he was almost one hundred percent sure that they would return in a company of Han Li Caster, and even if that would definitely empower their group, he had a few problems with that — the key one being that he didn’t want to disclose his status as an Awakened yet, especially to the Valor’s assassin.
And despite his careful preparations, he was sure that in this fight he would have to show more abilities than he would be comfortable with.
The other reasons though…
“Damn, it’s so hard to believe it, honestly!” A choked whisper from behind him broke him out of his thoughts, as Effie squeezed her arms around his body.
Did she really want to seduce him with the way she was pressing her chest against his back?
He let out a half-irritated, half-amused sigh.
Why were all the women around him such freaks?!
Effie would have to try harder though.
With the level of degeneracy he had experienced firsthand over the last two years of his life?
Yeah, Effie’s attempts were almost laughable.
It was even amusing considering that he believed Effie to be the most depraved person he knew.
He was wrong, as it turned out…
Sunny shook his head, clearing his mind of stupid thoughts as they took a sharp turn.
“What exactly?”
This time it was Kai who shouted from behind her.
“Do we really need to list? Well, first of all, you’re the only Awakened person on the Forgotten Shore, who somehow did the thing naturally without assistance from the Nightmare Spell. Then there is the fact that you have a Divine Ranked Aspect, which gives you multiple Cores and an ability to possess special kinds of echoes that can grow stronger! And on the back of one such Echo we are riding at breakneck speed in the narrow catacombs infested by thousands of skeletons towards the Fallen Tyrant we’re planning to slay. And the most ridiculous thing is that all of that is not some drunken dream and you somehow managed to persuade us both into it with little to no resistance!” There was a moment of silence after that, before Kai sighed heavily, followed by the huntress’s amused chuckle.
“Sunny, be honest with us, please, do you have some mind-controlling ability too or is your craziness somehow infectious?”
Sunny laughed heartily at that.
“No to the first question, and not that I’m aware to the second one!” he shouted from the front as Nightmare was breaking through the horde of those puny skeletal abominations as if they weren’t even there.
Effie chuckled from behind him too.
“Oy, and I’m always honest, you should know it better than anyone! It’s my Flaw by the way — I cannot lie.”
A sudden coughing sound and an almost painful squeeze of the hands around his ribs indicated that Effie was quite surprised by the revelation.
Kai, on the other hand, just exhaled once again, half amused and half tired of his antics — something that Sunny could barely hear because of the wind blowing into his ears and all kinds of noises that followed them through the catacombs — and muttered something that sounded like “Well, figures…”
And so they moved through those old molding tunnels faster than any living being had probably ever done before them, not paying any attention to the army of mindless monsters that was trying to stop them.
As there were a bit more than a hundred meters left before the Tyrant’s lair, Sunny suddenly shouted: “Hold on tight, it’s about to get a bit loud!” And then it did.
A few moments later, the ground shook, the air trembled and grew hotter, and a dozen flashes of light and explosive sounds could be seen and heard from their current destination just beyond the corner.
It took mere seconds before they had finally reached the chamber and were jumping off Nightmare’s back, when one of Sunny’s shadows that had previously been nowhere to be seen shot forward towards him from the place where the explosions had sounded just a few seconds prior.
Saint materialized from behind and Serpent slid from his arm towards the ground, both Shadows immediately moving towards the place where they had just come from, seemingly taking on the task of protecting their rear.
Nightmare, on the other hand, shot forward, taking care of their other side, leaving the three of them to finish the giant skeleton that was already assembling itself.
Sunny wasn’t stupid when he considered that he could take the Lord with just the three of them without any tricks.
Well, they probably could if he were to pull out the [Shapeless Thief] again and burn the fat bastard until only ashes remained.
He wouldn’t do it though, not unless the situation was life or death — the damned thing already had too much influence on his mind, and he didn’t want to become any more of a thieving lunatic than he already was…
And so prepare, he did.
During the journey towards the Dark City, after he had awakened, Sunny was trying his hand at weaving Memories.
