And so, one hour later, after the cohort received the news of their impending doom they were once again circled around the giant stone table in the spacious nave of Cathedral.
It took some time for Kai to retrieve Sid and for Sunny to heal enough to stand on his own two feet.
The wound he received from the Terror was a tricky one, as it was resisting healing provided by Neph and Sunny’s not possessing Blood Weave put him in a compromising position to say the least.
Though, his Shadow Lineage ended up being a huge boon this time around, as without his affiliation to Death provided by it Sunny would have turned into a Nightmare Creature by now.
Also, being on the verge of dying as he escaped the Spire, Sunny found out one neat feature of his [The Shadow’s Claim] Attribute too, he mused with satisfaction as he lowered his gaze towards his abdomen.
And there in a very grotesque show, countless thin shadow-threads were slowly knitting his flesh back together and — as he was partially a shadow creature now — weaving new one for him too.
It was slow, gross from the outside, and an overall unpleasant experience, but it was the only reason he had managed to survive.
He sighed painfully as his mind wandered towards the short fight he had with the Sun at the Spire.
There wasn’t much fight to be fair — he just got his ass kicked, no matter how you look at it.
The difference in strength was just insurmountable even with all his tricks and tons of experience.
Initially Sunny had one crazy plan to shadow step to the top of the Spire and bind himself to the Gateway, just in case he would need to Ascend in the future, however the Terror gave him no such opportunity.
The moment he crossed the boundary of the island, Sun flashed away all the shadows from the Spire, immediately pushing him and Nightmare out.
And so they were forced to fight.
He could have tried to blow the creature apart with the throw of the [Heaven’s Promise], but it always crept close and then never gave him an opportunity to do it safely.
Besides… what would he do next, if that were to happen?
Become a soul conduit?
What if the spear tore the Spire and the Gateway apart too?
So there was no other choice but to fight.
At some carefully calculated moment he had managed to summon Saint with a [Flawless Emotion] in her hands and amplified by his three shadows and with her [Stalwart] attribute protecting her from significant soul damage she managed to approach the abomination and wound it, before she was almost blown apart herself…
Sunny clenched his teeth.
The radiant bitch would pay for that.
For both tormenting his cute taciturn Knight and skewering Sunny himself with a solid corrupted piece of light.
Damn that hurt…
So both of the parties were forced to tuck their tails between their legs and regroup.
Well, if someone could name his subsequent escape that way.
And here he was, alive, beaten, with a heavily damaged soul and having no idea what to do next.
He exhaled heavily before two of his shadows — third being the one patching him up — disconnected from him and slid towards the table and spread over its surface.
As a precaution they moved in a way that from an outside perspective it looked like only one, if you were not paying very close attention to it and knew where to look — something Sunny believed Caster had no idea about.
Sunny held his arms straight over the table’s surface as the shadows’ shape started to change.
First a small version of the Dark City materialized almost at the center of the makeshift map, standing at the very edge of the giant crater; then a Crimson Spire appeared next to it; to the west from it materialized a temple he and Cassie spent the night on; and not far from it to the north-west grew a picture of ruined stone buildings and dense forest around it with a net of wires reaching somewhere into its depth; from the southern side of the map spread the mountain range that circled almost over the more than a half of the Shore; to the north manifested gloomy Barrows and the field of the Burned Forest; and finally to the east lay a Nightmare Dessert showing a giant skull and a famous Pyramid far away from the borders.
“Sunny…” Kai’s voice echoed hoarsely from his side, Sunny shifted his gaze at him briefly as the handsome archer was looking at the map in front of him in fascination — an expression mirrored by everybody present.
“Am I…” he started saying but then stopped and shook his head with a chuckle, seemingly predicting the answer of his friend.
“What exactly is that?”
Sunny looked at the map again as he concentrated on the final point of the map — south-west from the Spire and close to the border of the Hollow Mountains where the small abandoned and partially ruined settlement stood and then finally he answered.
“This…” Sunny started slowly, licking his lips nervously as he made a wide gesture over the map.
“This is all of the options we have on our hands.” He took a step back and threw one look at his audience and then circled around the table standing side by side with Nephis as he stared intently at the image of the Pyramid.
“This place,” he tapped on the solid surface of the map, Changing Star watching his every move attentively, her expression deeply thoughtful and visibly disturbed.
” is just death.
Not only would it take us months to cross the boundary of the regions — something that only a handful of people would survive under direct view of the Sun, that would inevitably become a Titan in the middle of our journey — but the horrors the desert contains… we have no way to counter.
At night especially.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Caster raised his voice from the right side, next to Nephis as he looked over her shoulder and at him intently, motioning at the table.
“No one is going to state the obvious?” he looked over at everyone incredulously, and they shared a curious look over the situation they had found themselves in.
“How do you even know any of that? From your own words, that place is months away from here!”
Sunny forced himself not to curse in irritation at the annoying guy.
Maybe he should really bite his head off, just to relieve some stress at least…
‘That thought has potential’, he thought with amusement, but decided against it.
For now.
“I had travelled there at some point,” he said simply to everyone’s surprise.
“You fool have no idea how fast Nightmare can be, huh?” he said with amusement in his voice, dodging the question easily.
“Besides, I also possess some… external sources of information too,” he said cryptically, to which Nephis just rolled her eyes with a sigh.
“Yeah, yeah. Let this guy keep his secrets,” she said dismissively with a wave of her hand to an even more incredulous look from Caster.
Sunny in turn met his gaze for a second, wiggled his brows, smiled widely, and turned around not waiting for his reaction.
He could feel his burning gaze and silent cursing, though.
What a fun guy to mess around with!
