Once Sunny made sure that Cassie was actually asleep, he began his plans - Summoning the Shadow Knight - Sunny ordered him to keep an eye on Cassie just in case of an attack despite knowing that nothing attacked him in his past life
Sunny moved to the middle of the platform a decent distance between him and Cassie - He summoned his new armor closing his eyes expecting the bright lights to surround his body and form the armor. The only thing was - The only thing that appeared was a little necklace around his neck resting atop the puppeteer's shroud
'What...what the hell is this...'
Sunny paused for a second before almost yelling what the hell just happened - especially since the [Deep Sea Demon] enchantment said that it would contain claws and sharp teeth and yet the only thing on the armor was a sark blue chain with sapphire stone's
Sunny was a few moments away from complaining and perhaps it was his advanced mind or some help from his attributes, but he figured out the truth behind the 'armor'
Sunny murmured the words - "Deep Sea..." - he said quietly as he walked towards the waters. looking down towards from the platform Sunny dived into the waters headfirst
The helm Crafted from the skull of the monster shark, its jagged teeth form a crown-like crest. The visor resembles a shark's maw, The chest plate Layered with overlapping shark-scale plates, shimmering with a wet, metallic sheen. The natural hydrodynamic curves reduce drag, allowing one to glide through water like a predator. The pauldrons shaped from the dorsal fins, edged sharp enough to slice through flesh and the gauntlets reinforced with serrated bone ridges, designed to tear through armor or restraining ropes underwater while the greaves were streamlined, with fin-like protrusions that channel water flow, enhancing swimming speed.
Sunny smiled devilishly only for it to be enhanced with the armor shifting to meet his facial expressions. Wrapping gloomy around himself he propelled himself downwards.
He looked around while in the cover of darkness and made his weight lighter and began to swim. Sunny noticed little eel like creatures around a rock and swam closer. He summoned serpent as her [Soul Weapon] form and got closer.
When he was close enough he noticed the eel like nightmare creatures were coming out of the ground and so he moved in for the kill. One swift movement and one was cut in half. Before the rest could notice they were gone too. Sunny container to kill the little abominations
[You gave slain an Awakened Beast: Nightcoil]
Sunny was perplexed. It was common knowledge the creatures of the forgotten shore. The very weakest being of the awakened rank having harrowing abilities and strength.
But these were pathetic. Transcendent armor or not. Sunny decided that they had only survived here by hiding and ambushing nearby prey.
'Makes sense given the name'
The eels around started to attack sunny after noticing to which he summoned serpent as her soul beast form and let her attack another hoard nearby and simply used the armors claws to rip those that came close apart. What could an awakened beast do to the armor from a corrupted devil
Sunny didn't stop his murder spree until all were dead. By the end after dodging and slashing those who came close to the openings in the armor's gills. Sunny was in the water with the halved corpses of 25 of the disgusting red eels.
[You have slain an awakened beast: Bloodfin Infant]
Once he extracted the soul shards from them, he swam over to serpent who attacked another hoard of them numbering 25 as well.
'Maybe 25 is their lucky number... Well not today I guess'
Taking those shards as well sunny was on his way to returning to the surface when they attacked
its body was a sleek, obsidian black, scales glistening like wet stone while its eyes glowed a menacing crimson, burning in the dark waters like embers at 1 meter long, it dwarfs normal bloodfin's, with a hulking, muscular frame built for speed and violence. Its jaws were oversized, lined with jagged, serrated teeth that constantly grind together, producing a faint clicking sound underwater.
And it was surrounded by a myriad of smaller ones
All of them charged towards Sunny and thankfully serpent had already returned to Tattoo form because Sunny did not want to take any chances with her after looking at those grotesquely sharp teeth - especially since she was currently only an ascended and them awakened, simply separated by a singular rank
They all rammed into Sunny's armor ripping into the armor's joints and other weak spots like the gills - which are probably what's responsible for giving oxygen - their movements throwing Sunny out of balance while attempting to burrow into him
Sunny was being tossed about and couldn't even defend. Wildly slashing with his claws which made no contact with the creatures due to their dodging skills.
Then he saw it. A particularly large one of these piranha-like creatures. Whatever a piranha was
Looking at its appearance especially the 2 large horns protruding from its head and the large teeth sunny knew what it was and he didn't like it. And he must have realized that the teeth on the beast would definitely do more than leave a scratch
'Dammit that's definitely the tyrant ordering them'
He surmised that from the fact it was significantly larger, and the little fish seemed to make way for it.
