Small clouds of dust were kicked into the air as Aidre jumped from a rooftop, landing beside her companion.
"Anything?"
"No. Seems like he's finished."
The two stood before another collapsed building. A small crowd had gathered around them, curiously checking out the damage. There was neither blood nor screaming, only strong winds blowing away the smoke and dust.
Aidre sighed, staring at the building strangely.
"What was his plan?"
Noctis shrugged.
"How should I know?"
"He only targeted Awakened."
Noctis turned to face her.
"Who's to say they were targeted? Maybe they were all him to begin with."
Aidre blinked a couple times, turning to face Noctis.
"All him? You mean they were actually possessed, sort of like Shadow is?"
Noctis nodded grimmly.
"Completely possible. He might have to speed up his plans because we attacked him ahead of schedule, and is using the explosions as a misdirection to make it seem like he's actually kidnapping them."
Aidre lowered her head in thought, shaking it slightly.
"Maybe… or he could be genuinely kidnapping them to weaken our forces for our final confrontation."
Noctis scoffed.
"Please, what are a couple Awakened to that thing? This is definitely something stranger. Maybe it's a mass human sacrifice to summon an evil god?"
Aidre laughed slightly, despite the situation.
"If that were the case, he'd need a lot more than just eleven humans."
Noctis nodded in agreement.
"He'd need at least a thousand… and the evil god would have to be in a good mood."
Aidre nodded sagely, finding his numbers reasonable.
Noctis sighed, dusting off his beautiful red robes.
"Well, if he's done, we should go reinforce the fool then, should we not?"
"We should."
With a shared nod, they took off towards the city gates.
***
"Agh… Arghh!"
Shaking off a flock of vultures, Sevras roared in rage.
'Die… just die!'
The Titan barely received any damage, while Sevras was only being worn down. While he was immortal, that didn't mean he had unlimited essence, he couldn't fight indefinitely. With The Fire, his essence replenished faster than most, but against this monster of a Titan before him, he wasn't counting on outlasting it. All its wounds disappeared at frightening speeds, and the wake of vultures surrounding it just didn't seem to die. The swarm was nowhere near as large as it could've been, but with the Titan directing them, they were a force to be reckoned with.
A whip of black winds slammed into his spine, golden light ignited at the point he was hit, cushioning the blow.
'Where are those bastards? Any damn day now!'
While Sevras could hold his own against the Titan, it was still a losing battle. The black winds the Titan produced were able to somewhat drown out his flames, and the monster rarely actually fought itself, instead relying on its profane abilities to batter him.
The malefic vulture flapped its wings in place, its body devoid of light besides the miniscule white irises in its eyes. It showed no emotion, only staring at him silently as if it were simply performing a menial task.
The sight really, really annoyed him.
Just before he could release another torrent of flames, the vulture shrouded itself in black winds, preparing itself for an attack.
[Brother, be ready!]
The Titan flapped its wings, black winds spreading in every direction, battering Sevras severely as he raised his arms and wings to cover himself. If not for The Fire, the winds would've shredded his soul.
After several seconds of continuous bombardment, the winds subsided, giving him room to breath.
But when he lowered his arms, the Titan was gone, only a few stragglers from its swarm left behind.
'What?'
The Titan had retreated?
And just then, he heard the click of a tongue from far below, his enhanced hearing picking it up easily.
"Bad timing."
Noctis stood on the ground far below him, his diamond sickle glowing with potent power.
'The Titan retreated the moment my reinforcements arrived…'
His maw twisted into a bestial grin.
Flapping his wings, he descended to the ground below.
***
"Well, if he's done, we should go reinforce the fool then, should we not?"
"We should."
With a sharp bang, the two figures near Sunny leapt atop a nearby building, dashing from rooftop to rooftop, heading towards the city gates.
'Close…'
With a relieved sigh, he slumped downwards, catching his breath. He was currently wearing the Abyssal Drapes — the Ascended armour memory of the fourth tier he had received from the Song Clan — using its [Black Knife] enchantment to become invisible.
'I thought for sure they noticed me…'
When Aidre had been observing the building, he could've sworn her gaze stopped on him for a second, but considering she said nothing about it, it must've been his imagination.
'Or… she saw me and said nothing.'
He couldn't confirm whether or not Aidre was willing to help him yet, and he wasn't going to risk himself in an attempt to communicate with her.
'Well, this should be enough anyways.'
Seeing that Noctis and Aidre went to go back up Sevras and the Sun Prince, Sunny gave Serpent the command to retreat.
