Despite herself, Nephis face broke into an involuntary smile, Effie always knew how to break a grim atmosphere. "No Effie, I didn't I was just there to pay respects, like you did as well I hope?" She raised an eyebrow.
Effie held a hand to her chest. "Of course! Telling the doofus about all of my adventures here is basically a ritual at this point." Her smile lost most of its mischief and became much more genuine. "Not everything of course, need to save the juicer ones for when he wakes up!"
"I don't think subjecting Sunny to Effie as the first thing he sees or hears , when he wakes up is very fair on him." Kai spoke up smiling too. "But he always comes up with those ridiculous stories of his. I think it's fair we surprise him with a few stories of our own."
Cassie giggled, her face not drowned in as much sorrow. "Yeah… I agree."
The mood in the room was much lighter as it was before, no one in the room doubted that Sunny would come back, they had too much faith in him for that.
Nephis looked at Cassie, Kai and Effie, her allies, companions and first friends she's had in a long time, even with the void of Sunny they didn't let it get them down and as their leader she had to make sure they came back alive to keep having faith.
"You all know what to do." Changing Star's voice was clear, and they all subtly straightened themselves at the fire in her voice. "We all have our tasks, I don't need to say anything more, I trust you all to get it done."
White embers burned in her eyes. "The next time we come back to the Waking World it will be as Masters, now come on, we have a Nightmare to conquer."
With that, Changing Star walked off, entering the hall on the right side of the lounge, the cohort behind her and ready for anything.
Kai and Effie would go towards the Tear in the center of the Isles, to see over repairs on the flying ship to make sure everything is in working order and Nephis and Cassie would journey towards The Night Temple, to get the ivory dagger that would increase their chances in the Nightmare then in a month challenge it.
They all broke off into their designated rooms, a state of the art pod in the middle of each one, they needed their space as you never knew what would happen when a Master came back after a Nightmare.
Changing Star got into her ergonomic training suit and then entered the pod.
As the door sealed her inside, Nephis closed her eyes and surrendered herself to the mercy of dreams.
Sunny dreamt of a desolate plain.
The grass was grey and the rolling hills were somber and stretched as far as they eye could see, black trees with gnarled branches and gnarled roots covered the landscape and signs of fallen villages were littered around like abandoned detritus.
At the upper right of the plains itself, the remains of a desolate forest spanned over a large distance most of the trees ruined and suffering the same affliction as the other trees in the area, broken pillars once immense littered the surrounding forest haphazardly and seemed to stretch off into the distance.
The sky on the other hand held the same expanse of colorful aurora's, trying to give some form of color in this damned hell, they swirled in the sky like dragons and if one paid close enough attention even seemed to be squirming like worms that had just found fresh food to feast on.
Then time began to reverse.
The auroras slowly dimmed, and the expanse of night intruded on the world, the white light infecting the aurora's in a fast motion rewind, ash spiraled over the plains caught in the winds of time and dozens of years began to pass by.
Fires rose, raging through the land like a maelstrom, the ashen hills were now covered in flame, up above the night sky was a pure black contrasting sharply with the eerie white aurora's, they seemed even more lively and the light even more intense yet at the same time they began to retreat into rapidly into the sky, the scent of blood and ash was immense, Sunny even swore he could hear a familiar mournful wail echoing through the entire world, filled with resentment and longing…
Time slowed and Sunny felt a powerful pull on his soul, unable to resist he surrendered himself to the attraction force of the Nightmare, his gaze directed back towards the forest, he looked at its center and was surprised to see a decently large island in the middle of it, with a beach littered in debris and surrounded by a lake, though there was something strange about it.
That was where Sunny had found himself.
…And of course, he immediately fell into the middle of the lake.
'Damnation! Why!?' Sunny thrashed in the water, panicking while simultaneously cursing his luck, this was the second time the Spell had dropped him right on top of a water source, even though the Forgotten Shore was long behind him the Dark Sea isn't something easily forgotten, he was beginning to get sick of it.
Thankfully, he had plenty of experience with swimming so he tried orienting himself with Shadow Sense to break through the surface of the water, breath and begin figuring out where the Spell had dropped him.
Key emphasis on tried.
The moment Sunny strained his muscles, he realised that something was horribly wrong.
His body did not listen to him, or it listened in ways that were completely familiar and alien at the same time, he felt heavier and his usual coordination was all gone, instead of swimming he was just thrashing in the water, submerging himself deeper and deeper towards the bottom of the lake, even his senses were slightly strained.
'What the hell?!'
