Kane took the night watch, and the hours passed with an eerie calm. He used the quiet moments to meditate, his thoughts focused on the perplexing situation they faced. As the first hint of dawn painted the sky, a surprising voice broke the silence.
"Kane, I've received another vision. It's about the Carapace Demon." It was Cassie, who, despite her blindness, had woken before the others.
Kane paused, his mind instantly alert. "Let's wake everyone up first."
Cassie, with a quiet determination, moved to Sunny, gently shaking him awake. Meanwhile, Kane went to Nephis. Her eyes snapped open instantly, her voice a sharp query in the dim light. "What is it?"
"Cassie has had a vision," Kane explained, "about the demon."
Nephis's usually impassive grey eyes widened slightly. Everyone gravitated towards Cassie, their faces barely visible in the faint pre-dawn glow. Nephis and Kane settled beside her.
"Past or future?" Nephis inquired, her voice hushed.
Cassie paused, gathering her thoughts, then answered hesitantly. "Past… I think." After a short pause, her expression shifted to one of certainty. "No, I'm sure of it."
Changing Star tilted her head slightly. "That's good. So… what did you see?"
Cassie inhaled deeply and fell silent for several seconds, recalling the vivid images. Her face paled a little, but this time, she was ready to confront her fear.
"I saw the Ashen Barrow deep in the night, enveloped in a raging storm. The winds were bending the branches of the great tree, as if desperate to break them. The island was illuminated by the constant barrage of thundering lightning bolts, with rain falling from the skies like a flood."
She paused, catching her breath, before continuing. "The Carapace Demon was there, standing in the middle of the storm like an unshakable fortress made of polished steel. Arcs of electricity were dancing between the spikes on his armor, but the demon paid it no attention. He was just as Sunny described… prideful, sinister, and terrifying."
Cassie closed her eyes, the memory potent. "When I looked into his eyes, I felt… a sense of emptiness and corruption. He observed the storm until it began to dissipate. The winds weakened, the rain stopped. The great tree stood unbroken, just as magnificent as it was before. But then, the last bolt of lightning fell from the sky and struck the ground beside it."
Kane listened to her tale with rapt attention, hopeful for any piece of useful information. So, it's impervious to lightning, he thought. Hopefully, we'll get some valuable intel from this.
Cassie, meanwhile, was ready to carry on: "That bolt of lightning could never hurt the Carapace Demon, let alone the miraculous tree. However, when it hit the ground, it ignited the fallen leaves that cover the Ashen Barrow's surface. Soon, a large part of the island was engulfed in fire. In the absolute darkness of the night, it shone like a beacon."
Then, a crucial piece of information suddenly clicked in Kane's mind. He remembered that when the four of them first met at the beginning of their deadly adventure through the Dream Realm, the girls had mentioned that the light he had seen from the giant knight's statue a few nights prior had indeed been made by them.
However, creating that fire had turned out to be a grave mistake. At night, any source of light was like a lure for the monsters of the Forgotten Shore… including the terrifying creatures that lurked in the depths of the dark sea. That's why, ever since, they were careful never to light a fire after sunset, preferring to endure the darkness instead of attracting unknown horrors from beneath the waves.
Having a strong suspicion of what had happened next in Cassie's vision, he waited for the blind girl to continue. Her voice trembled slightly as she resumed. "Before the flames died down, the dark sea surged, and a… a thing crawled out of it, covering almost the entire slope of the Ashen Barrow with its body. It looked like a… like a mass of bones and rotten flesh connected by black seaweed, with thousands of horrible eyes staring at me hungrily from beneath, coiling tentacles seething as it pushed itself toward the great tree."
Her face turned slightly green. Just remembering the abomination made Cassie feel nauseated, but she gritted her teeth and continued speaking. "That was the most repulsive creature I've ever seen. However, it seemed slow and clumsy, as though being ashore, outside of the black water, was weakening it. The Carapace Demon did not hesitate to lunge at the creature, completely ignoring the fact that it was at least ten times its size. It was like… like he completely lost his mind, enraged by the intrusion on the island."
Nephis suddenly interjected, her voice sharp. "How did the demon survive?"
The blind girl hesitated. "I… I don't know. I didn't see the battle itself, only its beginning and its end. At the break of dawn, the Carapace Demon crawled back into the shade of the great tree. He was severely wounded, with several of his legs missing and his scythes covered by a spiderweb of cracks. The fire was gone, and there was no sign of the sea creature anywhere in sight."
She paused for a moment and then said in a quiet voice, "The most terrible wound was on his chest. The steel armor of the demon was fractured and split apart, revealing the beating heart inside. Rivers of azure blood were flowing from the wound, mixing with the ashen sand. The demon crawled to the base of the tree and laid his broken body between its roots."
