Nephis tried to move to the side as Sunny used a sword similar to the one he used during their fight against the awakened demon under the tree. Unfortunately, the fake Sunny never had the intention of facing her directly as it also followed her before forcing his sword down on her which forced her to block it. The mist turned tangible under her feet as it made her lose her footing, and also messed up her block in the process. It used the opportunity and slashed a deep wound down her chest as blood sprayed all around them. Nephis stumbled back as her flames quickly healed her deadly wound but Sunny continued his onslaught.
The irony wasn't lost on Nephis as she was put on the back burner, while Sunny exploited every weakness Nephis revealed. Every time he did though, Nephis adapted along with it. She exploited when it switched to dual-wielding for a short period and got a couple of grievous wounds in. She punished when it tried to throw a dagger at her to mess up by moving in and kicking its ribs. But throughout all these victories, she was still losing, and losing heavily by the looks of it. The creature was simply too treacherous and although Nephis knew a thing or two about treachery from Sunny, it was perhaps even more treacherous than him.
It was also adapting faster than she ever could as the skill gap that separated them was being shortened after each clash. Plus, Nephis was still quite tired after her fight with her younger self. Throughout all the enemies she fought she could admit that fighting her younger self was a once-in-a-lifetime fight. There was just... something eerie about facing the face that had once been you, that had once been a slightly worse version of herself. Nephis groaned as Sunny lunged his knee up her abdomen, which made her cough up small amounts of blood and feel her lungs get crushed as the impact spread across her body.
Nephis stumbled back and swung her sword at Sunny who failed to dodge back in time and had a small cut across his neck. Unlike the real Sunny though, the fake one did bleed within seconds, but bleed a weird ghostly mist that simply merged with the mist. But she now knows it could be killed most likely which made Nephis determined to kill it and survive. They dashed at each other, their blades hissed in anger as they clashed. Nephis swung her sword down which Sunny blocked by putting his sword horizontally before pushing back and throwing a swing at her instead. Nephis kicked the sword away and sent a punch which landed on his nose, but she wasn't done as she did a roundhouse kick straight into his stomach as she felt his ribs crumble from the hit.
Nephis felt embarrassed that she felt like taunting the monster with a speech of being stronger as if Sunny showed up he would make fun of her for at least a week. Either way, she knew she won as fake Sunny turned around before fading into the mist as the real Sunny appeared behind it.
"Oh thank the god's you're alive Neph, I was starting to go insane from constantly seeing the mist over and over again." His shadow, gloomy specifically, gave him a look as if saying, "You're already crazy."
Sunny ignored it, although the same shadow moved and augmented [Ordinary Rock].
"I see..."
"Oh good for you, because I can't see for shit." Nephis blushed a little before continuing.
"That's not what I meant... anyway we should talk later and start trying to escape the mist. I've already fought a younger me and a scrawnier you."
"I've fought Harus and the Forsaken Knight from the cathedral we killed. I think this mist is summoning things from our past, which is bad since there's this certain egg that could kill you if you touch it."
"Egg?"
"Short story but I'll tell you about it later, let's get moving now," Sunny said as he started to move forward before Nephis followed.
"Shorter than you?" Nephis said slightly mocking him as they broke into a sprint.
"Hey, not everything is taller than me!" Sunny said agitated and slightly embarrassed.
"I would disagree," Nephis said
Sunny mumbled something incoherent as they continued sprinting in the mist. Sunny's lungs started to burn as they ran for a while, and the mist barely disappeared started to lift. They briefly stopped to take a break as they both took deep breaths and had their hands on their knees. Nephis saw in her peripheral vision as Sunny looked up to look at a certain direction behind them. But Nephis didn't follow his gaze as she saw ahead of them a bright light appear that broke through the barrier of the mist, revealing the dreadful jungle that she would probably never again be grateful to see.
"There's the exit!" Nephis yelled as she grabbed Sunny's arm which felt weirdly cold as she pulled him towards the exit.
The gap started to close but they reached it before it closed as they rolled out of the mist and back into the jungle. She quickly turned around after getting back up with a jump expecting the mist to consume them again. Luckily, Sunny's [Fated] didn't try anything as the mist simply stood there, unmoving and hazy. Nephis pulled Sunny back up after she offered her hand as she brushed off some dirt that got on his face.
"Thanks," he said as Nephis nodded before they looked around.
"I'm pretty sure the seed is over there," Sunny pointed in front of them.