The panic that he had under his control fully started to reveal itself, which didn't help with his poor attempts at swimming.
The difference between this body and his First Nightmare body were night and day, if he knew that this would have happened he would have rather fought that Fallen Devil than to die by drowning!
The edges of his vision began to darken and his lungs began to burn from the lack of oxygen. His mind spun furiously trying to figure out a way from the latest trial that the Spell had thrown at him.
Not knowing if it would work but praying anyway, Sunny summoned his Memory [Avian's Attunement] and sent every single one of his shadows into it, boosting the Tool's strength for all its worth and with pure force of will launched himself towards the surface.
The effect was immediate, Sunny blasted through the water like a bullet out of a chamber bathed in yellow radiance. He could feel a serious strain coming from the Memory, understandable, as birds weren't meant to fly in water, and he could feel his body being actively cannibalized to feed the Memory's enchantments.
But before being fully devoured by the carnivorous item, Sunny broke through the surface of water, flying even faster than before, he didn't even wait to look at his surroundings as he immediately relied on Shadow Sense to orient himself towards the nearby landmass, his flight was awkward and combined with him still struggling to control his body, Sunny was sure from a distance he was quite a sight to behold.
His landing was anything but graceful, he hit the rough, coarse ground with a crash, and rolled forward in a tumble of limbs, the only reason he wasn't suffering major vertigo was because of his extraordinary senses.
'God… dammit, haven't I suffered enough?' Sunny sprawled onto what he thought was his back, coughing violently in hopes of expelling any water in his lungs, trying and failing to get his breath under control, without hesitation he summoned Gale to keep guard over him.
The wraith-like creature exited his shadow with a gust and after getting its bearings looked down at him with pity.
'Yeah, I'm sure you're loving this aren't you?' Sunny cursed the windy shadow in his mind and threw what he hoped was a glare as well, Gale scoffed and flared his tenebrous cloak with the wind, turning away to patrol.
"Bastard…" Sunny muttered under his breath, or he tried too. Something was wrong with his mouth. Strained, his breathing was still visibly labored as he tried to control his new vessel, every attempt was like a misfire of circuits, sometimes he got the right response but majority of the time it was a failure. Sunny closed his eyes and shut down all his senses, surrendering himself to the instincts of his body.
And finally after a moment, Sunny could feel the cold and glorious air entering his lungs, filling him with vigour. He never thought that something as simple as breathing would be so precious in the Dream Realm, but it showed what he knew.
Sunny breathed in and out, allowing his mind to get somewhat acclimated to his new instincts and after a bit of trepidation, Sunny looked down at what the hell was wrong with him.
'What the fuck?'
Sunny wasn't one to use such crass language but he felt like the situation was appropriate.
His body was 4 inches taller than normal, even though he had always wanted to be taller this wasn't what he had in mind, his muscles were much, much more pronounced and bestial and he had two additional arms, giving him four in total, he had two sharp black horns on his head although they were short as if newly sprouted and his hair was still the same length as outside the Nightmare but more silky and smooth.
Beside those changes he was fairly humanoid, his skin was still pale although leaning more to a much whiter shade than what was natural and there was a splatter of black splotches across his body, combined with his tattoo of Serpent it made for a mesmerising pattern, thankfully his legs were still normal, although he could feel a small bump on his rear…
"Dammit, Dammit! Dammit!!" Is what he wanted to say but Sunny's surprises didn't end there, his voice was lower and had a more gravelly tone to it, the words still came out but there was a certain difficulty in speaking that wasn't there previously.
Even then his curses didn't end as he began to try and find a way to actually lift himself off the ground. It didn't take him long to fully comprehend the changes in his new form, accepting though it was another affair.
The circumstances right now were very dire, an Awakened's body was their most trusted ally having it changed so drastically, especially to a front line fighter like him, was a disaster, it took one misstep, one mistake for an enemy to capitalize on to finish you off.
Sunny would have loved to just lay there on the ground, to actually take a real and proper breath after the pure hellscape of that were the Hills of the Damned, he deserved that much didn't he? Although physically he was fine – And if he really focused on it much stronger than before – his mental state had been long brought to its breaking point, every warrior needed their rest or else they would become sloppy
But that was a luxury he currently couldn't afford, Sunny was within the hands of the Second Nightmare something that had killed Awakened much greater than him even with a full cohort behind their backs, he was just a Sleeper, the strongest Sleeper to have ever existed, true, but quality still mattered to a certain level, he needed to acclimate himself to his condition fast.
