[You have slain…]
[You have slain…]
[You have slain…]
[You have slain…]
[...Your shadows grow stronger.]
Sunny finished off another group of beasts alongside one monster. This was the fourth group he had slain in this area now, and now it was time to switch locations.
'Huuu…'
Sunny let out a long breath, tired.
Summoning the runes, he checked his fragment count once again.
[Shadow fragments: 48/1000]
Looking up at the sky, he judged how many hours he had left in the day. He had hunted the nightmare creatures here for about an hour, with the several hours he had left in the day. As long as he kept up this pace, he could easily get around 100 by the end of the day.
It would all depend on his luck, and how many nightmare creatures he could find though.
'I wonder if there are any fallen around here?'
Probably not.
Sunny continued his hunt for the rest of the day.
***
'Damnation… I'm tired.'
After finishing his hunt, Sunny had made his way to a certain coral pillar. It was the one he, Cassie, and Nephis had once stayed at in their first few days here.
Sunny slowly climbed his way up the coral pillar with the help of Serpent. Each movement he made strained his tired body further and further. Eventually, he made it to the top, panting with each breath.
Sunny flopped over once he reached the top, not wanting to move at all. Fumbling at the makeshift canteen that was tied to the side of his thigh, Sunny brought it to his face for a couple slightly refreshing, but somewhat disgusting sips as the water was lukewarm and probably filled with all sorts of gross things. Sunny tossed the empty canteen to the side as he lay on his back and looked towards the setting sun before summoning his runes.
[Shadow fragments: 124/1000.]
'All in a day's work.'
Sunny smiled to himself slightly, listening to the sound of the Dark Sea rising from deep below. He closed his eyes and turned over, intending to sleep, but before that he made gloomy stand watch and summoned the Soul Serpent. With his shadow and Shadow watching over, Sunny drifting off into oblivion.
***
Sunny was jolted awake, sitting up immediately. He heard the sound of Serpent hissing, as gloomy alerted him to the presence of another being here. He looked around, searching for the danger, it was still night time and the Dark Sea surrounded him from all sides. Sunny was finally able to pinpoint where the danger was coming from, to his left, within the dark waters, there was a spot that was bubbling dangerously.
From atop his vantage point, Sunny watched as a hand slowly reached out of the water, grabbing onto the exposed point of the pillar before pulling itself out of the water.
'A human?'
As the unknown figure continued to pull itself out of the depths, Sunny realised with certainty that it was not a human.
A gaunt figure emerged from the water and slowly stood up. It was covered in wet bandages, making it look like some sort of drowned mummy, its true nature only showing in the slight gaps between its bandages, as disgusting rotted flesh could be seen beneath.
'Shit!'
Sunny hurriedly looked away, and made his presence as small as possible.
'A Fallen Demon…'
Sunny slowed his breathing, hiding himself further as he dismissed Serpent. He wrapped gloomy around himself and used Shadow Control on the wild shadows around him to make the space he was in as dark as possible. Sunny silently observed it through the periphery of his shadow sense, trying to see what it was doing up here. And in doing so Sunny realised…
'It's injured...'
The Demon seemed to be hurt severely, as dark blood trailed behind it while it limped slowly. It reached the base of the rock outcrop Sunny on before it sat down, leaning against the smaller pillar that Sunny was on. He observed it for a couple seconds more, before a dark smile crossed his face.
'I can kill it.'
Sunny slowly moved away from the edge of the pillar before summoning his spear, as to not alert the demon with the light created by the small sparks of essence that emerged while the spear was forming.
He prepared himself mentally, and just in case anything went wrong, he had Serpent on standby. Wrapping Gloomy around his spear as he concentrated on making his presence as faint as possible, Sunny slowly approached the edge of the outcrop, right above the demon's head.
Still not looking straight at the demon, Sunny focused his mind. Everything else in the world disappeared, and only him and the Demon were left. The abomination was hunched over, seemingly breathing heavily.
Sunny then leaned off the side of the outcrop before plummeting downwards face first with his spear pointed in front of him. He was going to use his entire body as his weapon, shooting downwards while putting all his weight behind the spear tip.
The Demon still hadn't noticed him as he shot downwards.
'Die!'