“Back to the topic at hand, you said you’d been in the desert didn’t you?” After receiving his nod, she continued, shifting her gaze back to the map.
“How bad is it, just for a record?”
Sunny chuckled as he commanded his shadows to transform a portion of the map into a small recording of the neverending battlefield.
“As bad as it gets. The whole desert is the cursed echo of the War between Gods and Deamons thousands of years ago, with both participating parties cursed into an endless battle each time the night falls. So,” he lifted his gaze and met questioning looks of his friends one by one before continuing.
“Most of the creatures are deathless — and as it appears from the name cannot be conventionally killed. If we were to rank them… I’d say Corrupted and Great in most cases. With a few exceptions of the lower ranks and even some Cursed here and there; those creatures that can be killed are of a similar rank too.” he finished with a sigh.
After a few moments of silence Effie let out a quiet, humorless laugh.
“He-he, no thanks. We’ll pass on that one,” she said nervously as he nodded and motioned his hand dismissing the image of the desert.
Once again he moved around to the Northern side of the map standing between the perverted huntress and Sid, who looked like she hadn’t slept for a week straight.
Well, she might as well hadn’t, considering how much he was running her around the city.
‘I need to give her a raise, or something…’, he thought with appreciation.
He was starting to understand why businessmen chose to delegate most of the tasks concentrating only on the most important ones.
“These regions,” he motioned to Barrows and then to the Burned Forest on the map before proceeding.
“…are also out.
Even though I have a general idea where the citadel might be located, ” he tapped on one point in the forest.” …we won’t ever manage to reach there.
For the same reasons mostly: the journey would take too much time and Sun most likely would cook us before we even reach there.
But even if we did, the Nightmare Creatures are out of our league too.”
This time no one asked for elaboration, as he moved to his next spot — to the west, from where he started.
“This is where we had come from a few months ago. And Neph and Cassie here,” he motioned to them both.
“…will confirm what kind of hell of a journey it was before we met Nightmare,” he waited for a few seconds before receiving nods supporting his claim from both aforementioned girls and then continued.
“Abominations there are much stronger than around the City — most of them are Fallen with even a few Corrupted ones running around, though we managed to never meet those thanks to Cassie — and the journey there would be even longer than to any other region.” he finished with certainty in his tone.
His eyes, though, still lingered on the place where the nets of wires led…
He shook his head with a sigh and dismissed that region too.
There was no humanly possible way for them to reach there in time with a thousand of humans to protect, then break through endless hordes of abominations no less dangerous than Crimson Terror, some even much more harrowing before they reached the Gateway.
Especially if they took the guardian into consideration…
Once again he asked himself incredulously how he even managed to kill that bastard alone, with only his Shadows to help him and being a mere Transcended Titan?
He chuckled with exasperation.
That was ridiculous!
He had managed to kill a Great Titan, then two months later an even more dangerous Great Terror — yeah that creature was more of a menace even though it was of a lower Class… And still somehow that wasn’t enough for an Act of Defiance to the World!
Oh, but when he decided to jump into the volcano… That was the real shit!
Thus that was why he would have to challenge a Fourth Nightmare this time around…
And so he moved to the Hollow Mountains, between Kai and Cassie.
His eyes lingered on the other point, that lay almost on their border, before he sighed.
“Here are the Hollow Mountains, every one of you already knows of those, but just in case,” he said as his map moved to the side, materializing a part of the world past the mountains, without going into details as he massaged his brows.
“It’s what separates us from the outside world. And we of course could try and cross them… though I would advise against that too,” he said with a humorless chuckle.
“It’s a known Death Zone that even the most renowned Saints are reluctant to approach. We could of course try to move under them, through a region known as an Underworld,” he said slowly before Kai shook his head with a sigh.
“We got your point, Sunny, please stop…” a few silent nods, accompanied by the sour looks of others were all the acknowledgement he needed before he dismissed that region too.
“And so, that leaves us with only two options, one more crazy than the other…” he stretched over the map and pointed at the inconspicuous ruins on the map, that most weren’t even paying attention to.
“This… is the place where the Second Nightmare’s Seed is located,” he said with a finality as a series of short breaths followed him and all of the eyes stared unblinkingly at the spot.
“If we were to start moving within the next two to three weeks, there would be a chance that maybe half of the City population — if we even take all of them with us — could make it there before the Sun evolves into a Titan. But I would bet at forty percent at most, as there is neither enough time, nor Ascended Soul Shards in our possession for me to make that many soul-protecting Memories…”
“Can we shorten the time to get there somehow?” Nephis said as she approached them and stood to his side staring at the spot with pursed lips.
“Right!” Effie exclaimed, as a spark of hope started to dance in her eyes.
“Didn’t you say that you three used a boat or something a few times as you travelled to the City, with Nightmare scaring off anyone stupid enough to attack you?”
Everyone nodded agreeably to that, their expressions changing.
Except his and Nephis of course…
“We did…” Changing Star answered reluctantly.
“But you noted correctly, Effie.
There were just three of us.
There is no way we would get enough resources or time to build a ship — or several — big enough to host more than a thousand of people,” she said dejectedly with a sigh.” Besides, with that amount of pure human souls assembled into one place… There is no way that we won’t attract anything truly harrowing.”
Sunny nodded at that.
But that wasn’t the only problem here though.
“Can’t Sunny just… use his fishing techniques or something?” Kai said with a chuckle, at how absurd it sounded.
The looks Caster was giving them were priceless.
Oh, that ignorant fool… Sunny smiled slightly.
“I can, of course. But there is a high chance that I might go crazy on the way,” he huffed with amusement.
