Kallen
As the only other Sleeper—other than Kai and Sunny—that could force their way through the abominations, Kallen pressed forth, sweating and tired, through the creatures.
Past Demon and Devil. Past Awakened and Fallen. None of them could stand against him.
The Gilded Warden still stood strong, not an opening in its frame, but there were cracks where it solidified. He couldn't think of them. He had to make it to where Sunny would be.
~~~
Kai
Kai didn't think the iron net above would hold much longer. Floating above the battle, he looked down at Changing Star who stood at the center of the terrible bloodshed. She shone brighter than anyone. She fought alone.
No one could make it to her anyway.
She remained indifferent to anything, moving and eviscerating anything that approached her with cold efficiency.
As long as she fought for them, they couldn't give up hope.
Kai looked back at the sky, face pale and jaw slack. There was a dark mass of bleeding corpses on the iron net.
Someone had to do something about it, and there was no one else who could fly.
Which meant that someone was him.
~~~
Sunny
Sunny stumbled, swiping Midnight Shard in a wide arc. In the distance, Saint faced off against three coral golems that defended the crimson spire.
He'd successfully snuck past the bloody melee between the Sleepers of the Forgotten Shore and the tide of Nightmare Creatures, but he'd met resistance himself.
The defenders of the Spire weren't done with him.
Golem number seven stood motionlessly some distance away, disinterested in the fight.
Which meant that he was locked into battle with the other three.
A golem representing a priestess, a slayer, and a knight came at him in a varying cadence. He had to switch from the Midnight Shard to the Moonlight shard, as the enemy's numerical advantage forced him into a quicker style of attack.
But even that couldn't go on for long.
~~~
Kallen
Kallen could see Sunny fighting along with that echo of his against… well he couldn't tell. But he counted seven of them, though only six were engaged in combat.
A small strait of water separated him from the small island his companion was fighting on.
Without wasting another second, Kallen dove into the water, activating his dormant ability to heighten his speed to its absolute limit. The black sea welcomed him like an old friend, streaming past his armor in a blur.
With a groan, he waved his arms, and pulled on as much water as he could muster. He broke the surface like a missile, and a geyser of black water followed him into the air, pushed not by precision, but by speed and sheer force of will.
He didn't dare shape the wave. Didn't try to hold it. He just held it together and allowed it to follow its natural ballistic arc. And at the apex of his jump, maybe thirty feet high, Kallen twisted midair to face the island.
"Sunny! Dismiss your echo!"
The boy sent a confused look his way, the rolled to avoid an attack from the coral golem in front of him. The next moment, Kallen crashed into the three that squared off against Sunny's knight.
Behind him, a towering wall of seawater slammed in a lagging blow. He felt it break apart the moment it hit land—he couldn't maintain it, not at this scale—but it didn't matter.
The force was there and the impact was real.
He caught a glimpse of them stumbling and falling against the force of his attack.
Kallen skidded slightly, catching himself on one knee, breathing hard, and allowing himself a short moment to rest.
"Figured you needed help, you useless cockroach," Kallen called out, smashing into the side of the knight looking golem.
"I'm not useless," Sunny shot back. He dashed to the side, parrying a heavy blow.
"No response to the cockroach bit, huh?" A heavy battleaxe flowed from the Gilded Warden, and Kallen swung it like a baseball bat. It struck the leg of the Slayer golem, slicing cleanly through.
Sunny grinned, but didn't maintain the banter. They had a fight to focus on, and the golems Kallen had caught by surprise were scrambling to their feet.
~~~
Kai
[You have slain a Fallen Monster, Cursed…]
Kai didn't have time to listen to the spell. He used the body of the messenger he'd just killed to evade the attack of the fourth.
But the last one…
It appeared in front, leaving no path to retreat, no hope of saving himself. It was too late.
The terrifying black beak shot forward.
~~~
Effie
Effie couldn't go on.
The human army was faring better than it had any right to be. But she had done too much, fought too hard. She had been vanguard for far too long.
She allowed herself to be overtaken by reinforcements.
Blood spilled from several open wounds. Effie fell to a knee, covering it with a hand.
~~~
Caster
In the distance, Sunless and Kallen fought against the defenders of the Crimson Spire. Caster waited to catch his breath and wrap a wound before going back in and joining the fight. He wondered if he could make it all the way over there.
Could he take out Sunless preemptively?
The Sleepers didn't need him anymore. Song Seishan still fought, and so did Gemma. The archers were doing fine, and Kai had just barely managed to avoid certain death.
How did the pretty boy have so much grit to him? He'd been a pop singer in the waking world. A pampered child all things considered.
Somehow he'd persevered.
Caster switched his focus to Nephis. She stood radiant at the forefront of the human army, taking Kallen's place as the beacon of inspiration.
Then he looked at Cassie. What must have been going on in her head? Kallen's little sister, Seren was there—likely relaying the battle.
To a degree, he respected those girls. Cassie primarily. She wasn't nearly as fragile as she appeared. He couldn't imagine waking up in the labyrinth of the Forgotten Shore, unable to see, unable to fight back.
She must have known that death was imminent.
What was she thinking now?
~~~
Cassie
The visions Cassie had years ago weighed on her mind.
She'd seen a dreadful Leviathan consuming a shadow and an angel. Kallen was the leviathan, Sunny the shadow, and Nephis the angel; this much was obvious.
But was there some other interpretation? Was there a world in which her two best friends weren't pitted against Seren's brother. Maybe it was a metaphorical clash? Maybe it was a battle of ideologies, depicting how Kallen had become Bright Lord, despite the small area of friction between him and the cohort?
No chance.
Cassie knew what it was about.