"Good to know, but we should probably rest first, I still need to heal you after all."
"No it's fine I didn't get hurt." Nephis looked at him skeptically before walking towards him.
Nephis unceremoniously pulled up his shirt but he didn't seem to react that much as she scanned for any wounds on his chest. True to his words there wasn't a single scratch, bruise, or any other type of injury. That was surprising since he was normally injured at least a little after each battle for being a little reckless or from hitting a rock while rolling. Nephis was glad he wasn't hurt, not because then she would have to suffer her flaw - gods knew that she would suffer greatly just for him -, but because he simply wasn't hurting before she could heal him.
Pulling down the shirt of [Puppeteer Shroud] she looked back at the mist behind them that had already started to fade away as if moving from them. Eventually, it disappeared and Nephis finally let go of her breath and started breathing again. They went to rest for a little while at a shaded area where they set up camp for the afternoon before heading out. They ate, talked about their battles in the mist, and packed up before they got too comfortable.
Nephis grabbed his hand tightly this time as Sunny grabbed her hand back, but he grabbed her hand weirdly as if he wasn't sure how he should grab it. Nephis ignored it as they moved forward to where Sunny claimed the seed direction was. They had gotten disoriented during their battles inside the mist but she trusted his intuition, so she was inclined to believe it was where he said it was. They looked for a place to rest after a while longer, slept on his bed, and walked further into the jungle.
They ate, rested, fought NMC, and walked.
Again,
And again,
And again,
And again,
At times they fought dreadful creatures but they always came out victorious and with a nice stash of meat. It continued like this for them as they got deeper and deeper into the heart of the jungle. They started facing Corrupted Beasts more often to which they had to start avoiding them as they couldn't keep fighting them unless they needed to. Eventually, though, they found what they were looking for, a dark rift under many tree roots that belonged to a great tree that dwarfed all the trees surrounding it. They had to fight the guardian of the tree but it stood no chance against them as they quickly took it down and won.
Nephis again couldn't recall anything about the nightmare once they entered it, but once they beat it Nephis woke up to see Cassie, Kai, and Effie all standing around her pod with big smiles on their faces. Nephis was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of hugs they gave her which made her smile a bit as she got to see how everyone was doing. Sunny came in soon after, and Nephis told them that he and she were now officially dating. Nephis and Sunny had to endure endless dirty jokes from Effie afterward, but enduring it with Sunny made it somehow easier. After an hour of joking around both Sunny and Nephis were taken to be evaluated and after being given the highest ranking a citizen could have they were informed by Cassie about what happened during their time gone. They also rented an apartment just for the two of them to live in temporarily.
Nephis got to meet Sunny's sister after he reunited with her and all three of them spent the entire day together. Sunny eventually bought them a home and things settled down as their life went into the same routine of heading to the dream realm, training, and spending time with Sunny each day. But one night as Nephis was getting ready she had a peculiar thought.
'This... feels so nice, I wouldn't mind living out my days like this even...'
Sunny walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his body as water dripped from his body.
"You ready to go to sleep Neph?" Sunny asked as he walked towards her on the bed.
"Sunny... no not Sunny. You almost got me you know." Nephis said mumbling before saying it out loud to Sunny's face.
"What are you spouting about?" Sunny said with a confused tone.
"You're not real, none of this is real is it ever since we "escaped"." She said loudly, her voice growing more defiant. She used air quotes when she said escape.
Sunny only stood next to her as he looked at her with warm eyes. Nephis wanted to kiss him and hold him but she knew that she was being tricked by the mist, that everything ever since their escape had been fabricated. They had never escaped the dream realm, nor had they faced their second nightmare, or even gotten out of the mist. Nephis was only saddened by how long it took for her to finally break free from the illusion, which from the voids in her memories should've been obvious, but it made it seem like she simply had a bad memory rather than being tricked.
"What gave it away?" Sunny asked, his eyes turning cold like winter, and the warmth his voice carried was now gone.
"I may be a changing star, but one thing that would never change is my goal to destroy the nightmare spell, no matter what. I would never consider the spell a good thing for all the destruction it caused and the lives it reaped to make humans stronger."