“Well, even crazier, if you believe that. But anyways, that’s not the point. How are you planning to move the giant ship through the coral labyrinth during the day even if we had managed to build it somehow?” Effie blinked and cursed and Kai facepalmed too.
“Yeah… we would be sitting ducks the whole day, while we wait for the sea to approach, so that might end up even more dangerous and a slower journey. So that’s out. If we choose that one, we go on foot.”
Nephis nodded from his side, still tracing the possible roads from the map and then came to one obvious issue and frowned even more.
“I agree. But… we have a problem,” she said, as she pointed at the Spire.
“How far does the influence of the Terror reach?”
She met his gaze for a second, before he smiled sadly and stretched his body over the table and pointed at the general location of the Sun’s kill zone.
Nephis sighed and pinched her nosebridge as she took a step back.
‘Did she just swear?’ It seemed that she did… He was being a bad influence on her.
And that was the second problem they had — the road through the labyrinth they had to use as they moved around the Spire was now well within the Terror’s reach.
And taking the next one, meant that their journey would prolong for one more week at least.
Time they did not have.
‘Yeah, fucking Spell that is…’
“So if we take that road that means that we’d be either leaving most of the non-combatants behind — which is more than a third of the whole City’s population — as they would be dead weight, let’s be honest,” he went silent for a second, letting the situation register a bit more, before exhaling heavily.
“Or bring them with us and risk the lives of the main force in the process, thus diminishing our chances as a whole,” dead silence stretched over the space of the nave.
“And that is not everything too…”
Effie cursed, already knowing where the conversation was going.
“Fuck it! Do you have any good news at all, Doofus?”
He looked at her briefly and smiled with an empty look in his eyes.
Effie swallowed.
“Honestly? I don’t think that I do,” he heard her swear once again as he turned around towards the map.
“Now, back to the topic. If my information is still correct, then in the area close to the Seed a Corrupted Beast made a nest, and chances are that we would be forced to meet it.”
Nephis let out an exhale.
The situation seemed hopeless, no matter how you looked at it.
A movement to his side caught Sunny’s attention as Sid, who was silent till this point, lifted her gaze from the map and met his eyes.
“…And all of that even before the Nightmare itself, which would be the hell of its own,” she frowned, and bit her thumb’s nail.
“No matter how I look at it, we would be extremely lucky if even three hundred would survive until we reach the Seed… Though, I bet that after the Nightmare there would be no more than a tenth of that, if we survive it at all — and that is a very optimistic prediction,” she said solemnly, her tired eyes moving over the map carefully.
“And if we leave most behind, and take only fighters with us… That would increase our chances drastically…”
She met his gaze for a moment, a silent question behind her sleepy eyes.
He cursed mentally, as he massaged his temples.
“Honestly, I despise that idea,” Nephis said with a flat, slightly bitter voice, from his side as she straightened her back and looked at him too.
Everyone was looking at him to be fair.
A weight on his shoulders became even heavier.
“But what other choice is there? You said there were two options, didn’t you?”
He chuckled.
And nodded towards the place that recently almost killed him.
“That one is obvious, actually. All we have to do is go and kill the Crimson Terror before she becomes a Crimson Titan. The first good news by the way — there are just a bit more than a dozen of Fallen abominations around the Spire now. So… cheers?” he said with a fake enthusiasm under the pointed looks from everyone.
“Yeah… except there is also a soul crushing field that almost killed you, with all the gear you have. What chance do any of us have there?” Kai half-asked half-stated dejectedly.
“Oh, not a simple field my friend,” Sunny said as he shook his head giggling maniacally.
Memories of the Falcon Scott resurfacing as a burning rage took a hold of his heart.
“A full-fledged fucking Domain at that!” he hissed.
Yeah.
That was the problem.
It wasn’t just a Corrupted Terror.
It was a Corrupted Terror on its way to becoming a Titan with a functional Domain at that… Not a pale imitation that the Tyrant they slew a few months ago possessed, but a real terrifyingly powerful Domain.
If the Sun was allowed to evolve, then it would put even Winter Beast to shame, he was sure.
He sighed heavily.
Now that he thought about it, the Nameless Sun was a very special Nightmare Creature to begin with, as it was keeping in check the Dark Sea — a Great Titan for a second — for centuries if not longer, and the moment it got sealed killed almost every living creature on the whole Forgotten Shore i — an area of several million square kilometers!
All of that while being jusr a Fallen Terror.
Considering the fact that they actually slew a very smart, fairly young abomination, with a Domain that only started to emerge — an achievement considering its young age, low — or was it high, as it was corrupted?
— Rank and a relatively small number of subjects behind its back — Sunny came to one amusing conclusion: inhabitants of the Forgotten Shore were just built differently.
Not only corrupted ones, but humans who lived through it too, obviously.
A fact that was proven right several times in his previous lifetime.
As for why it decided to evolve this suddenly… He would want to blame Fate, Weaver and dead Gods…
However he already knew that it was his fault to begin with: he had acted too rashly; killed too many strong Nightmare Creatures on their way to the City; reunited with Nightmare — a Shadow of the same Rank and Class as the Sun; used [Shapeless Thief] way too many times than he should have; and even killed a few Corrupted abominations; oh and he was also the only Awakened human on the whole Shore, that possessed multiple Cores and was teaching other humans how to awaken too — even though the Terror, probably didn’t know that.
The point was — Sunny was a threat.
An only real threat, the Sun probably met in a while.
And as she had more than enough essence to spare, she decided not to wager and began her evolution.
First starting with Rank, as it was usually faster transformation — as far as he was aware, though he wasn’t an expert here — and then began slowly titanifying herself.