Just as Sunny was about to reach the Demon, he commanded Serpent to make some noise. Serpent lightly pushed a pebble across the ground above him, the Demon immediately looked up to investigate the noise…
…Right as Sunny's spear went straight through its face.
His spear plunged straight through the hole where a human's eye would've been, penetrating the entire body of the drowned mummy. Not letting up, Sunny immediately kicked off the wall next to him and flipped while holding onto the spear so as to not kick himself too far from his target.
"Graghhgg!"
The mummy gurgled and reached at him, unable to move properly as it was pinned to the ground by the spear. Sunny, still holding onto the spear, lifting himself up with it, and proceeded to kick the mummies face with both his feet, crushing it against the wall.
"Gurr… gra-"
Before it could gurgle anymore, Sunny pulled out his spear. Many of the Fallen's internal organs were ripped out alongside it, killing it thoroughly.
[You have slain a Fallen Demon, Dark Sea Prisoner.]
[... Your shadows grow stronger.]
[You have received a Memory.]
'Huuuu…'
Sunny fell onto his rear, tired from the immense strain he had put onto his body for the explosive movements he had made just now.
A second later, Serpent was next to him, checking to see if its master was alright. Sunny gave it a curious look before standing back up.
'Even without Fated, I keep getting put in these ridiculous situations! A lone Sleeper assassinating a Fallen Demon. Damnation!'
The only reason he could kill the demon unscathed was because it was already injured and caught off guard. He suspected that if it was at full strength, it would've been able to free itself from its impalement with ease and massively turn the tides of battle. Sunny would've likely not stood a chance with his current strength.
But it was not full strength. And now it was dead.
Sunny harvested the three ascended soul shards before commanding Serpent to throw away the body. He did not want to be the next target of whatever had injured a Fallen Demon that badly.
After cleaning up the blood and guts to get rid of the demon's scent, Sunny climbed back up to his camp before checking what kind of memory he had gotten.
Memory: [Shackle Key].
Memory Rank: Ascended.
Memory Tier: III.
Memory Type: Charm.
'A charm!'
Memory Description: [The prisoner that had been bound for so long had finally been unshackled, but when it left its prison it only found dark waters surrounding it.]
'Lame.'
Memory Enchantments: [Drowning Fervor], [Soak], [Unshackled Mind]
[Drowning Fervor] Enchantment Description: [Provides the user freedom of movement underwater, as well as less need for breathing.]
[Soak] Enchantment Description: [Provides increased strength underwater. The longer the user remains underwater, the more powerful this enchantment becomes.]
[Unshackled Mind] Enchantment Description: [Provides the user with protection against mind attacks.]
'Hm. Not bad.'
Although he had no plans of spending any more time than he needed to within the Dark Sea, this kind of memory was still very useful to have. There were definitely going to be dangerous bodies of water Sunny would need to enter at some point within the future. The protection against mind attacks was also a boon Sunny was not expecting, but was useful nonetheless, as he definitely had a certain promise to fulfill.
Sunny summoned the memory, watching curiously as the sparks of essence around his neck assembled into a necklace with a key attached to the ends. The key did not seem to be very special and it was brown and rusted.
'It's… quite ugly.'
Sunny quietly hid the key beneath his shirt, and lay back down. He was not going to sleep until he was certain the coast was clear
'I really hope nothing worse shows up.'
'...'
'I didn't just jinx it did I?'
Listening to the slight movement of the waves below, Sunny waited silently.
***
Sunny woke up in the morning from yet another dreamless night.
Getting up, he stretched slightly before he once again made his way down to hunt.
As his feet planted on the ground, Sunny grimaced as he had landed in quite a muddy puddle. The grimace disappeared quickly as he stepped out of hit, as he had just spotted a wonderful target.
A massive corpse the size of a whale lay on the ground within the labyrinth, and next to it, hundreds of scavengers were tearing it apart, consuming the beast. Sending his shadow scout closer, Sunny spotted something he didn't like. Within the jaws of the whale-like creature, he spotted some bandages wrapped around its teeth.
'This thing was pretty close to me, was it the thing that attacked that Demon?'
Then if so, what had killed the whale?
Sunny's shadow crept closer, wanting to get a better look. But sadly, he couldn't tell what the cause of death was as the scavengers had already torn up most of its skin.
He then moved closer to the scene, waiting for something.