'The Sun Prince… so his name is Semos? Can't believe I never knew that. It's fitting.'
Sighing, he stepped into the shadows and appeared back on the Ivory Tower, where six people were now tied up on the ground in front of him unconscious.
Using the lazy shadow, he had located several Awakened across the city, and with the Chain Lords busy with their ambush at the square, Sunny had struck. Of course, he could've simply kidnapped them in secret, but he had a different plan in mind.
"Lady Hope, do you mind putting them to sleep for a while? Maybe two or three days?"
Hope glanced at him, obliging without a single question.
Retreating to a corner of the hall, Sunny leaned against a wall and sighed.
'Could've gone better, but this should be enough for now.'
A couple of things had gone awry, like the fact he needed to stall long enough for Serpent to arrive, and he also needed to disable the sorcery that they had set up to prevent people from using spatial movement abilities. That one had been quite a pain to find, but luckily he had managed to destroy it before Semos activated his light ability.
'That was certainly a close one…'
He actually had no plans of killing Semos there and was only going to flash the ruby knife at him to get him out of the way, but he had unexpectedly learned that Noctis had not informed the other Chain Lords that he was no longer in possession of the ruby knife.
'This'll cause even more chaos.'
Sunny grinned.
'Perfect.'
The situation on the square had actually been extremely dangerous for him, as he could see damn near nothing with his shadow sense, considering most of the shadows within a hundred meter radius had been banished. He had been forced to retrieve the haughty shadow and run rather than do anything else. Everything else he had done had only been for flare and intimidation, not that he thought it would work against them, which had been exactly what he was hoping for.
'Ah… have I always been this much of a bastard? Time truly changes people…'
His plan had nothing to do with killing any Chain Lords currently, as it was difficult to split them apart. Even if he did, without Serpent, he wouldn't be able to take any of them down, he was only a Master after all.
So he was planning on utilizing Hope's Poison.
'The knives… were always meant to be used.'
Using all the knowledge he had gained about this time period and the Chain Lords, Sunny had come to a conclusion that the Chain Lords were always going to die eventually. In fact, outside of the Nightmare, Noctis had been the one to wage war on the rest of the Chain Lords to free Hope, they were fated to fight each other.
So all Sunny had to do was turn them against each other.
It wouldn't be easy, nor would it be quick. He'd taken such drastic measures today just to speed things up, not that he was certain it would work.
'I still need to keep things simple… I can't rely too much on certain things happening.'
Complex plans would do him no favors here, the simpler he kept things the easier it would be to adapt to change.. When dealing with Awakened, quite literally anything could happen, so he still needed to be extremely cautious.
For now though, he needed rest. He'd used Shadow Step many times in quick succession, crossing vast distances. Even if he was an Ascended Titan, he couldn't keep recklessly spending his essence, he needed it to remain topped up at all times. He could not rely on staying hidden forever.
"Youngest, are you done?"
Perking up slightly, Sunny turned to Hope.
"I am, Lady Hope."
"Come, your lessons are not finished."
Sunny nodded quickly.
"Of course, right away!"
As dreadful as the lessons were, he was still learning about language from a literal daemon! When else would he ever get a chance like this?
'Never!'
Another thing was that time seemed to move far stranger in dreams as well. In fact, he had already spent several days in the previous dream, yet in the real world only about a day had passed. He had far more time to learn then he had first imagined.
'Good… good…'
***
The moon rose silently above the night sky, bathing the world in soft light.
"..."
"..."
The four remaining Chain Lords sat across from each other, not a single word spoken between them. Some of them had blank expressions, while others had a dejected look on their faces. A candle burned on the table separating them, the embers burning on its wick only barely hanging on. The silence in the room was… oppressive.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"..."
For a while, Noctis didn't answer Sevras' question.
Eventually though, he did.
"Never crossed my mind."
BANG!
The table exploded into a shower of splinters, pieces of wood flying at every corner of the room. Not one of the Chain Lords reacted.
Letting out a quiet sigh, Sevras calmly sat back down.
"Is there anything else you've withheld?"
"...No."
Sevras nodded, having made up his mind.
"Leave."
Noctis raised an eyebrow.
"Leave?"
Aidre lowered her head and Semos looked to his brother in shock.
"You are a liability, and I can no longer trust you. Leave."
Noctis stood up, scoffing.
"And how do you hope to find that fiend? Luck? Don't forget I'm the best chance you have."
"Leave."
"And who gave you a shot at destroying that Devil? It was me!"