It was a long and arduous process that infuriated him a fair bit, but it was still useful.
First — he made a couple dozen memories for Saint to consume, which was one of the key reasons he had managed to raise her Rank to Ascended just before this battle — also partly thanks to him buying out all the junk Memories from the outer settlement Sleepers and during their shopping session with Kai just the other day.
And while it would take him a few days at least to make a memory of considerable complexity, there were simpler ones he could make fairly easily — even several a day, in fact.
Most of those were the exact junk that he made for Saint, but there was one very useful type — single-use explosive ones, or spell-grenades as he used to call them.
And while the loss of a soul fragment for one-time use could be seen as wasteful, in their current situation, it was a huge boon.
In the span of the few days before the fight, Sunny had managed to create a little over a dozen such grenades and, as they were making their way to the Lord’s chamber, he ordered his Crazy Shadow to plant those bombs all over the mountain of bones.
The subsequent explosions didn’t destroy the Tyrant’s shell completely, but they rendered more than half of its bones unusable and threw other parts all over the place, giving them a few precious seconds of head start in the fight.
And so they danced.
The whole fight was intricately planned and at the same time was quite chaotic.
Sunny took the role of the destructive distraction, absorbing most of the giant’s attention onto himself — putting the [Pariah’s Whisper] into the [Underworld Armament]’s free slot of his newly reacquired armor — and making it as enraged with him as he could.
Effie took the place of their main attacking force, while Kai took his usual role of long-range support, joining the close combat only when circumstances pushed him to.
It took a few minutes for them to adapt to the battle’s flow and to each other’s combat styles, as it was the first time in this life they were fighting side by side, and Sunny had to admit too that he had become unaccustomed to the ways Kai and Effie fought, especially in their Sleeper years.
So even if they could have finished the fight sooner, Sunny decided not to take the spotlight of the battle, taking this as an opportunity for his friends to flourish.
“Effie, left leg!” he shouted as he read the giant’s shadow and predicted its next attack.
The huntress dove to the side, but was still forced to block the attack with her shield and was pushed a few meters backwards as a result.
[Forgotten Repentance] flashed in Sunny’s hand as he glided over his semi-corporeal Gloomy shadow and struck the bastard on the inner side of what was supposed to be the Tyrant’s right hip and pressed the blade further, doing as much damage to it as he could.
The [Burning Grudge] enchantment was working in overdrive, making the sword’s blade and the air around it a source of all-encompassing cold.
The bones of the giant, being affected by it, became far more fragile, and that was where Kai came in.
Before the fight they had managed to acquire two dozen or so explosive arrows for him to use, but by themselves they didn’t possess enough firepower to significantly damage the Tyrant’s armor, so they came up with this plan in the end.
Luck was on their side in this battle too, it seemed.
The next second after Sunny had activated his grenade-memories and they had detonated, he got one interesting notification.
Long story short — that disgusting leech Corpse Eater ended up in range of the explosion and now Kai possessed a [Blood Arrow] too, which allowed him to continuously attack the bastard.
It wasn’t as effective against the Lord as it was against other monsters of flesh and blood, but it was an Ascended Memory nonetheless, so it was a boon.
Just as Sunny finished his thought and dove back into the shadows, the arrow collided with the monster’s hip and exploded, breaking a huge chunk of its bones with it and making the fat bastard lose his balance for a moment.
He and Effie immediately took that opportunity as they simultaneously attacked the place where its left foot joint was supposed to be.
Sunny pushed a bit more essence into the sword, wrapped two of his shadows around it, and changed the effect of the enchantment, making it turn into a source of infernal heat and melting all bones in its way.
Effie, meanwhile, pushed her spear from the other side of the foot through the gaps of the bone armor and twisted it with all her inhumane strength as she shouted: “First you freeze our asses with that stick of yours and now you’re trying to cook me alive! Doofus, do you have a sadistic streak or what?!”