Even though Sunny believed that the Sun — or what was left of the nameless girl, that was made a goddess to be precise — generally didn’t want to continue its miserable existence, it was still a Nightmare Creature, so it was its instinct.
And in that case it overruled any conscious thoughts that were left inside her, if any.
Actually he felt a great deal of sympathy towards the pitiful being.
He couldn’t even imagine how it felt being torn apart and burned alive for all eternity.
All because of the stupid choices she made, for everyone’s good.
Or maybe he did…
He sighed as he straightened his back, looking at his friends’ incredulous faces and blinked.
Yeah he got too immersed in his thoughts, it seemed.
“Sunny…” he heard the quiet and slightly dangerous tone of Nephis from his side.
Oh, right.
He said the D-word… “What is… a Domain?”
He held her heated gaze for a second.
A wave of emotions that others probably would never be able to see — well even he barely could — was bursting behind her eyes.
He sighed.
He could also feel the strained gaze of Caster with the back of his head.
The bastard probably never expected for him to open that topic.
Or even being aware of it to begin with.
The idiot himself knew only bits and scraps, as he figured out in Antarctica in his last life.
“It’s a somewhat complicated thing…” he said slowly, as he scratched his chin, thoughtfully.
“But if I were to break it down in simpler terms, then I’d say that Domain is a manifestation of the authority and influence a being holds over the piece of the world. It can be a territorial thing or an entirely conceptual one. But usually it comes somewhere in between, such as in the case with Terror’s soul devastating one,” he explained as he looked pointedly at the map once again.
“The thing is, ability to possess Domain usually comes only in higher Ranks for humans and Noble Creatures, or lower ones in the case of Corrupted Ones. Such as Supreme and Great Ranks respectively,” after those words left his lips he tapped at the manifested model of Crimson Spire silently.
“The creature we’re dealing with is an exception to that rule. A very powerful one. We already met one such exception before by the way…”
Cassie’s expression twisted painfully at the reminder.
The monster in question gave them quite a trouble after all, and scrambled her own mind terribly in turn.
“That Fallen Tyrant…”
Sunny nodded simply to that.
“Yeah… Though, its Domain was a pale imitation of a real one, barely having any effect on the world and other beings. The Terror, though, is a real deal. Her current Domain can probably rival the one Sea has, something that usually shouldn’t be possible. Though, I believe I know why…” he said with an impressed smile.
” In all those centuries Terror lived as a literal Sun and fed on souls of the inhabitants of these lands, she slowly took over the authority and subjects from the Dark Sea, thus diminishing its Domain’s strength and increasing her own significantly.
So she could have evolved into a Corrupted one a long time ago…”
He lifted his gaze from the map and exhaled.
He could feel the questioning gaze of everyone around him.
Even Han Li’s heir was giving him a strange look.
Nephis, on the other hand, was simply staring blankly at him, unsure of how to proceed, and whether she should at all.
In the end her curiosity overpowered her cautiousness.
“How do you even know about such a thing?” she asked nonchalantly, as if the source of such knowledge might not be the cause of her ruined childhood and endless attempts on her life.
Sunny in his own turn chuckled, his eyes distant in reminiscence.
“Believe it or not, but at some point I may have met one kind Goddess who was bored enough to enlighten me about lots of such things…” he smiled as he threw one short look towards where the region she was trapped in was located on the map just a few minutes ago and shook his head.
He looked away — and like everyone in the room — faced Kai, who was staring at him with wide eyes, almost falling from their sockets; the breath of the gentle idol caught in his throat; expression deadly pale; mouth opening and closing silently.
Sunny couldn’t help it — he snickered.
Nephis didn’t look amused even one bit, though.
She gave Kai one short look and then stared directly at Sunny once again, her expression twisting barely perceptibly, as she clearly wasn’t satisfied with his answer or being unsure how to even interpret it.
“Wait, you’re going to drop a bomb like that and then refuse to elaborate?!” Effie shouted incredulously as she looked over Kai’s back at him with outrage written on her face.
“I would,” he replied simply, with a devilish smile, before huffing and shaking his head.
“Besides, my sources of information and previous adventures are not the most important things right now. We were in the middle of figuring out how to survive this ordeal, before this lyrical digression.”
Changing Star gave him one more flat look and gritted her teeth quietly before nodding reluctantly.
“Indeed… Though, after all of that is over, you will have a lot of questions to answer, Sunny, be aware,” she said, her tone containing a slightly dangerous edge, before she looked away back at the shadow-map.
“And so we have several problems here too, besides the most obvious one. First — we’ll need to reach the island to begin with — which won’t be as easy as you say, since there are not many fighters among the inhabitants of the City who have any experience and skills to survive a clash with a Fallen abomination. And as those few creatures had managed to survive constant soul attacks, they won’t be simple Beasts, I’m sure.”
Everyone looked at him for confirmation of her assumption, as he made an affirmative gesture with his head, a downcast expression on his face.
“You’re right, of course,” he verified simply with a sigh.
“Most of them are Demons, with five or so Devils, and there is even a Tyrant among them too…”
That won’t be easy indeed… Though, compared to everything else that part seemed doable, if they prepared thoroughly and planned the siege carefully.
There was the main problem though…
Sid slowly tapped at the surface of the map shifting her gaze from Spire to the Ruins periodically, before saying slowly.
“So even if we manage to get to the Spire, there is no way for us to counter the effects of that Domain thing.
And considering how far it reaches from your own words, we would be cooked alive even before we reach the island.
And even if we did,” she said, stretching her last phrase with a humorless chuckle.”…there is also a Corrupted Terror — which is almost Titan and has some abilities of a Great one — to take into account.