'Things are looking bad right now but I still have Saint, I just need to hide until she's back to full strength, I'm confident even she could take down an average Master in a fight, plus I have an advantage.'Sunny grinned and thanked his past self for creating Shadow Dance, focusing on the experience of shadowing creatures much more different than him in body and soul, he slowly started to test each new limb and muscle.
It took much longer than he'd liked, but after a couple of grueling minutes he slowly got use to his form, Shadow Dance was truly showing its value at the moment, as Sunny doubted any other Awakened would have gotten used to an entirely new body as fast as him, although he was still much too sluggish for his own liking. Grunting and heaving just to stand was embarrassing.
He was like a newborn, minus the ugly face and constant crying.
'Ha! I'm already adapting to my new body. I'm nothing if not resilient, after all this is just a Second Nightmare! What's the big deal?' Sunny smirked victoriously, as he stood on his own two legs.
He looked down and saw Gloomy Shadow - resembling his new form -facepalming, Happy looked at him with disappointment, Creepy was as unnerving as ever and even Crazy stopped being a weirdo and looked at him as if he was crazy.
Sunny wondered what their problem was but shrugged and moved on, it's not like he said anything bad.
Despite that, Sunny was already on high alert, he immediately sent one shadow towards Gale to give him a boost, one to scout his surroundings and layered another onto himself for the extra strength, small as the boost may be in the grand scheme of things, every rope mattered.
Spreading out his Shadow Sense and one of his helpers, he immediately took stock of where he had found himself.
And what he saw sent a shiver down his spine.
Sunny remembered seeing debris on the beach of the island, he didn't pay it much mind and thought that they might be rocks and scattered boulders, but what he saw was infinitely worse.
Bones, bones and the carcasses of dead Nightmare Creatures covered the beach as far as he could see, he truly underestimated the size of the island when he saw it initially, because it was much bigger than he thought one was supposed to be, especially when it was in the middle of a forest, that made the sight of so many butchered abominations all the more intimidating.
The sun was in the sky but it was swiftly going towards the horizon, it painted the entire beach in a light red hue, the water continually lapped on the lip of the beach like spilled blood and combined with all the corpses it made the entire area seem so much more sinister, even the beach itself had multiple craters and trenches from no doubt immense battles between these monsters and whatever killed them.
Some creatures were small, others were as big as houses, each one in varying states of decay and there was even one that he swore looked like the love child of a bull and an octopus
…not that he knew what a bull was, but he was pretty sure it looked similar to whatever that abomination was.
All in all, it was a macabre sight and Sunny had enough experience hunting Nightmare Creatures to see that a lot of those injuries were only a day old, whatever did this was still in the area, even Gale in the distance looked disturbed at the carnage.
He had to hide, the predator that took down all these monsters clearly wasn't a pushover and he had no doubts in his mind that it was at least at the Fallen Rank.
'Things are looking grim, but all I have to do is hide and scout out the area for whatever did this and avoid it,' Sunny wondered for a moment if him killing the beast might be the objective of this Nightmare, but he immediately dismissed it, if it was he would have to do an extensive amount of research before he would tackle it.
Till then he would rest, recuperate and stay far away from the unholy monstrosity that did this.
And not a moment sooner when that thought crossed his mind, his death attribute screamed.
He barely registered it, a blur rocketed towards him from beyond the forest bordering the beach, Sunny immediately lunged to his right with all his might, but his lack of coordination made him fall over back onto the ground.
A large trench dug itself into the sand carving a path towards one of the many bodies that covered the beachside, exploding in a cloud of white particles. The sheer force made the sand billow out in every direction covering Sunny's location, he coughed as he accidentally inhaled some of the dust and tried to get his breathing under control.
In his senses he could feel Gale gathering up a whirlwind of air around himself, turning to face towards the forest, Sunny sent another shadow to support the wind spirit hoping it would be enough and the scouting one towards his attacker
"I really… need to–" he hacked and spat out a glob of spit, "Learn to keep… my mouth shut…", his speech was still warped and the sand mouth didn't help.
The shape of the object turned projectile revealed itself to him in his Shadow Sense, it was buried at the bottom of the newly formed cratered trench, it had a long wooden shaft and at its front end was a blade it was a…
'A spear?' Sunny thought, a sinking feeling of dread pooling in his gut, he could tell that it was well-made, there was a leather grip and the blade socket was not crude in the slightest.
He either had found himself at the ire of an intelligent Nightmare creature, a particularly powerful one considering the crater or even worse.
A human.