Sunny grinned ferally as he shouted back: “More pushing — less talking, or I’m gonna whip that ass of yours on top of freezing and frying it too!” Effie laughed at that, as she made a final twist with a nasty cracking sound and Kai’s arrow connected with the Lord’s head, pushing the skeleton off balance and onto its back.
“That’s a promise then!”
“Can you two idiots stop that, please? Here of all places, really?” Kai shouted as he knocked [Blood Arrow] back into his bow and took aim again.
Effie laughed as she pulled her spear out and twirled around her body. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
‘Are you really trying to impress us, Ef?’, Sunny thought with amusement.
“What better place to cultivate passion, than in a life-or-death situation?”
It was his turn to laugh, gaze turning a bit distant, smile quivering slightly.
“I knew a person who used to say the exact same phrase when we were about to get our asses kicked. That’s still a ‘no’, though.” Effie’s face fell at that, and Kai chuckled from afar.
Now that they had destroyed most of the Tyrant’s armor, it was time for the final part.
All three of them shared a nod and prepared for the final act.
Kai knocked his last explosive arrow and shot it at the giant’s chest, as he was about to meet the ground, destroying some of the bones and cracking those that weren’t destroyed immediately.
That would be enough for now.
As the Lord’s finally collapsed, Sunny had already summoned his last two grenades that he left out just for this moment and had given them away to his Happy and Crazy shadows, and now both of them were gliding over the body of the monster towards the place Kai had attacked just a moment ago.
As they reached the spot, both shadows slipped through cracks and gaps in the armor and then turned corporeal in a form malleable enough to be considered somewhat close to rubber, but hard and strong enough to crack and spread apart those bones even more and then placed two soul-shard-shaped memories inside of it.
Sunny activated the enchantment as he jumped a few feet back.
Two explosions happened at the same time, so from an outside perspective it looked like a single fairly large one.
The bone splinters flew in different directions, and finally it became visible.
The grotesque core of the Tyrant.
It was even more disgusting than he remembered — parts of it blown away by the explosion, and a maggot inside it seemed to be fried a bit.
Effie gritted her teeth, a broad grin on her face, eyes wide and burning with raw emotion.
She finally took a step forward — or something akin to a jump, to be precise — with her left foot and, accompanied by a booming battlecry, threw her spear towards the Lord’s core.
The creature, hidden deep within the armor, scared for its pathetic life, decided to try to reallocate the bones from other places of its body and patch the hole in the chest, but it was already too late — Effie’s spear had already covered the short distance between them, broke through the thin barrier of bones the monster managed to move there, and finally pierced the core and the disgusting creature within it, blowing it apart and in the end got stuck in a protective cocoon behind it.
Stillness permeated the air for a few seconds, all sounds of battle stopped, and then the skeletal body of the Lord of the Dead finally fell apart.
Through the feelings of his shadows, he could also tell that the Tyrant’s army of minions, which had been taken care of by his faithful Shadows, fell apart too, leaving only mountains of lifeless bones behind.
The tall huntress took a shaky breath, her mouth slightly open, eyes distant, hands shaking slightly.
They could only imagine what kind of storm of emotions was raging inside her chest.
And so ten seconds went in silence, and then another twenty and some more after that.
None of them speaking, Effie absolutely unmoving except for her methodical heavy breathing.
It was her moment, something that she dreamed of doing for a while — at least he believed so.
Sunny would have too.
He was a vile and spiteful bastard himself, so he could sympathize with that.
Neither he nor Kai knew how long it took for the huntress to finally come to her senses.
It was a small movement of her shoulder at first, then a deep heavy breath, and eventually she slowly lifted her hand to her face and ran her fingers through the stray bangs, letting her palm rest on the top of her head.
Then finally she shifted her gaze to them, if just for a moment, but they could see it – her expression morphing into one of pure ecstasy.
She lifted her face towards the ceiling and laughed.
It wasn’t the booming laughter she usually had, and it wasn’t the one of sadness or melancholy either.