It charged at the upside down Sunny, and it was about to clamp down its Jaws. But then something happened
Subconsciously sunny had remembered his time in his past life. His ability to manifest shadows into a shell was a life saver. But he didn't have [shadow manifestation] yet. And he won't for a long while but as he embraced for the Jaws to clamp down wiling the shadows to help him. He realized he couldn't. But then what was the ball of darkness surrounding him.
The ball of darkness encircled his entire body. The world outside nonexistent anymore or so he thought. After all sunny had a knack for being in unpredictable situations he believed he probably teleported to the void with his luck.
But then the sudden movement of the ball shook and tumbled over and continued to be rammed. Sunny quickly realized that this ball of darkness was his doing
'When I attempted to use shadow manifestation without having it... I activated my second aspect's ability' - He was well aware of how his second aspect's ability to an extent but the fact that he used it subconsciously made him feel a bit odd
A grin appeared on Sunny's face. And he couldn't but revel in his power. After realizing the controls of this ability worked at the same as shadow manifestation entirely. While stabilizing the flailing ball. Sunny created a gap in the ball and saw the fish swimming on circles around the ball.
Once sunny saw them. He understood something else. A deeper understanding of the new aspect. It seems that the dark souls all are different, a convoluted mixture in the same soul.
'I definitely need to check out the details of this part of my ability'
Sunny was quickly reminded of the surrounding dangers and so. As he realized the darkness from the soul of the corrupted devil was the ball that currently surrounded him. He was able to use the darkness from the awakened as well. And so, as the fish began striking again. Sunny smiled as he raised his hand
And then. Numerous spikes of darkness spread out around the ball forming a mace like structure. Only difference was that now instead the spikes grew. Spreading like roots. And soon. All the fish were dead aside from their leader
Summoning the darkness back to his soul sea Sunny looked at the tyrant
He unfortunately couldn't speak out loud underwater, but his eyes clearly shone with his intent
'Foolish fish. I've dealt with creatures worse than you. Creatures that could make you a mere snack. And yet you dare set your sights on me! how foolish'
In that moment sunny moved. His claws instantly digging into the creatures crimson colored eye on the left. In response it began to move around violently biting and gnashing at any direction. In response sunny decided to give it a nice death.
Summoning the darkness and making it shift into the similar shape of his old spear. Sunny prepared to launch it in the water. Perhaps it was because he specifically used the darkness from the corrupted devil. Or because of his [Child of Storm] attribute making the Sea almost like natural ground.
Holding it in his hand positioned for a throw as he looked at the creature. Sunny saw the tyrant tremble. As it looked into his eyes. [Child of Dread] and [Star of Divinity] seemed to be working charms. Sunny saw it in its eyes; well, it's remaining eye. So, he finally launched it.
The spear cut through the water and embedded itself in the fish's skull. With a few bubbles leaving its mouth and its body flopping to one side. Sunny heard it
[you have slain an awakened tyrant: Bloodfin]
Enjoying the influx of fragments sunny moved as he went to get the 5 awakened shards from the dead fish. Placing it into his storage memory he made it a must to leave for the surface now. After all his battle may have seemed quick but it had almost been 5 hours. And the sun should rise in 1 to 2 more hours.
Once he crawled out of the dark sea and noticed how the once fearsome armor shifted into a little necklace sunny walked over to the center of the platform. After glancing at Cassie and looking that shadow knight confirming they were not attacked sunny decided to analyze his spoils.
During his little hunting spree sunny has killed a total of 98 creatures. Looking at slow his progress was in the previous life sunny couldn't help but feel slight anger. Not at how unfair his task of gathering fragments were. It was because he realized how simple and safe gathering them were to legacies. Or how they could be if their parents actually cared to give them the right tools instead of falling on the notion that they must persevere on their own or die
'what's the point of the legacy status if they can't help their kids with an echo and Armor or 2'
Once done sunny was looking at his gains and counted a total of 101 awakened soul shards. Looking at them sunny couldn't help but lament his inability to absorb soul shards like other awakened. But then he thought to himself... Why not
Picking up a shard from the batch that now played on the floor Sunnys eyes laced with hope as he crushed it. And then
He felt it
The feeling of essence going into his core. Quickly summoning his runes Sunnys looked as if he were insane with that smile reaching his ears. Originally reading 214/1000. After the painstaking efforts of his fist nightmare where he raised the count to 14, Then killing the corrupted devil adding 4 and now his little hunting spree of the beasts giving him 2 each and he had killed 98 of them and adding the blood tooth tyrant giving him 2 as well
After the crushing the shining shard his counter read
217/1000
A feeling of happiness flooded his body. Sunny after careful inspection during his murder spree realized that killing an awakened still gives him 2 fragments upon their death. But now it seems that he would also get 2 from each core that he smashed. And similarly crushing the core of a corrupted would give him another 4 on top of the original
'this way getting my cores back will be much much easier'
Each creature who's cores he got was an awakened beast so now he had 97 from them and 102 including the 5 from the tyrant. But now 101 after the one he absorbed this one
After contemplating whether he should give some to Cassie he decided against it. She would become worried that he was going into the sea where insanely strong creatures are. Even if she didn't know just how harrowing this place was yet.