No matter how I look at it…” she lowered her voice for a second and licked her lips nervously, “we’re fucked…”
And indeed they were.
Technically they didn’t need to kill the Terror — only to distract it long enough for all other Sleepers to escape to the Waking World and then escape too, while using [Heaven’s Promise] to destroy the Gateway.
Well, as if distracting a Corrupted Terror was an easy task, of course…
The main problem was the Domain, which wouldn’t let them come close to the Spire or fight all the abominations that would be protecting it.
And there was no solution to that problem that he could think of…
“Sunny, can’t you… you know, make a Memory or something that would neutralize the effects of the Terror’s Domain?” Kai’s uncertain voice sounded from his left hopefully.
Sunny rejected such an option almost immediately, though.
“It’s beyond my current abilities… Well, maybe I could do something, but I’d need at least seven Transcended Soul Shards, preferably Supreme ones,” he threw a look at Kai, before hammering the final nail into the lid of that idea’s coffin, noting his friend’s already hopeless expression falling even more.
“And there is not nearly enough time for me to make such a complex Enchantment too, nor do I have sufficient materials to bind it to.”
Sunny would be lying if he said that he didn’t consider such an idea himself.
The problem was as he said there was not enough time, nor resources.
He could of course slay the Corrupted Nightmare Creatures, but it wouldn’t serve his goal any good.
[Shapeless Thief] was a very greedy Memory, after all, and while it gave him tons of additional Fragments it also destroyed Soul Shards of any creature he slew with it.
And he wasn’t foolish enough to consider that he would manage to kill seven Transcended Beasts — or even higher Classed abominations — without it.
On short notice, at least…
Damn it, if only he had a template for it, just something helpful…
“So, there is no other choice, I believe,” Changing Star’s solemn voice rang once again as she straightened her back.
“We’ll have to challenge the Second Nightmare,” after receiving reluctant nods from everyone except Sunny and Sid she continued.
“The question is… whether we go in a small group, or try to mobilize everyone and hope for the best.”
‘Fuck it, here is that choice again…’, he thought bitterly as he threw her a short and sharp look, she didn’t acknowledge as they continued to talk.
He shouldn’t really blame her for that, as he knew that if there were any other possibility she would be the first one to pick it.
And yet, the bitter memories of his past life managed to resurface anyway, reminding him how much misery and pain some of her choices brought in the end… Whether it was the events on the Shore and rivers of blood she shed and mountains of bodies that were left behind; his enslavement and what it led to; their Third Nightmare and that maddening attitude of hers; and what happened afterwards and the reason… all of his friends died along with Changing Star herself.
He gritted his teeth.
He had many faults and made many mistakes.
So many that they would burden him for the rest of his life.
But Nephis… she was no angel either.
And while Sunny knew his own sins and what his decisions led to, Nephis… was also responsible for a lot of misery that flowed not only into his life, but into countless other people’s too.
And thus — not unlike his situation with Cassie — he couldn’t simply forgive her…
Because he knew this version of Changing Star that stood in the same room as him this moment would make the very same mistakes, given opportunity.
And that is why he didn’t want to leave the lives of so many people in the sole hands of a socially awkward girl with a severe childhood trauma, who had a stupid notion that she knew the best.
Because he more than anyone understood, that she didn’t in fact know what was the best… And her stubbornness would one day be the end of them all.
He knew all that, and yet…
“You are mad!” a scream from his side, interrupted his thoughts for a moment, as he looked up.
“Do you really expect us to leave countless other Sleepers — some of those we even consider friends! — behind just to have a higher chance of survival?”
Effie shouted as she hit her fist on the table’s surface with a terrifying strength making it crack slightly.
“And what do you suggest, you fool?” Han Li’s heir’s voice was unusually raised too, his expression twisted dangerously.
“That we add a weight of a thousand more people behind our backs and what? Hope for the best?!” he asked with a chuckle before screaming suddenly.
“We will be condemning those few who have an actual chance of survival, you dimwit! Those who can’t hold a blade in their hands would die in the best case scenario anyways, and in the worst — would bring down the fighters who would be forced to protect them too!” he exhaled shakily and shook his head.
“And we don’t even need to start about provision; accommodations; rules and the ways to enforce them; and all the other things that we would require for such a journey! Is there even high grounds that are spacious enough to host that many people?”
Effie opened her mouth to say something to that, but he continued without even giving her a chance to retort.
“I tell you — there isn’t! At least in the vicinity of the Castle there is none. So we won’t even manage to survive a day’s worth of travel through the damned labyrinth!” he said with finality as he pointed at the map in front of them.
“And even if by some miracle dozens of massive high-grounds leading all the way to the ruins would suddenly show up… We won’t make it in time before Terror evolves! With so many refugees we’d have to care for, we’d be cutting our speed in half, at best! And look me in the eye and tell me that you actually believe that even a mere hundred of those would survive a Second Nightmare even if we somehow bring more than a half to the Seed?” Caster asked simply, managing to compose himself a little, as he stared Effie down.
The huntress in turn looked at him disgustedly, opened her mouth again to rebuff, but then stopped, staring motionlessly for a few seconds and holding her breath; her gaze growing distant; face tightening; hands started shaking at some point.
She exhaled with a curse.
He was right of course — there was simply no way to bring that many people with them.
Not in their circumstances.
Not in this Death Zone…
Sid, who was looking at their clash attentively, her jaws clenched tightly, suddenly straightened her back and turned to her left as she addressed Changing Star directly.
Calmly on the outside, though all of them could tell that she was on the edge of exploding.