Nephis felt her head get heavy and her vision got blurry as Sunny's voice sounded distant like he was across a canyon from her rather than being a few feet away. Suddenly, like glass breaking, the illusion broke as Nephis was sent back into her real body which had crumbled to the ground. She quickly composed herself and got up. But before she could fully get up she was forced to her knees as a blade hovered next to her throat. Looking at the wielder she realized it was Sunny, or the fake one at least, who had bruises littering his body and was blinded in their left eye.
Nephis felt a small stream of blood flow down her throat as the sharp edge bit into her throat. Nephis wanted to fight back but knew that if she tried to, it would only end in her death. Her only hope now was to stall and hope for Sunny to come and help her take it down. As Sunny continued to slowly push his blade deeper into her throat Nephis had to use her flames to heal herself as she was losing oxygen from cut veins. She has to constantly regenerate broken blood vessels to keep a steady stream of oxygen in her system. Just as it was about to hit her neck bones a dark sword slashed through Sunny's stomach and stopped right in front of her face where a tiny drop of blood dripped into her face.
"Leave my Neph alone you bastard..." the real Sunny said as he backed away before fake Sunny turned around quickly and swung the misty blade at his throat but missed by an inch. Sunny used the opportunity by turning Serpent into a scythe and cutting its head cleanly off as he then disintegrated into white mist.
'Nope, I take it back, he's definitely more treacherous than anyone or anything ever could dream to be.'
"You good Neph?" Sunny asked worriedly, Nephis didn't fail to notice his rugged voice, his heavy breathing, and the lacerations on his arms.
"Yes... I was simply under a delusion of escaping with you, reaching the nightmare and beating it, and living with you for some time before coming to the realization it was all fake."
Neph wasn't actually doing so well, but she didn't want Sunny to worry about her even if it was valid that he did. She still felt dazed and was still trying to come back to the realization that everything she had experienced was just an illusion like her first nightmare, seriously what was the deal with them facing so many illusions? Nephis couldn't tell if Sunny noticed the pain and sorrow in her eyes, as well as she was worse for wear than before being unconscious, if he did, he didn't let her know as she stared at him intensely to see if he noticed.
It was then she noticed the deep cuts on his hands and arm, although they didn't seem to come from a sword as the depth of the cut varied throughout it unlike a sword. So it was more like he was both scratched and stabbed.
Noticing her stare, he coughed awkwardly, "Oh that? Remember when I told you about that egg that could kill you? Well, let's just say I had the honors of seeing what it could've been if I hadn't killed it."
Taking another deep breath, he continued "Anyway I was shocked to see it again, especially since I'm not very fond of the egg, or birds now. I tried to alert you about it, but you were drooling and your eyes were misty white. So, I killed it myself."
That caught Nephis' attention more than her desire to check if she had been drooling. Sunny had told her that the egg had been a Great Devil when he killed it in the tree, and even though the mist can only probably conquer up weaken enemies, killing it must've taken a lot out of him. But after checking to see if she had indeed been drooling - which she was as she scratched away the dried saliva - she asked him a question she had been meaning to ask.
"So did you get the same shadow from it when you killed?"
"Nope, I think it's because they don't really have real shadows of their own, after all, a shadow is a very special thing, and I think their shadows were false as they themselves aren't the real thing." Sunny's reasoning was solid, and Nephis was included to believe him.
After all, no one could replace her shadow or fill that spot like Sunny could, not like she was ever planning on letting anyone replace him.
"We should get moving," she said after getting up and picking up [Dream Blade] from the ground.
He nodded as they then started carefully moving toward...
"Actually, I think we should just run for it," Sunny said, stopping in his tracks as Neph gave him a strange look.
"Why?"
"Think about it, the slower we get out, the more enemies we have to face. There's also the risk of you or me seeing illusions like you did, and I think I didn't see them like you yet because of my mind protection from both the pendant and [Puppeteer Shroud]. So, I say let's run it until we either survive and escape... or die trying."
"You seem optimistic about another life-death situation." Nephis joked.
"If I had a credit for how many times [Fated] did me dirty, I'd be rich and loaded by now." That was the last thing spoken to each other as they broke into a sprint.
They ran rather quickly despite multiple injuries to their hips and legs, but Neph was healing them on the way, so they healed from their injuries rather quickly. For some odd reason, the cuts on Sunny's arm took longer to heal and took more of her aspect to heal it. She brushed it off as she had no time to wonder as a bright figure appeared far from there.
The irony wasn't lost on her from saying the figure was bright as the person was none other than Gunlaug, the third Lord of the Dark City, the coward that Nephis killed for giving in to the spell.