After crushing and absorbing all the shards sunny looked at his runes with a content smile
Dark Souls: 111
Shadow Soul core: 419/1000
'Almost halfway to becoming a monster... And it's my first night here. Having a good set of attributes a good aspect and tons of battle experience really does make life easier doesn't it' he couldn't help but sigh. He truly was evolving at shocking speeds, but he knew the count would go down a bit especially after the gets saint and makes her a shadow.
When he finished with the shards sunny went to check his list of memories. He had heard the spell announce some but was to be absorbed in the hunt to listen and the time. He wasn't expecting much so he was not really disappointed upon reading their enchantments
[Stealthy Sneak], A tool, Seemed to be something to enhance stealth. Which to sunny was pretty useless given his attributes essentially making his presence almost undetectable. The next one however caught his attention
[Crimson Blood]. This one was an odd memory. It was the one he got from the tyrant, and its abilities seemed to revolve around granting a poison ability to the blade it was connected to. It was a charm which naturally was welcomed by sunny who decided to give it to shadow knight.
He had originally just got the Soul shards and saved it in his little memory that he produced using the backpack and 3 remaining soul shards from his time ant the academy. The [bag of storage] could hold a large amount of things, unfortunately he can't keep live things in it or food for long periods of time as it would spoil. But it had the same holding attribute that Cassie endless spring had allowing it to contain a lot of thing amount of things. Provided they could fit in its opening
When the night was over sunny looked towards the direction of the Sea and looked at it as it began to retreat back into the reaches of the forgotten shore and his shadow sense let him see the blind blond he shared the platform with stir
The movement of the Sea and the churning of its waters caused Cassie to wake up
"Sunny..." - she said slowly as rubbed her tired eyes
"Morning sleepy head" - Sunny had begun walking towards Cassie he bent down and looked sat beside her
"You slept good?"
"yeah" - she yawned quietly " it was a nice sleep seeing as how we're in the nightmare realm"
Sunny laughed. A melodic sound
"So, uh I have some unfortunate news" - She paused
"What is it sunny? "
"Im going to have to leave to hunt for food. It will take a while but it's a necessity as you would know"
she seemed to calm down slightly but then tensed slightly - "sorry I can't help"
"Hmm oh that's fine. I'm actually going to leave serpent with you for protection me and shadow knight will go on the hunt... The real problem is water the entire sea seemed to have went back into some far place"
"... The sea... Left? What do you mean the sea left?"
"I don't know how to explain when the sun came up the sea retreated"
Cassie was stupefied but sunny continued - "it makes sense in a way. This is the dream realm. Alot of crazy stuff can happen here"
Cassie just nodded
Sunny started talking again - "But as I said I'm going to have to leave you alone for a bit because I need to scout out for food and water" - Sunny said making sure to add that last bit
Cassie seeing her opportunity to help sunny took it - "actually sunny I have a memory that can help you with water"
"Oh?"
"Yeah, it's called endless spring. It's exactly what it sounds like"
Sunny replied very enthusiastically - "Great job Cass. That's going to be a great help here"
"Yeah, for me. You can go a week without water hmph"
"Oh, come on now how is that my fault... But as I was saying Cass. I'm going to have to go down this statue to hunt. I'll leave serpent here with you you'll be okay. You can talk to her if you want, she can't respond but she does feel"
Cassie was sad. For 2 reasons. Sunny was going to risk himself to look for food for them while she did nothing. And that she didn't want to be alone. Not because she though he would abandon her she had left that thought go for a while now. It was just because she wanted her friend. Her brother to be with her
Regardless Cassie knew she had to agree. Food was an essential - "okay but please be safe and come back soon"
"of course, Cassie why would I not be hah"
He laughed and she heard his voice become softer as he left. She felt a familiar texture nudge her face. A scaly ascended that brought her to sunny
"hi serpent... It's just you and me girl for a while"
...
Sunny had descended the statue and saw a familiar sight as he went down. The sight of all those carapace scavengers attacking the corpse of the shark beast he had killed this time around
But unlike last time sunny made his way to the group instead of avoiding it. Summoning shadow knight sunny walked towards a particular tall piece of the red coral
Summoning the darkness of the transcendent which was quite big seeing as the creature was large sunny used bits of it to make spear heads of darkness which he laid down and then added those heads to long bodies of darkness made from the dormant darkness he's collected... All the spear tips had an extremely sharp edge with a decently long body
And he handed it to the silent knight beside him
"Strike the cracks in their chitin. And aim mainly for the back of their necks right..."