“What you’re proposing, however, is that we leave people that we survived in this hell for years with to die. I don’t know about you, Legacies,” she said with a dangerous hiss.
“…but I won’t be able to sleep, knowing that I slipped away like a rat at night and left my friends to die a gruesome death to save my damned skin!”
Nephis looked at her silently for a few seconds, her eyes cold and emotionless, before she took a step forward.
“I proposed no such thing,” she said simply.
“We can manage to take a few more dozen people with us, not everyone must be a fighter. So you can bring a few of your friends of course.”
Something dangerous shone behind the mousy-haired girl’s eyes as her fingers cracked.
“That is not the p…”
A sudden choking sound interrupted another approaching clash of opinions as all of them suddenly looked at Sunny, who stood with his eyes wide, staring at the wall where the old map was hanging, points and crosses depicted on it.
It was the map that contained the location of all the statues of the Starlight Legion’s founders.
And currently his gaze was directed at the place where the last two Shards were presumed to be located…
“I…” he said hoarsely, not turning away from the map for even a second, as a tiny spark ignited in his eyes.
A small smile found its way onto his face.
“I guess, I’ve got an idea…”
***
“Denied,” Nephis’s strained voice rang through the spacious nave of the Ruined Cathedral as she looked at the shadow that was pacing around the table, on which the reconstructed layout of the Crimson Spire was depicted.
“This is pure madness, you had barely survived your last sortie and you say that you are going for another one? The very next day? You have a death wish or what?” she looked at him with a raised eyebrow, her voice a noticeable tone higher than usual
Caster nodded from her right as he stared at him with an outraged expression.
“Even beyond that solo journey to the other Death Zone alone, the whole idea is crazy,” he stated simply as he shifted his gaze towards the manifested image of Spire.
“Distract and hold. A Corrupted Terror. With a group of Sleepers…” he said slowly, rolling the words around his tongue, his left eyebrow ticking at the end.
“How do you even expect to do such madness?! You’re delusional!” Legacy shouted, pointing the finger at nonchalantly looking Sunny, as his voice ripped slightly.
Kai immediately stood to his friend’s defence though.
“Madness is leaving countless human lives to die!” he shouted in an uncharacteristic display for him and stood opposite Han Li’s heir and stared at him face-to-face with apparent disgust.
“Besides, if he even suggested such an idea then he already has a plan.”
Effie came for help too as she stood beside Kai.
“Yeah. Sunny might look crazy sometimes, but he would never risk our lives if there is no chance at winning, You would have already figured it out yourself if this whole time you weren’t simping for N–”
Suddenly a rock whistled through the air and found its mark at the huntress’s crown of the head.
She hissed painfully and threw a betrayed look to Cassie at the same moment as Changing Star — thankful.
For someone blind she was surprisingly precise.
The Cassie in turn sighed and finally — probably for the first time in this debate — gave her opinion.
“While I disagree with Effie’s depravity, her and Kai’s points I can support. Sunny wouldn’t offer something this outrageous if he weren’t sure enough — well, considering everything — that we have a chance of success,” she said simply before turning to face the madman in question, who was still silent for the last few minutes.
“Though, I cannot support your decision of going alone there. Besides, you almost died this morning and are far from being recovered yet. You need to take someone with you!”
His cohort members nodded to that and looked pointedly at him.
Their burning gazes started to make his skin crawl.
He cursed silently and exhaled as he turned to face them.
“I cannot take anyone, as I would be travelling through shadows the whole way there. Otherwise it would take too much time — something we can’t afford. By the time I reach the Mountains, it should be okay for me to fight. Besides, I’m not alone at all, if you forgot…”
He looked at them with a raised eyebrow.
No matter how much he cherished his friends, all of his Shadows were of an Ascended Rank and if worse came to worse and the four of them wouldn’t be enough, the chances were that others help won’t be too. Follow the newest chapters on novelping . com.
So, there was no much point.
Cassie shook her head still.
“Okay, you have your Echoes to help in a fight, but what about the dangers that the mountains and the place underneath them contain? At least take me with you, I’m not going to be of much help in a fight but…”
She couldn’t finish whatever she wanted to say, as he interrupted her rudely.
“But nothing. I have a supernatural intuition too, and while your visions could be helpful, that’s the risk I am willing to take, because, as I have already said, we won’t be able to travel through shadow and thus, it would take us significantly longer to go there and back. And I have a few counters to whatever dwells underneath. So unless I meet something too harrowing, I should be okay. And if that were to happen…” he muttered as he looked at the visage of the Mountains on the map, perfectly familiar with what kind of horrors lurked within, He swallowed.
“…then there is nothing anyone can help me with, I’m afraid.”
Cassie took a sharp breath and held it, staring at him with her unseeing eyes for a few moments before nodding shakily, perfectly aware that there was probably no way to make him reconsider.
Nephis on the other hand, who was looking at the exchange silently threw the blind girl a short look, disappointment flashing there for a second before she took a step forward and said simply.
“No,” she shook her head.
“That is too much risk. That idea of yours… What if you were to die there? What would happen to the people that we still could save?” she said pointedly.
“You are our main attacking force, Sunny. Not only you — your Echoes also hold immeasurable value and without you, we may not even have a chance of reaching the Seed, much less surviving the Nightmare it contains. So no, I object to that madness,” she said firmly as she stared directly at his face.
The moment the first word left her lips, something ignited within his eyes, a small sharp smile appeared on his face as he listened to her.
He was nodding to her reasons as she was talking, as if humoring her, and as she finished, he simply held her gaze for a few seconds and then chuckled, actually amused.