"Leave."
Semos stood up.
"Brother, surely you see-"
Sevras stood, heat emanating from him.
"Leave. Now."
Despite the fact that it was the middle of the night, and Sevras' Flaw was at its most powerful, the Chain Lords took a step back.
Noctis turned to Aidre, hoping she would back him up, but she seemed to have gone completely still.
"...Fine."
Clicking his tongue, he made his way to the window before leaping out into the night.
***
'Damn.'
Sunny had not expected Sevras to make such a decisive measure so soon!
He quickly sent a command to the crazy shadow to hide itself, as Noctis would likely fly past the gate soon.
With all the chaos he had caused not too long ago, Sunny had finally been able to achieve his true goal.
Sneak a shadow into the Chain Lord's meeting place.
Or rather, two.
No longer seeing a need to follow the priests, he had sent both haughty and lazy shadow into the large building, hiding them in inconspicuous places and completely retracting his shadow sense. Currently, the haughty shadow was hidden within a gap on the wall, while the lazy shadow was hidden inside a crack on the roof. Doing his best to make the shadows as unnoticeable as possible, Sunny focused on only using his hearing.
Normally, the Chain Lords would likely consider such a thing, as of course their enemy would want as much information from them as possible, except right now, Sunny had misdirected their attention. In their previous confrontation, many of his actions had simply been smokescreens to either hide his power or distract the Saints from something else. Even when he first showed up, he made sure to appear without any shadows, giving them the impression he had only one shadow helper rather than six.
And with all the chaos he had caused right after that, their attention was surely to be elsewhere.
He would've laughed if he wasn't chewing, as he was currently sharing a meal with Hope.
"Your plan worked, youngest?"
Swallowing, Sunny grinned.
"I hope so. I'm not expecting much though."
There was always the possibility that they had already noticed his shadows, and everything they had said there was simply a ruse to make him let his guard down.
'I'll need to have some other plans to fall back on too…'
For now, he'd continue to bide his time to allow Serpent to grow its forces once more.
'The Great Spirit Gatherer… what a fiend.'
The vulture somewhat reminded him of Jet, only if she was a creepy giant vulture, but still. Its abilities allowed it to fight nearly indefinitely as long as it had things to kill, with the souls — or rather spirits — of dead beings fueling it. He had sent it to some nearby islands he had spotted previously that were teeming with corrupted, allowing Serpent to build an army. It was nowhere near as strong as it could be just yet, but a Titan was a Titan, even giving it the bare minimum to work with still made it a terrifying foe.
The only problem was… the islands teeming with corrupted were still a decent ways away. Sunny had expected Serpent to arrive far later, but it seemed that the city was on high alert and the scouts had actually noticed its distant form, warning Sevras much earlier than Sunny had expected. Still, it had worked out just fine. If it had been Noctis and Aidre who had gone to stop Serpent, he would've either given up on his plan to kidnap the local Awakened to back up Serpent or he would've attempted to assassinate Semos.
'Oh well, no point in thinking about it now.'
He had been in the Nightmare for a month and a half now. Normally, he would've been damn near ready to leave already, but now…
"You are not sleeping?"
Sunny shook his head.
"Not yet. I need to make sure I know how my shadows are doing."
Currently, the haughty and lazy shadows were spying on the Chain Lords while the crazy shadow remained near the gate. He had kept the happy shadow with himself, but seeing as they didn't have much to do, Sunny he had sent the naughty and creepy shadow to back up Serpent.
"Then you will continue your study on runes later. Stand, you will learn something else instead."
Sunny perked up in interest.
"Really? What is it, Lady Hope?"
She pointed to the Shadow Lantern hanging at his waist.
"If you ever enter the Shadow Realm, you will need to know how to hide the scent of your soul. I can see you have some methods of hiding your soul from detection, but it is not perfect. This will raise your chances of survival by much more."
"Hide the scent of my soul?"
Hope nodded.
"Yes. Every soul gives off something akin to scent. I assume you have noticed before that corrupted seem to attack you far more than others?"
Sunny's eyes widened.
"Yeah… yeah, I have noticed something like that."
Nightmare Creatures always seemed to have some sort of damned vendetta with him. It had been especially noticeable back in Falcon Scott, where bastards like Fiend and Goliath seemed to target only him in particular.
"That is because your soul gives off the scent of divinity, an irresistible lure to corrupted. To them, anything that is not corrupted needs to die, and even more so if you are of the divine."
