They sat on the western edge of the platform, watching scavengers strip the giant shark's carcass.
"Were there always that many?" Nephis asked.
Sunny shook his head. "No. Fewer now. The meat won't last until nightfall."
Which meant the beasts would soon roam the labyrinth. Risky to stay, but leaving without a scouted path was just as dangerous.
"I don't want Cassie spending another night here," Nephis said. "We leave now."
Sunny was about to reply when a commotion below caught his eye. Amid the bones, two vast, luminescent crystals gleamed.
"Transcendent shards…" he muttered, torn between awe and dread.
Before he could act, a disharmony in the scavengers' clamor froze him. Two enormous figures emerged from the labyrinth: taller, deadlier versions of the scavengers, their black-scarlet shells bristling with spikes, arms ending in scythe-like bones.
Sunny felt a chill. "What the hell are those?"
"Monsters," Nephis answered.
The scavengers scattered as the monsters seized the shards—not to consume, but to carry them away.
"Do we still leave?" Sunny asked.
Nephis frowned, then shook her head. "Tomorrow. Have your shadow follow them."
***
The vision that Cassie had said was still on his mind.
An archer trying to pierce the sky?
Corpse with golden armour?
A woman with a bronze spear and another calling to someone?
But none of that concerned him, what concerned him the most was the shadow, an obvious allusion to himself.
He shook his head, he shouldn't think about such things for now, for now he should worry about what he could change or do.
...Which was nothing if he was being honest, he couldn't get any fragments from all the way up here, so all he could do was swing his sword and converse with Nephis.
But what if he could?
Checking his runes, Sunny couldn't help but think he could do more with his echo.
But he couldn't even summon it for the fear of them questioning it.
Just then, an idea popped into his head, Sunny ordered his shadow as far possible then ordered his echo to appear in front of it.
He hoped to the dead gods that it wouldn't appear in front of him.
Ethereal sparks appeared and slowly coalesced into the form of the Drownscale, its midnight scales gleaming in the light of the sun.
Sunny felt the faint thrill of triumph. The experiment had succeeded—his shadow could act as a bridge for summoning Echoes away from himself. A secret weapon no one else could suspect.
He ordered the echo to hide and kill any carapace scavenger that came across it.
Wondering what would happen, Sunny ordered his shadow to hide and observe.
It didn't take long for a carapace scavenger to come trudging along, forced out from the remains of the shark by its stronger siblings.
As such it was injured, not severely but enough to hinder its speed by quite a bit.
The scavenger dragged itself through the shallows, its cracked carapace glistening with azure blood. It stumbled closer, unaware of the predator lying in wait.
The Drownscale did not move. Its eyes hidden by its moss growths, yet fixed on its prey nonetheless. The injured scavenger halted for a moment, mandibles clacking in agitation, before resuming its slow crawl.
When it was finally close enough, the Echo erupted into motion. With terrifying speed, the Drownscale lunged from the shadows, its massive jaws snapping shut on the scavenger's torso. The crunch of breaking chitin echoed across the mounds of coral.
The creature shrieked, struggling to free itself, but its claws raked uselessly against the Echo's armored scales- hissing slight from the contact. The Drownscale twisted violently, dragging its prey down and smashing it against the coral.
After some more futile struggling, all was quiet.
Sunny held his breath in anticipation until...
[You have slain an awakened beast: carapace scavenger]
[...Your shadow grows stronger]
Success!
Sunny couldn't but grin as he thought of all the fragments he could get in the future.
The Drownscale held the corpse for a moment, then cast it aside with a hiss, slipping back into concealment as ordered.
***
Two more scavengers fell victim to his echo before nightfall, yielding a total of six whole fragments in one day!
And what did Sunny have to do all this time?
Nothing!
Sunny leaned back against the cold stone, suppressing a laugh.
'Six fragments… in a single day. And all I had to do was sit on my ass.'
He had to stop after the third one though, the third scavenger managed to react in time and pummel the echo's head quite a bit, resulting in injuries.
Sunny was scared that the echo could get destroyed, so he dismissed it.
Some time later, Sunny was still lying on his back, staring at the grey sky. Cassie was sitting beside him, lost in her thoughts. Nephis was meditating. At least, that's what it looked like: she might as well have been asleep, for all Sunny knew.
After a while, Cassie turned to him.
"Sunny?"
He tilted his head to look at her.
"Yeah?"
The blind girl hesitated.
"Do you… do you think we'll be able to return home?"
Sunny glanced at her and furrowed his brow. A few seconds later, he turned away and looked at the sky again.
"Sure."
Cassie smiled:
"You really think so? Why?"
'What's with all these questions?'
He sighed and tried to find the right words.
"Because of her."
He pointed at Nephis, knowing that Cassie won't see it. There was no one else on the stone platform, though, so it was pretty obvious who he was referring to.
"I'm also not someone to die easily. In fact, I'm willing to bet that you couldn't have found a better duo of Sleepers to escort you across the Dream Realm. If anyone can survive this, it's us. So, yeah. I think that our chances of making it back are pretty high."
Cassie suddenly giggled.
"Aren't you a little too full of yourself? You didn't even have a ranking, so technically I'm higher than you!"
Sunny shrugged.
"That's only because multiple smart told me to keep a low profile. Otherwise, I would have ranked very high."
Then, with a grin, he added:
"Much higher!"
The blind girl couldn't help but laugh. The melodic sound of her laughter made Sunny feel much better — he had not heard anything like that ever since coming to the Dream Realm. It was nice to see that people were still able to preserve a bit of mirth even in this hellish place.
Come to think of it, this was the first time he heard Cassie laugh at all. Back in the Academy, she was always dull and bleak.
After this sudden outburst, Cassie's expression slowly turned wistful. A few seconds later, she asked:
"What do you miss the most about home?"
Previously, if Sunny was still in the outskirts, he would've answered... nothing. His biological sister was better off without him and he had nothing even remotely precious to him in the outskirts.
"My... family, I miss my sisters," he muttered after a moment.
Cassie sighed heavily, longing and sadness evident. "I miss my family too, especially my mom and dad. They must be worried about me."
Sunny thought for a while. "My sisters probably miss me too..."
'More like miss tormenting me.'
But still... those few moments with his sisters definitely left an impression on him.
Lonesome howl's teasing.
Silent Stalker's gruffness.
Revel's quiet encouragement.
Heck, even Hel's death prophecies.
He smiled, "Yeah, they probably do"
***
Day 2 of the tomato chapter-thon part 2: electric boogaloo
no goal for this once because of a certain piece of bread...
also a special event...
The handmaiden OC competition!
As you probably could obviously guess, Sunny will be spending more time around Sieshan and her handmaidens.
unfortunately, G3 introduced like a singular handmaiden, so i was thinking... would you guys like to make your own OCs?
more info dropping tomorrow so look forward to it!