“Tell me, Neph. What do you know about me?” he asked quietly, his head tilted to the side.
She blinked dumbfoundedly, not expecting such an answer.
He however didn’t wait for her to answer as he attacked immediately.
“Well, let me tell you — you know nothing!” he hissed as he took a step towards her, his eyes flashing.
“Of what I went through; of sacrifices I made; of how many people I had to bury; you don’t have even the tiniest idea about that, do you?” her hands trembled slightly as she took a step back, but he still pushed.
“And you… tell me to do that again? To abandon all of those already hopeless people — people that are fucking believe in you?! My friends among them! And like in a damned Falcon Scott go and save my skin?! Ran away and let them die by another Titan’s Will?! And all for your damned rev–” he stopped as he took a shaky breath and ran his fingers through his hair with a giggle and threw her a disturbing look from the corners of his eyes.
“As fucking if!” he shouted, in her face under the shocked looks of everyone.
“What gave you the idea that you can command me? What gave you the notion that you can control me?”
He shook his head as he laughed as if he heard a most ridiculous joke and then looked at her again, growing silent for a moment.
“You can’t.” he said simply as he stood there.
Nephis’s facade broke at his outburst: her eyes grew wide, pupils trembling, heart pounding in her chest, hands shaking slightly.
From her perspective it was probably uncalled for.
She cared for him.
Tried to protect him.
Make him reconsider his stupid choice.
He didn’t care though.
By screaming his lungs out right now he was spilling years of rage and frustration he had for Nephis.
Both this, and the other one.
His Nephis.
The one that forgot him after the Third Nightmare.
The one that killed his friends in her path to revenge.
The one that left Effie’s son an orphan.
The one that caused him to wage a mindless vengeful war that killed millions.
The one that he loved all those years ago…
“Sunny, I…” she breathed in sharply, trying to compose herself and say something in her defense, but he didn’t let her.
“I wasn’t asking for permission when I said that I would proceed with this plan. I was telling you a fact,” he chuckled as he looked at his cohort, taking in their expressions and after seeing what he wanted he nodded to himself and continued.
“I have people who support me, I don’t need your approval Neph. And I would make everyone leave this hell alive, with or without you. Or I would die trying,” he threw her a disappointed look and shook his head.
“You should know better than anyone, how loathsome it is… to give up.”
He turned around not giving her an opportunity to respond and moved out, passing his slightly disturbed but proudly looking cohort that at some point gathered together once again.
He stopped shortly in front of them and whispered something quietly and after receiving their nods he turned toward the exit.
“How do you think you are?! And where do you think you’re going? Sunny! This conversation isn’t over, damn it!”
Caster who finally put his wits together shouted to his back and activated his aspect to try to catch up to him.
Sunny smiled slightly not turning around as he concentrated on the Legacy’s shadow and then pushed his meager Will towards its legs, making it trip and with it Caster himself too.
Legacy yelped as he fell face forward and then looked at the floor with shock as he tried to stand up with a silent curse.
As he lifted his gaze towards where Sunny was just a few seconds ago, there was nothing, but an empty air already.
***
The quiet rustling of a pen scratching quickly as it slid over a simple piece of paper spread through a dimly lit room at the higher floor of the Bright Castle.
A flame of a lonely candle danced silently on the top of the table from the left side of the beautiful pale-skinned woman completely engrossed in her task.
Seishan worked efficiently; fast; precisely; never making any mistakes.
She became familiar with doing paperwork even before being summoned to the Dream World, so she knew her work quite well.
Her pen stopped for a second as her thoughts ran to her home.
To her proud, loving yet strict mother; to her dear sisters, who by now would all be adults; to her beautiful home…
Will she ever see it again?
Any of it?
The faces that to her shame started to become blurry?
The walls of a Jade Palace?
The familiar lands she spent her childhood on?
She would.
There was no other way after all — only freedom or death, for if her betrayal came out too early she would be finished.
And yet she took that risk.
That was her best and probably only chance at returning home again.
So she continued to work, going through the motions; making notes and calculations; managing the resources that she knew would be spent much earlier than in what she was forced to write.
Seishan chuckled quietly.
She just couldn’t help her mind drifting away from time to time.
Freedom was so close after all… Home was almost in her reach.
And then she finally finished, putting one last bold dot on the paper and put her pen away as she leaned on the back of her luxurious — by the Forgotten Shore’s standards — chair and exhaled tiredly.
She was overworked and needed to sleep.
Well, now she could allow herself that luxury, she believed.
But just to her luck, the moment that thought finished forming in her mind, her sharp eyes registered a movement to her right side and she sighed as she saw her late guest…
At the end of the room, with its arms crossed and leaning its back at the wall stood a figure of a young man.
Well if she didn’t know he was a man, she would have thought that it was a terrifying Nightmare Creature…
The figure had a very vague, slightly shifting shape and she could barely even tell how tall it was.
It was entirely black, with two ruby lights shining where she knew its eyes were and possessed four long curved horns — two for each side of his head — protruding from his forehead and bending a long way to the back.
The presence it exuded was… not of a human for sure.
It instilled a deep sense of wrongness and bestial fear on anyone who was stupid enough to stay close to it.
However Seishan knew that the figure belonged not to a Nightmare Creature at all, but to one of her fellow conspirators.
‘How long was he standing there?’
“Lady Song,” the figure said with a nod as it took a step forward from the wall and removed the dreadful mask from its face.
A pale skinned boy — still in his teenage years, no less — stood before her.
Seishan knew better however.
As that boy was probably the most dangerous being on this land… “Sorry to interrupt your well-deserved rest — that I’m sure you were planning to take.” he said with a smile as he slowly looked around as if it was the first time he was ever there.