Sunny nodded, rubbing his chin which had now grown a short beard, courtesy of the Shadow Lord's body.
"I see… a lot more things make sense now. Thank you, Lady Hope. Then, how do I hide the scent of my soul?"
Hope's wings rustled.
"Are you not a Divine Shadow? I will show you, and you will learn it."
Sunny blinked.
"...Right."
As a practitioner of the Shadow Dance, he could learn most things by simply observing their essence through his shadow sense. Without his eyesight to watch the movement of the soul essence inside Hope's body, he would certainly have a tougher time, but then again, observing a Divine Titans soul could very well just turn his eyes into smoldering embers.
'Blessing in disguise, maybe?'
His thoughts were interrupted a moment later as he felt Hope's shadow change.
Sunny nearly stumbled in shock.
"Wow."
The shadow hadn't disappeared, but it had fundamentally changed — not in shape, but in presence. It felt as if he was feeling the shadow of an inanimate object. If he didn't know any better, he may as well have been facing a statue rather than a daemon.
"How on earth?"
Stepping forward, he moved around Hope, trying to sense her shadow from a better angle.
Although the robe was in the way, he wouldn't ask her to remove it. There were just some things he wouldn't do, and this was one of them.
As he peered closer at her shadow though, he realised that Hope was...
She was beautiful. She was also creepy. And cool. And scary. Both divine and unholy.
'So… so…'
Sunny didn't have anything he could really say. It was certainly a new experience. He once more lamented the fact that he couldn't see.
Strangely, the only parts of Hope's body that was truly far removed from the human body were her wings and horns.
'I wonder what her transformation is like… do daemons have that? Probably. What else could I have seen back then, then?'
Out of pure curiosity, he attempt to count how many vertebrates her spine had, but was quickly interrupted.
"Youngest, pay attention."
"O-Oh, right. Of course."
He had been momentarily distracted by her features, but now he realised he could feel her shadow far more clearly.
And it was… scowling at him?
'Huh?'
He had never seen a shadow behave in such a manner before… usually they were just silent. Hope's shadow seemed more independent than most, though. Perhaps it was simply something that happened when one was a divine being.
A moment later, he snapped back to attention as he felt Hope display the method of hiding one's soul to him once more.
His disciplined mind immediately focused, all other thoughts being pushed to the side as he began diving into the shadow dance.
'I see, I see!'
If anyone else had been teaching him, he likely wouldn't have been able to learn how to do it. Not without eyes, anyways. But Hope had seen so much about him already, perhaps more than anyone else before. She knew how his aspect functioned, she knew how he learned best, she knew the method he'd be able to follow. Truly, the Demon of Desire was a magnificent teacher.
'No wonder she managed to teach those primal buffoons how to write…'
If the ancient humans within the other realms were anything like the ones back in the waking world, then they would've been the types to be stuck in the stone age for millions of years, living like cavemen.
Dispelling the effect, Hope once more showed him how to do it.
Sunny focused, his mind straining to make sure he didn't miss anything.
Hope showed him again. And again. And again.
Hours passed.
Hope showed him again.
Days passed.
And after two and a half days, Sunny leaned back.
"I think I got it…"
Moving his essence in terribly complicated ways, he could feel a crude form of what Hope showed him happen to his soul. It was nowhere near at the level he hoped it would be, but as an Ascended, his control over his essence was still limited, even as a practitioner of the Shadow Dance. As he ascended the ranks though, his ability to use it would most certainly improve.
"Well done. It is not perfect, but with practice, you should be able to perfect it by the time you are ready to venture into a place like the Shadow Realm."
Sunny bowed in respect and gratitude.
"Thank you, Lady Hope. This… this will definitely come in handy."
"Now, onto the next. I will now teach you how to-"
"W-Wait!"
Sunny waved his hands around, flustered, causing Hope to tilt her head in confusion.
"I need to take a short break… and I also need to release my prisoners."
Hope nodded.
"Go. But if you plan on sleeping, you will continue your work on runes."
Sunny swallowed hard and nodded.
"Understood."
Standing up, he stretched for a while before stepping into the shadows, appearing on the floor above where he had left his prisoners. He hadn't even tied them up, considering the fact they had been fast asleep the entire time. Such a thing would only help with his deception.
Picking up the first of the bunch, he tossed them into the Covetous Coffer before moving onto the next. He had already transplanted the enchantment that allowed the Coffer to store living beings within it months ago, so he did not need to carry any of the humans around himself.
Holding the Coffer, he began to think of where he should dump the first of them.