Finally, something showed up.
'Found you.'
A Fallen Monster made its way to the corpse, the scavengers feasting away on the whale scurried away in fear as the beast made its presence known with a screech.
It seemed to be a Carapace Centurion. Its appearance was extremely ferocious, its sharp pincers and massive jaw struck fear within the scavengers, and it was much larger and stronger. But the moment Sunny spotted it, he knew what it was.
The thrall of the Soul Devouring Tree.
Sunny wanted to keep a close eye on its movements, as he was planning on getting rid of the tree before he made his way to the Dark City. But now was not the time to kill it. Today, he only wanted to identify what creature was serving as one the tree guardians servants, as to better prepare for the future.
'If the one gathering shards is a Fallen Monster, the big boss back at the tree must be at least a Fallen Demon…'
Sunny fell into thought.
He wanted to at least form his monster core or get Serpent to ascend before fighting the guardian to give himself a better chance, but now it seemed he needed to do both. For now, he let his shadow scout merge with the monster's shadow, as he prepared for the third step of the Shadow Dance.
Watching the scavengers give up and scurry away, Sunny observed with a dark glint in his as a lot of them had split up into smaller groups while disappearing back into the labyrinth.
***
"Screeee!"
[You have slain an Awakened Monster, Carapace Scavenger.]
[...Your shadows grow stronger.]
The last of the scavengers toppled the ground, a spear sticking out of its eye.
Sunny let out a breath as he dismissed his spear.
'That's the fifth.'
He had hunted and killed five of the small groups that had splintered off from the main group of scavengers that were eating the whale earlier. Now though, the Fallen Monster he had spotted earlier was done eating as it harvested two transcendent soul shards from the whale, a Corrupted Monster.
Sunny observed it carefully as it slowly made its way towards the Ashen Barrow, likely delivering the shards to the tree's guardian. He waited until the monster was where he wanted it to be before making his move.
A small group of Awakened Monsters were walking around the labyrinth, hoping to find something to eat now they had been chased away. Then, they found something.
A single human stood in their way.
A single human! It seemed so weak… so frail… so… delicious.
The group of monsters immediately rushed towards the human, hoping to make it their next meal.
The human, suddenly moving, immediately rushed into the labyrinth. The monsters clicked their pincers in anticipation as they chased after it. They made their way through the labyrinth with expert mobility, slowly gaining on the human as it tried to lose them by making lots of twists and turns.
But just as they were about to catch up, the human turned a corner and seemingly vanished, the monsters still chasing after it also turned the corner, only to find a fallen monster waiting for them.
The Fallen slowly turned its head.
"Krrrck?"
"Krrck!"
The Fallen immediately lunged at them!
It had thought it was being attacked, seeing the scavengers rush at it like that. The scavengers wanted to run, but knew they were hopelessly outmatched in speed by the Fallen, so they could only combine their strength and attempt to fight it.
***
Sunny watched as the monsters fought each other. He was currently staring intensely at the beast, wanting to shadow it. His vision shifted as he stared at the vile mass permeating its soul, he watched the beast's essence move and soul shift, he felt its shadow move, as he felt himself falling into the mindset of the beast.
'Dangerous…'
Without his true name, shadowing nightmare creatures ran a risk of falling into a state of madness.
But he had no choice. To get what he wanted, he had to take risks. He needed to put his life on the line.
'I've been killing beings much stronger than me my whole life. This…is nothing'
Sunny continued to shadow the fallen as it massacred its small and weaker brethren. He felt himself getting closer and closer to the third step once more, but…
'It's not enough. Not yet'
Before they were even finished fighting, Sunny moved away to lead yet another group of scavengers to Fallen's location. He moved quickly and silently, appearing before another group of scavengers and doing the same thing. The Fallen Monster continued to ferociously slaughter the scavengers brought to it, thinking that it was being mutinied on with all these weak monsters showing up to gang up on it.
Sunny continuously repeated this, delving further and further into the Shadow Dance.
'Almost… almost…'
The Fallen kept fighting as the third group of scavengers arrived, right as it finished slaughtering the second group.
The monster roared in fury, continuing its onslaught.
And as it finishes slaughtering another group - the fourth one now - it slumped tiredly. That was when Sunny appeared, standing before the beast at a small distance.