She summoned her privacy memory silently and activated the enchantment as she put it on the table.
“Sunless,” she nodded with her lips slightly tugged.
“Never mind it…” she made a dismissive gesture and massaged her forehead tiredly.
She could imagine that her evening had just become much more complicated.
“For a man on the verge of death you look surprisingly well,” she said as she motioned for him to take a seat opposite her, an offer he took without hesitation.
“Rumors travel fast even in this god-forsaken land, huh?” he asked with a chuckle.
“That, they do… But only if you’re famous enough, of course,” she said with a smille he mirrored.
“Yeah…” he drawled.
“Famous, indeed… Anyways, I brought back some news from the Spire. Both bad and terrible, but also… kind of good for you?” he said with amusement in his tone, though she could tell, that he was very disturbed behind that facade of his.
‘Spell it… My luck is terrible, won’t even let me dream for a bit,’ she thought dejectedly.
On her face though her smile became a bit wider but with a barely visible strained edge.
“Do proceed in that case,” she said as she motioned for him to continue.
“Oh, I am a terrible host. Tea?” She asked as she started to stand up, already knowing his answer.
“If it’s not too much trouble. The discussion is not going to be short, that’s for sure…”
Sunny said politely and then exhaled as she moved towards the small stove and leaned back in his chair.
It didn’t take long for her to return with a full set of tea accessories and start to prepare the tea.
“Well, now that we went through formalities, somewhat, I may as well begin,” he said tiredly and after she gave a short nod, continued.
“Let’s start with good ones first. The thing is that we might go to the Waking World much sooner…” he drawled as she gave him a sharp look, her expression souring, as she was already predicting what might be in the ‘but’-part.
“On the other side we have a Corrupted Terror with a full-fledged Domain, that in no more than two months — probably shorter — would evolve into a Titan. Thus there is a very high possibility of death too,” he said as he took a small porcelain cup filled with a fragrant tea from her hands, her expression not betraying a storm that was brewing inside her.
“So we’re kind of fucked too, I guess.”
Seishan looked at him for a while, before she laughed, not sure if she was amused or terrified of the news given to her.
“Were we ever not?” she said slowly, as he chuckled in kind.
“If you’re here, that means you must have some idea of how we can survive, don’t you? And it must also mean that we’d need to accelerate our plans too.” she deduced correctly as she took a small sip from her own cup.
“Oh, yeah I do of course! One crazy plan, to be fair,” he said as she gave him a look.
‘As if there were ever normal ones with you…’ “And yeah, accelerate our plans, that is…”
***
And now here he was, sitting at the top of the southern City wall cross-legged — meditating, circulating his essence through his body and soul and pushing his Will to its limits as Nameless Sun was chasing Dark Sea away.
No matter how sure he acted of himself in front of others, Sunny was actually worried.
‘Fuck that, I’m scared shitless…’ Not of the journey he was planning to take, but of what would happen after, if he wasn’t eaten by some lost Cursed abomination in the higher levels of the Underworld…
After all, no conventional means would be enough for him to win a battle against the Corrupted Terror in his current state — probably a Titan, knowing his luck.
A creature so unconventional that it was actually giving troubles to a Great Titan…
Yeah… if he wanted to win in that situation, he would need to cheat.
And he still had a few trump cards left, just for such a case.The thing was… Sunny wasn’t sure that he would survive if he were to use either of those.
And yet, he knew there would be no other choice.
Both his intuition and his common sense were telling him that.
So he would have to prepare.
He opened his eyes slowly and then stood up, as a small, intricately engraved, black lantern appeared in his hands which he carefully bound to his belt.
A small voice gleefully cackled in his head, but he shook it away, paying it no mind.
He turned to the side and took a few steps there, standing in front of his faithful stallion and scratching his neck affectionately.
His friend wasn’t fully healed too, but there was no choice for both of them, if they wanted to survive what’s to come, there would be no rest.
Sunny patted his steed on the back gently and then mounted him carefully.
It was time.
He looked around briefly, stared at the distance for a second, and took a breath in, giving Nightmare a mental command as they dove into shadows and shot forward with a terrifying speed — two of his shadows wrapped around his mount.
And so they moved.
Swiftly.
Ignoring anything that stood in their way.
Towards their destination.
To the First Lord’s place of rest… And to the cold reaches of the Underworld itself.
Hello there, y’all.
Here I am with another monstrosity of a chapter.
Oh, I know those are not the longest the ao3 had ever seen, but compared to the SS novel…
Yeah.
It might be a bit uncomfortable to read.
By the way, want to ask your opinion about the chapters length if we’re at it.
Should I post longer ones (6k+ or like this one 9k+) or should I split them in two?
Honestly I have some mental trigger about the chapter count for some reason, so the chapters’ might grow even more at some point.
If I’m splitting those, I might post more frequently, as I usually write 2.5-5k words per day (in days that I write that is).
Anyways, share your opinion about that, if its not too much trouble.
So we’re raising stakes a bit here, as the final of the arc approaches.
Also an apparent divide in cohort.
Among some other things, too.
There is a lot to address here.
But I won’t!
For now, at least.
Next chap should be out before the end of the week hopefully, as I won’t have much opportunity to write with me turning 24 this Thursday (and feeling like 84, duh… Neph, heal my back, please) and whatnot.
Also congrats everyone – the story had reached 100k+ words with this chap.
And we are not even past FS yet…
Damn, maybe I should take congrats back, as I am apparently incompetent…
Anyways thanks for reading and would like to hear your thoughts as usual.
See you all soon.
Bye!