Cassie knew that Sunny and Nephis were lying to Kallen about Seren. She knew that the little girl was destined to die, and that there was not much Nephis could do about it. That was going to explode up in their faces, but could Cassie delay the inevitable?
Could she push that clash into the future, when Seren had already succumbed to sickness and thus wouldn't have to face the fallout? There was no easy choice. No easy answer.
She could have told Nephis, but then they probably would never have made it this far. The longer the lie lasted, the more violent a reaction would come out of Kallen.
Cassie knew his type well, he was fiercely loyal, a good strategist, a strong fighter, but also prone to controlling behavior. Very prone. He was a nuclear bomb waiting to denotate.
She could predict how he would react to grief—not calm and tranquil, but like the waves in the midst of a massive storm. He would react with violence.
Seren didn't deserve to be in the middle of any of this. She was possibly the only sleeper who had been just as destined to die as Cassie had been. What kind of cruel world sent the two of them to the dream realm?
What kind of cruel world?
Left alone with the wind in her hair, Cassie considered another set of visions she had received way back when they'd just reached the forgotten shore.
The batch that depicted Kallen fighting a dragon above the bright castle. That had been cut and dry, but what had followed hadn't been.
It was a branching path. A dark sea rising up to swallow them. A choice she had assumed, not a literal sea.
In one path, she'd seen Sunny stifling that choice, banishing that dark sea away. And in the other, she had seen it consume Nephis and Sunny.
It was this vision, these branching paths that gave Cassie hope that Nehpis and Sunny could make it out.
Because if Sunny made the right decision—whatever it was—perhaps he could banish that sea. Perhaps the fallout could be avoided altogether. But then Cassie felt a passing gust rustle her hair. She flinched, and slowly turned to face the wind.
A moment later, her face paled, and her lips moved slightly.
Left alone with Seren, Cassie saw a storm approaching. And only minutes later, it hit.
With force more dreadful than she'd ever experienced, an impenetrable wall of darkness slowly devoured the world, numerous bolts of lightning crashing down from the heavens, so angry and rageful.
And then the water began to crawl upwards.
At that moment, Cassie felt that she understood. She'd been wrong. There weren't two branching paths…
It was a sequence. Two events that would happen, one before the other.
Only, if Sunny was going to banish the dark sea physically…
The metaphorical sea—the choice, was what came after. Cassie's face went pale as she realized her mistake. But there was nothing that could be done now. It was in motion.
~~~
Kallen
The golem that resembled a statue of a lord wearing a crown stood in the back, motionless, as though too proud to join the fight.
But Sunny had figured it out. He was empowering the rest of his subordinates.
So Kallen fended off the remaining coral abominations while his comrade charged. It was up to Sunny to finish it off, and it was up to Kallen to make sure nothing else reached him while he fought.
The shadow like echo of a knight fought alongside Kallen, while Torch joined the battle wherever he could. The dragon was still just a Dormant Monster, so he couldn't do much. Puddle meanwhile, wouldn't be able to help at all.
But his job would come later.
A crimson sword came crashing at him. Kallen twisted his hand and a stream of water broke against it, robbing its momentum. He stepped inside, punching the golem in the stomach.
It fell back, mid-section shattered. Five others took its place.
He danced between them, dodging blows, redirecting momentum, shattering crimson coral whenever he could.
Encased in the Gilded Warden, and with countless thousands of gallons of water around him to draw from, Kallen was practically invincible to these creatures. And though he was tired and his mind had long since begun to grow numb to the chaos of battle, he didn't slow down.
He didn't waver.
He didn't break.
~~~
Kai
In the grey sky, Kai flew, buffeted by the rain of black water and blood seeping through the net. Three Spire Messengers still remained, gargantuan and terribly powerful. He couldn't believe he was even fighting against something like that.
It was inconceivable. No one was meant to fight creatures a rank above them, and yet he was fighting multiple that were two above him. How many Sleepers in history had killed a Fallen abomination? Probably not many.
Below, bodies began disappearing under the cold cursed sea. It was at people's knees, significantly reducing mobility, but still the human army fought. They didn't have a choice.
Through sea and storm, they fought until the bitter end, because that was all they could do. It was cruel and it was unfair, but it was reality. They would become stronger for it, for worse or for better.
~~~
Sunny
The coral golems were dead. The last of them twitching, a golden sword piercing its chest.
Sunny stumbled, dashing through a break in the storm. Kallen desperately held back the waves around him, making a path and splitting the encroaching sea where he ran.
Coming to an abrupt stop, Sunny's hand slammed against the cold stone of the Crimson Spire's gate.
Summoning the first Oath Key, he carefully inserted it into the lock.
He moved to the next star, summoning the second key and pushing it into the lock. Behind him, he heard Kallen groaning under the strain of keeping the sea at bay.
It wasn't necessary for him to do so, but it certainly ensured that Sunny wouldn't be ambushed by some corrupted creature of the depths. The third key inserted into its lock.
The fourth.
The fifth.
Kallen dropped the sea. Something slammed into him sideways, ramming him into the black depths. He disappeared.
Water assaulted Sunny from both directions. He barely managed to stay stable as he waded to the sixth lock and inserted the key. He then gazed upon the seventh, glancing back at where he'd last seen Kallen. There was no sign of the Nightwalker, save for the occasional burst of water exploding from the surface.
The boy fought a Corrupted rank Nightmare Creature on his own. There was no escape here, it was kill or be killed, and Sunny could only pray that Kallen made it, because he didn't have time to help. Nor the means to.
Sunny dove into the black water, swimming toward the seventh and final key.
A/N: Daily Chapters Incoming!