Cassie sighed, the weight of the vision still heavy on her. "The last thing I saw was the passage of time. I don't know how long it took, but eventually, the Carapace Demon was able to recover from his wounds. His scythes restored themselves, his legs grew back. The fracture on his chest was the last to heal. However, it wasn't healed completely. Hidden from sight, there's still a weakness in his armor."
Kane, Sunny, and Nephis remained silent for a long time, each lost in their own thoughts, processing the gravity of Cassie's vision.
Changing Star was the first to break the silence. "So it's not impenetrable after all." She then looked at Sunny and asked, "How's your plan coming along?"
He blinked, extricating himself from the swarm of thoughts that had consumed him. Glancing at his companions, Sunny smiled. "Pretty well. I already had an inkling of how we should proceed, but Cassie's vision gave me additional inspiration."
Nephis raised an eyebrow, a hint of curiosity in her voice. "Is that so?"
Kane sighed, a mix of hope and apprehension in his voice. "What plan is it? Will it work?"
"Yeah. It's a wild idea, but it just might work," Sunny admitted. "Well… maybe. In any case, it's going to be risky. And we'll have to make some preparations." He paused briefly, then continued. "It's not very complicated. Actually, I got the idea from that ancient fellow Neph likes to talk about. We're going to build…" Sunny took a dramatic pause, then said with a mysterious smile, "...a Trojan Ass."
However, their reaction was not what he had expected. Kane and both girls blinked, then stared at him with complicated expressions. Well, Cassie didn't stare, since she was blind, but her face mirrored Changing Star's perfectly.
"…A what now?" Kane sputtered, his tone utterly flabbergasted.
Sunny scratched the back of his head, clearly embarrassed, and cleared his throat. "Uh… did I use the wrong word? I thought that Odysseus guy built a wooden animal? A… uh… donkey?"
Nephis raised a hand and placed it on her forehead, closing her eyes in exasperation.
"Uh, are you alright?" Sunny asked, genuinely concerned.
She sighed deeply, then said in a flat tone, "A horse. It was a horse…"
"Next time," Kane interjected, trying to suppress a chuckle, "tell it properly, or else it gives a very different vibe. I almost thought we'd have to hide in something… ass."
Now, all of them stared at him. Cassie, her face turning a vivid shade of red as she imagined the situation, trembled slightly and whispered to him, "Next time, don't ever remind me of that. I can't imagine it anymore."
Sunny, still mortified, defended himself. "Who told you to interpret it like that?"
"That's what I got from the description," Kane replied calmly, a mischievous glint in his eye.
Nephis sighed, a hint of a smile playing on her lips. "You really are a weird guy, aren't you?"
Kane bristled, a flash of annoyance in his eyes, but his voice remained sharp. "Says the person whose word count hasn't crossed twenty until now and spoke like a half-eaten carcass!"
Nephis flushed, her eyes narrowing as she stared at him, and thus a staring competition began. They stared at each other until Sunny's voice cut through the tension. "Stop it! Both of you! We have a demon to hunt!"
Kane sighed, the fight draining out of him. "Yeah, you're right. Okay, we shall follow your 'ass' plan."
Sunny sighed in relief. Cassie, still flustered, gently took Kane's arm. "Let's just forget the whole matter, shall we? Once and for all." She then sat beside him. "Kane, you are being Mr. Weird."
Kane laughed, the awkwardness quickly dissipating. "From Mr. Caretaker to Mr. Weird? Seriously, your names are definitely special enough to engrave as relics, Miss Porcelain Beauty."
Cassie flushed again for a minute, but a small smile touched her lips. "At least I'm the most normal out of all four of us."
Kane sighed, a genuine smile forming. "Yeah, you're right about that."
The next day, they returned to the desolate battlefield where the carapace legion had clashed with the centipede monsters. A few days earlier, they had lured a carapace centurion here to ambush it, but their actions had inadvertently triggered a massive confrontation between the two rival tribes of Nightmare Creatures.
The carcasses of some of the monsters still lay scattered across the muddy ground, partially buried. Of course, there was no meat left on their skeletons. The inhabitants of the labyrinth were, for the most part, carrion eaters, after all.
However, the four Sleepers were not interested in meat. They had come for something else entirely. Stopping in front of a centurion's empty shell, cleaned of any flesh by some unknown beasts, Sunny looked at the black and crimson carapace with satisfaction.
Nephis walked over and stood by his side, an unreadable expression on her face. "Is this what you wanted?"
Sunny smiled. "Yeah, exactly. I knew that nothing would be insane enough to chew on the chitin, but… in this place, you never know. I wasn't entirely sure about its condition."
But the condition was good. In fact, it was perfect. Therefore, the preparation for the 'Trojan Horse' plan was well underway.