'This is it, the final step.'
The Fallen Monster roared in anger, and started rushing towards him. At the same time, Sunny rushed towards it.
His mind focused to the limit.
Time seemingly slowed as the two beings were about to clash.
The scavenger's four pincers lunged at Sunny as he leapt into the air. Twisting his body gracefully through the air, he perfectly avoided all the pincers.
The Fallen, not giving up, opened its maw, aiming to bite its prey in half. It bit down on its prey, only to find the tip of a spear instead.
Sunny held the spear vertically, using the bottom of the spear to hold the beast's mouth open. The Monster, feeling something stab the roof of its mouth, immediately stopped its bite, its pincers began to move to pry the spear out.
Sunny once again twisted his body midair, kicking himself off the spear that was lodged in place, soaring through the air before tumbling gracelessly on the ground.
And in the next moment, a shadow fell over the Centurion.
Serpent, coiled into a spring, leapt off of a coral tree branch that had hung right about the place Sunny and the Fallen were fighting.
The Centurion, feeling the impending danger, attempted to fl-
With a loud crunch, Serpent landed on its head heavily, immediately slamming its jaw shut, driving the spear that was lodged in its mouth straight through its brain.
'...'
Sunny looked on in anticipation, the world seemingly frozen.
The Monster's legs gave out a second later, toppling to the ground, Sunny let out a sigh of relief.
It was dead.
[You have slain a Fallen Monster, Carapace Centurion.]
[... Your shadows grow stronger.]
Sunny grinned with dark joy, as he felt everything in his mind finally click back into place.
[You Aspect Legacy mastery has increased.]
[You have received the right to claim a Legacy Relic.]
Sunny looked up as he heard a thud. Serpent had jumped off the Fallen Monster's corpse, and was looking at him expectantly.
"Good job buddy. Get some rest."
Serpent's head moved as it seemed to nod, before releasing its Soul Beast transformation and dismissing itself, getting ready to evolve within Sunny's soul.
Sunny dove into the soul sea to watch the process. He watched as Serpent changed before his very eyes, the dark waters it lay on shifting and undulating with intensity. An intense glow emanated from Serpent, as Sunny saw the vague contours of its body shift and change as Serpent grew larger and larger.
And after a few seconds, it was done.
[...Your Shadow has evolved.]
Serpent had evolved.
Sunny checked the runes.
Shadow: [Soul Serpent]
Shadow Rank: Ascended.
Shadow Attributes: [Shadow Guide], [Soul Beast]
Shadow Abilities: [Soul Reaver], [Grace of Shadows]
Sunny was not deterred when he saw [Grace of Shadows], even knowing that it was borderline useless to him currently. It was not what he was after.
He dismissed his runes, not bothering to claim the Shadow Lantern, as he couldn't yet use its active enchantment. Leaving his Soul Sea, he summoned the Soul Serpent.
A mighty Serpent appeared before him, its scales rustling as it moved, lowering its head to face its master. Its scales glittered beneath the sunlight like dark gems, while its fangs were much sharper now, and its body had nearly doubled in length and size..
'Good.. good!'
This was what he wanted, Sunny couldn't evolve quickly, but Serpent definitely could. Sunny had already gotten Shadow Dance to the fourth step, unfortunately without Shadow Manifestation he couldn't recreate the Shadow Shell, but once he was a Master Serpent would quickly become a Transcendent.
Sunny patted Serpent again.
"You are just such a reliable little snake, you know that?"
Serpent stared at him with its alien intelligence, not understanding what was going on at all.
***
Sunny rolled over groggily as he woke up.
"Ughhhh…"
He had been in the Forgotten Shore for over a week now.
[Shadow Fragments: 497/1000]
His hunts had varying degrees of success, as the number of scavengers that came to the area he was staying in decreased by a lot, probably due to the fact he was killing so many of them.
The scent of death here was prevalent, only the stronger nightmare creatures would venture here now. While Sunny was sure of his strength, he wasn't about to start taking groups of fallen on his own.
Not yet anyways.
Sunny stretched slightly as he stood up. He summoned two memories, a spear, and a roll of seaweed-like rope. He stabbed the spear onto the end of the seaweed as he dropped the rest down. Sunny proceeded to use the seaweed to make his climb down much easier and quicker, kicking off the coral while keeping himself anchored to it with his rope.