Sunny strained his hands as he pointed to where he wanted shadow knight to attack
"I'm going to go hunt some of them upfront, so they won't get to you. There are about 35 scavengers there give or take a few and I made roughly 15 spears. So once their done come join me in disposing of the remainder if I didn't deal with them already"
The knight looks at sunny and did something odd. He saluted to sunny and then proceeded to lay his hand on Sunny's head then turning around to pick up a spear
Once the first spear was launched sunny began to move in as fast as lightning. Drawing puppeteers shroud and armed with [Blood Blade] sunny ran towards the hoard that was still in confusion at the sudden death of their group
Jumping up onto the back of a seemingly injured scavenger sunny had stabbed the blade into the back of his neck and killed it instantly hearing the spell announce a nostalgic soul
[you have received a memory: Azure blade]
The beasts now clearly saw sunny and set their sights on him. By now shadow knight had disposed of another 3 scavengers and was continuing his slaughter. And sunny now able to become an incorporeal shadow and hide in the shadows of the scavengers themselves. Sunny disposed of them as easy as a person stepping on grass
When there were only 11 scavengers left sunny was tired. His muscles ached so he kept himself hidden and watched the scavengers look around with malice and hatred trying to locate him because unfortunately he hadn't accounted for the fact that the scavengers' frantic movements to kill him would cause shadow knight to miss. But he didn't need to kill any more
Shadow knight had moved in.
Despite them being of the same rank. Knight was a devil while the scavengers were mere beasts. That and his agile humanoid form allowed him movement faster than should be normal. So, it was no surprise to sunny when the remaining scavengers were killed
The battlefield was silent as shadow knight cleaned his blade. Unfortunately, he didn't get by unscathed. One of the scavengers managed to stab its claw into his shoulder and he had a few slashed and cuts around him. But he stood indomitable and victorious. Sunny quickly called him into his soul sea to recover in the dark waters that had bright stars withing them as if glitter on a black cardboard
Now that all enemies were killed sunny turned into his normal form again and looked around.
Carnage.
41 scavengers laid on the ground dead - 11 of them seemed to have been dismembered missing most of their limbs as they laid in the ground each with a stab would on the center of their head where the chitin seemed to join loosely - 11 laid on the ground pierced by spears of darkness Sunny himself had disposed of another 20 scavengers himself
In total 42 scavengers fell that day
Sunny now standing alone in the sea of corpses he took the time to summon his runes. After killing 42 awakened beasts sunny was expecting to see the counter read 503/1000 but curiously enough it actually read
481/1000
With confusion painting his face sunny thought of a theory and looked at Shadow Knights' runes and his guess had been correct. Originally reading 2500/5000 they now read 2522/1000
Sunny was conflicted. It seemed that whatever kills that shadow knight made. He would take half of the rewards. And it seemed that each kill would give him 1 fragment. And sunny would get another 1. This would allow sunny to level up shadow knight, but it slightly lowered his possible progress
After finishing the runes sunny looked around the field of corpses and smiled. He removed Azure blade and its eerie blue blade and looked at it with a sense of nostalgia then he summoned the bag of holding. After recalling all the darkness, the total count reading 153 He walked to the first corpse and removed its shards and a decent amount of meat
By the time he was done Sunny had 42 awakened soul shards and enough meat in his bag to feed him. Cass... And...
'Nephis!?'
"Shit shit shit I was supposed to move to find her today. Damn it"
Sunny looked at the corpse of the corrupted devil and the 4 glistening soul shards within it. He then turned and ran towards the statue
'What a waste if I had the time I could have made a memory of 2 out of those... But it's better this way. When the monsters come, they will take it to that... Tree ' sunny thought. He figured it would be better to take it for himself and get Cass and move towards the direction he found Neph the last time. Before the awakened monsters came. Those were not things he could face right now as he was not only exhausted from fighting. But the harvesting too and his shadows weren't battle ready seeing as serpent was with Cass and knight was healing
Sunny raced back to the statue and turned into a shadow and began ascending the mountain of a being.
When he got there, he quickly explained to Cassie where they needed to go and once sitting on serpent they made way down the statue. What took sunny roughly 3 quarters of the day took serpent a small quarter. She sped through the blood red coral quickly and stealthily
Sunny's heart was racing. If he missed Neph now how long would it take to find her again as serpent was racing
The figure of a familiar youthful girl appeared in the path ahead
Turned out Sunnys killing spree and shard haul didn't halt his chances of getting to Nephis in time
"Is that you sunless?"