Sunny felt his blood boil from seeing Gunlaug again, although that happened often whenever any type of poison entered his blood flow naturally. Either way, Sunny scowled seeing him again. The man wore the same echo he had worn during his reign, but now it was milky white, and from the armor came a halberd. Both Sunny and Nephis had to look away from the faceplate that covered where Gunlaug's face would be as he still had that devious mental attack.
Sunny wasted no time and dashed towards Gunlaug, whether from confidence or stupidity, Nephis couldn't tell. Perhaps he did lose too much blood back then. Not wanting him to be alone Nephis summoned [Nameless Sun] which appeared in a bright golden light before turning pure white like her flames. Of course, it was the same color as her flames, she had been saving flames inside the memory back during the Dark City whenever Sunny went out without her which was most times.
But it wasn't the flames as to why she was using it now after not using it for so long, but for the [Soul Eater] enchantment that allowed her to strike directly at someone's soul. Nephis couldn't pull off the cheap trick she had done before with the real Gunlaug, so she had to improvise by trying to destroy Gunlaug's soul this time.
'All these fakes are starting to mess with my head,' Nephis thought as she dashed under a thrown Sunny.
Saint, who appeared from one of Sunny's shadows, caught him before he hit the ground. Nephis didn't see this happen as she herself was intertwined in a deadly duel of steel and flame. White flames danced with her blade as it was enhanced and increased by [Nameless Sun] as she struck for the center of his soul. Nephis never tried to strike at someone's soul so she simply struck at his chest where a soul core would be. Gunlaug blocked with the handle and pushed her sword away before pushing down the axe part towards her head.
She rolled to the side before getting back up, and noticing the mist started to fade behind Gunlaug.
'He must be holding us back from escaping,' she realized as the axe swooped towards her.
She tried jumping away but Gunlaug didn't let her as he grabbed her leg and slammed her to the ground like a rag doll. Nephis groaned from the pain of suddenly having little pebbles of rock hit the back of her head and feeling her spine fracture from the hard ground. Gritting her teeth she slashed and was barely able to cut through his fingers holding her down as she felt herself get pulled back before the head of the axe impaled her. Sunny had summoned a rope with a noose at the end and pulled her from her arm. The shadow rope dissipated around her as she took a glance behind her.
A stone lamp was hanging from his side, his face bloodied, and Saint stood by his side. Nodding to each other he understood what she was trying to do as Saint moved forward like a stone fortress meeting Gunlaug head-on. Sunny joined in on the action as he attacked him from behind making him face both of them simultaneously. Sadly, he withstood the attack as he soon threw Saint aside and grabbed Sunny by the throat.
"Wrong move, dumbass," Sunny choked as Nephis moved under his dangling legs and struck at where Gunlaug's soul core should be.
Nephis wasn't sure whether they had a soul core or not, it was a gamble at best. Luckily it paid off as Nephis heard something similar to glass shattering, although she didn't gain any soul fragments. Gunlaug shook them off as it dropped to the ground on its knees, and it seemed to yell but no sound came out. Nephis caught Sunny in her arms which caused them both to turn away from each other blushing before she lowered him to his feet. Once Gunlaug's body dissipated into the mist they ran behind it where light started to shine upon them. Eventually, the mist lessened significantly as they finally got out of the mist and broke into a coughing fit. Nephis turned around to see the mist leaving and merging into the scenery behind them.
"I-I think he broke my windpipe," Sunny said weakly as she healed him rather quickly before he suffocated to death.
Looking around, Nephis said carefully, "I can't tell if this is real or not."
Sunny looked at her incredulously before slapping her, "is that real enough for you?"
Neph mocked being hurt from the slap...
'Wait what if I did hurt her...'
"I'm not actually hurt," she said as if reading his mind, "your face said it all, Sunny."
"I can't even feel my face right now, although I think that's just from shock." Dormant humans were stronger than mundane, but there wasn't a huge gap between mundane and dormant humans like mundane and awakened meaning that Sunny wasn't immune to being in shock.
'All it takes is one hit to kill us.'
"Do you know which direction to go still, Sunny?"
"Nope, I guess we have to climb another tree again before resting."
Nephis was about to agree before seeing one of Sunny's shadows waving its hands in the air trying to grab her attention.
"Why not just send one of your shadows up a tree instead?"
"..."
"...you didn't think of that did you?"
"Shut up."
"Idiot."