It was slow and quiet, melodious and steady.
It was hard for them to describe what emotion she tried to convey with it, but if someone asked Sunny to give his best guess, he would probably say that it was fulfillment.
He would probably feel it himself in her shoes.
He actually did… feel something similar after he killed both Anvil and Ki Song in his last life.
But the weight of his regret, guilt, and knowledge that the whole reason for his mad war could have been prevented… overwhelmed that feeling with bitterness and hollow pain.
“How long— how long did I dream, did I dread this very moment?” Finally, Effie’s quiet voice reverberated through the chamber’s stale air and dirty walls.
“Revenge feels hollow, nothing ever good, but more pain and sorrow comes from it… The books, the people — they all have said the same thing. That’s why I was terrified of this moment. What if it was all for naught? Just a petty thing that wouldn’t even give me relief?” But then she laughed once again – more fire, more passion within that sound.
“Then why does it feel so good? So refreshing? So right?!” Effie exhaled, not meeting their gazes yet.
Her breath shaky and eyes still distant.
“Were those grand speeches just bullshit or the problem lies with me? Am I just that spiteful?” she chuckled at that as she lowered her face and finally looked at them, a wide toothy grin spread on her face, eyes shining in the dimly lit hall.
“But you know what? I don’t fucking care one bit! Solely because we did it— I did it!—and all of us are alive and well too. So what if I’m a spiteful bitch? I have the right to feel good at this moment…” Effie let out a shaky delightful sound and continued, her gaze turning soft, smile smaller, demeanor more composed.
“Thank you. Both of you, guys, really. But most of all… ” she was looking solely at him now.
“Thank you, Sunny. Without you I probably would never have had either enough guts or the ability to go down here and finish this fucker. Thank you. You have no idea how much that means.”
Sunny smiled softly in return, but remained silent just for a second too long, before finally answering.
“Actually I do. I mean I do know how much it means and how much it hurts to leave loose ends behind and how good it feels to cut them in the end. I’m a spiteful bastard too, ya know? Probably the most spiteful in the world!” The three of them chuckled after that, that giant cold and moldering chamber feeling a bit warmer for a moment.
“But you misunderstand something. You would have come here in the end, one way or another, and you would have definitely crushed that disgusting worm — I only helped a bit to quicken that process. Also, you’re welcome.”
A comfortable silence filled the air after that, broken after a few seconds of Effie moaning quietly.
“Mou-u, man. With the way you behave, I could have sworn that you’re trying to get into my pants — not that I’m against it, mind you — but you’re still playing hard to get… Is that some kind of kink of yours? Long foreplay? A thrill of the chase?”
Sunny slapped his face.
Hard.
And let out a loud long growl, accompanied by his friends’ laughter.
He shouldn’t have expected Effie to behave like a normal member of society, but wasn’t that too short-lived a change though?
And so after the short banter they had decided to finally return to the City.
In the process of them moving back, however, a betrayal came, from where he’d least expected it to come…
Right after they reunited with his Shadows waiting for them near the exit of the tunnel they’d all come from, Kai suddenly held him back.
The young idol threw a short glance at Effie and looked at him, his expression dead serious.
“Sunny, are you really playing hard to get? If you are, then it’s not the best strategy to get a girlfriend, I tell you! I’m not an expert on the topic of long-term relationships, but I can give a tip or t—”
Sunny growled and slapped his own face.
Hard.
Again.
Those two idiots…
Hello, highly respected!
How have you all been?
I’m a little bit behind a schedule, and with a chapter that contains just half of the scenes that I initially planned…
Yeah, if things would continue like that, then FS would turn into a War and Peace or something.
I hope to post the next chapter till the end of the weekend or Monday maybe if things would go a bit wrong, I’ll see what I can do.
So, what are your thoughts guys?
This chapter gave me a few troubles with writing it to be honest, so it might rough around the edges.
So, criticism if appreciated too.
Hope you liked it anyway!
And see you soon.
Bye!