Considering his current body's shape he had no doubt that any Awakened would mistake him for an abomination, he had never heard of a Nightmare Creature that wasn't mad, so that would be the best guest of his would be attacker.
Sunny accessed that sight of his shadow while crouching down, trying to shrink his profile as much as possible. Ahead of him, bordering the beach, was a raised piece of land like a steep slope that led into a forest and standing beneath the shadows of the tree was a short lithe figure.
The figure seemed to be around his age, it was a girl with wild coarse black hair that fell down to her middle black, her clothes were a torn brown leather sleeveless tunic that revealed her midriff and skirt of the same material that reached her knees, her face at first glance looked soft and demure, but there was an intensity in her eyes that gave Sunny pause, especially combined with the hard lines carved in her face.
But that wasn't the strangest thing about her.
Her skin was patterned with swirling black tattoos, her face was bare except for a dot in the centre of her forehead and two black streaks on her cheeks, the contrast was symmetrical and beautiful and also eerily familiar in a way that made Sunny's heart clench.
But what caught Sunny the most were her glowing eyes and the way her gaze immediately shot towards what should have been a hidden shadow.
'Crap!'
Sunny hastily called back Happy, his instincts proved correct as he heard a mighty crash echo through that area barely a second after his shadow vacated; he didn't know this woman's capabilities and was not willing to risk the safety of his helpers.
Happy glided towards Gale, as he dashed up towards the slope, they met halfway as soon as he was augmented - his tenebrous cloak flaring out - he sent a maelstrom of wind blades towards the tattooed woman, who dodged them with feline grace.
Their battle kicked up dust as they clashed, and Sunny could feel the displaced air from her blows even from here, he hoped Gale would be able to buy him time to think as Sunny desperately needed it.
"M-Master, she's definitely at least a Master." Sunny's stomach dropped as he grew more and more sure of his assumption, the force of her attacks, the speed of her movements and the sheer presence she exuded when he first saw her was unmistakable.
Sunny also had a terrible premonition on the origin of the bodies around him.
It wasn't only that, there was something about her, something eerily familiar that made a primal part of his mind want to run as far away as possible in the opposite direction.
But before Sunny could even make the decision the fight was over.
The tattooed girl kicked Gale in the stomach with such force, his torso imploded on itself, sending him flying towards the water like a thrown out doll. Sunny cried out and immediately returned him to the Shadows before the damage could take him out permanently.
By the time Gale disappeared and all of Sunny's shadows returned to him, he found himself staring into a glowing yellow abyss.
'Ah…'
Sunny now knew why he found her so familiar, those brilliant yellow eyes bored into him like predator to prey, the colour was more saturated and vivid than the last time he saw them, but he would never forget the abomination that nearly spelled his demise before he entered this Nightmare.
Lost from Light gaped at the tattooed girl who would become the Multi-Eyed Devil of the Hills of the Damned, Sunny sight shifted automatically and his dread increased even more as he saw the blindingly radiant Soul Core in the centre of her chest, bathed in the golden light of divinity, glowing tendrils stretched out from her core and past her body but his mind barely registered the strange sight of her soul.
She reached his nose in height but it certainly didn't feel like it, and knew that he was looking at minimum an Ascended Rank Awakened.
He flinched and immediately tried to jump back away from her, but a deceptively looking delicate hand grabbed his lower forearm in a vice-like grip, and Sunny grunted as the bones in his arm creaked.
"Wait!" Sunny tried to say but it came out as more of a garble of menacing sounds than actually coherent speech, the girl's eyes narrowed and with strength that should not fit her form, she lifted Sunny up into the air with one hand.
The moment of weightlessness was brief as she then unceremoniously slammed him back into the sand, winding him completely.
Sunny groaned, the sand might have been soft but it did little to blunt the damage from the sheer force of that lazy attack, and his arm was still being held by this monstrous girl. Sunny didn't try and augment himself either, he didn't have illusions of who would win in a contest of strength.
'This… is the end, I guess.' The thought crossed his mind, and filled Sunny with immense bitterness, he entered the Second Nightmare to escape a Fallen Nightmare Creature and now was going to die at the hands of the same creature in the Nightmare before it became one.
"Damnation!" The garbled speech came out of his mouth unprompted and Sunny had to close his eyes, trying to contain the heat building in his eyes. He thought that he ran out of tears but he really knew how to surprise himself.
People always said that the Spell was fair but he certainly wasn't feeling that fairness now, he hadn't felt that fairness since he got dropped into that damned Shore!
But when has life ever been fair?