This was a new memory he had obtained recently, the [Deathweed Coil]. It was a roll of seaweed that seemed to extend to great distances, it wasn't very useful for anything besides what he was doing right now. He couldn't even use it for traps as it was a mere Awakened Memory of the first tier, so any reasonably powerful nightmare creature could snap it with ease.
Sunny landed on the ground, avoiding the puddles this time, and made his way into the labyrinth. He once again had a specific target in mind.
The spire messengers, or rather, the Cursed Heralds.
They had been visiting this area of the labyrinth more and more as of late, primarily due to the fact that more and more fallen were coming here, resulting in more fighting and death. Sunny had already spotted one feasting on the corpse of a Centurion yesterday, it's disgusting visage ever present in Sunny's mind.
Navigating through the labyrinth with practiced ease, Sunny spotted something he was hoping to find.
Two Fallen Beasts were engaged in battle with each other, one seemed to be an evolved Carapace Scavenger, and one seemed to be a centipede that constantly oozed corrosive oil.
Sunny made his way to where they were, but he was not intending to join the battle. Rather he was waiting for the thing that would show up after the battle.
Sunny continued to watch silently, stealthily hiding himself. As he was constantly facing extremely dangerous foes, Sunny had been practicing his stealth and believed he was getting better at it.
The [Lord Of Shadows] attribute definitely played a part as well, his presence diminishing severely whenever he hid himself within the shadows.
'I can't believe I've finally become an assassin.'
His aspect had been seemingly tailor made for this sort of thing, with most of Sunny's battles ending within a single lethal blow on an unsuspecting nightmare creature. Sunny did not know if he should be happy about it.
As he was debating this in his mind, the target he was waiting for finally showed up, as a hideous winged creature descended, its pale skin and black feathers stuck out like a sore thumb within the crimson labyrinth.
Both nightmare creatures made screeching sounds as they both turned to face the Cursed Herald. The raven-like beast descended, viciously clawing at the Carapace Scavenger that had been on the losing side of the fight.
With its shell softened and cracked, the beast's talons immediately plunged into its back, pulverizing its insides, paralysing it immediately. Sunny watched this as he moved into position for ambush. The putrid raven immediately turned and lunged at the retreating centipede, grabbing it within its talons.
And just when its beak came down to kill its prey, it felt something land on its back. The being on its back was, of course, Sunny, and in the next moment he summoned Serpent.
As Serpent emerged from the tattoos on Sunny's body, its sheer weight immediately caused the Cursed Herald to topple to the ground alongside the centipede. Serpent began to constrict the beast, coiling itself around the vile thing. Loud cracking sounds were heard as Serpent covered the beast's entire body with itself, crushing it with its rolling muscles.
And as both of them rolled on the ground, the Spire Messenger thrashed wildly, trying to escape. Sunny let Serpent handle the rest, as he made his way to the struggling centipede that had been dropped in the chaos earlier. The Spire Messenger had paralysed the scavenger, and severely injured the centipede with a single blow, an impressive feat in Sunny's mind. That did not change anything though, as Sunny plunged his spear into its skull… only for the tip of the spear to bounce off its hard carapace.
Gloomy was with Serpent right now, so Sunny's spear was a pitifully weak awakened memory of the second tier, it simply wasn't enough to break the Fallen Beast's shell. Not wanting to get closer to the now wildly thrashing centipede, Sunny made his way to the Carapace Scavenger instead, finding it completely still as the talon of the Spire Messenger had destroyed its spine. This time, Sunny was able to climb up the scavengers back and plunge his spear through its eye, killing it.
[You have slain…]
[...Your shadows grow stronger.]
And then at the same time, Sunny heard a particularly loud crunch, and the sweet whisper of the spell.
[You have slain a Fallen Beast, Cursed Herald.]
[...Your shadows grow stronger.]
[You have received a memory.]
'Good!'
Turning towards Serpent, he saw it uncoiling itself from the completely crushed Cursed Herald. As Serpent met his gaze, he motioned his head towards the still struggling centipede.
Bang!
Serpent gave its skull a good whack with its body.
[You have slain a Fallen Beast, Burned Oil Centipede.]
[...Your shadows grow stronger.]
Sunny dusted himself off as he admired his work.