The second Sunny noticed the change in the environment, he instinctively got ready to battle. After years spent in the Dream Realm, it was no wonder, as such a place could turn even the most fragile boy in the world into a bloody warrior. Sunny was no exception to this rule, even though in his case what people in the outskirts used to call "murder math" didn't turn him into a legendary warrior; it made him look like a killer.
Many thoughts were racing in Sunny's mind just a few minutes ago, but right now they were replaced with a single question.
"How did it get there??"
The chance of something going unnoticed while Sunny was using shadow sense was almost zero, but yet right now the impossible happened.
The black dot in the meantime started to circle the ketch in a slow motion in a way akin to clockwork. Even if Sunny tried to assess its size or approximate distance, it was a wasteful action, as the object didn't follow the rules of logic. So he took a closer look, trying to peek into its soul, an ability he gained during his traumatic assimilation of [Blood Weave] back in the Forgotten Shore. The pain of the golden liquid entering his body was still imprinted in his memory; after nearly 11 years, that moment still gave him shivers down his spine.
What he saw made him tremble. Something that could only be described as an ocean of corruption with 7 pulsating cores hidden in its vastness. The dot wasn't an object; it was a nightmare creature.A Great Titan...
...
After a quick analysis of the situation, Sunny decided to take action. He ordered the shadows that formed a piece of the ketch to transform into a longbow; with it, he took aim and plunged an arrow in the sky, trying to hit the object. When the arrow was about to hit it, something strange happened; it was as if it passed straight through it.
"How the hell did it do that...Does that thing have spatial powers"
Sunny thought he sent another few arrows in the direction of the Great Titan, but none had any effect on it; all of them passed through it. The nightmare creature didn't even budge and continued to fly circles over the vessel. Seeing his actions having no effect, Sunny opted for the only other possibility. He sat down and observed it, analyzing it the same way he did when he encountered the Serpent King all those years ago in the same place. After all, Sunny wasn't so stupid as to jump into a fight in which he wasn't almost sure to win unless he had to. Caution and cowardice have saved his skin countless times. Bravery only gets you killed in this accursed world, two worlds even.
...
Sunny was lying on the front of the shadow ketch, his eyes fixated on the black dot in the sky; time was flowing as he was stuck doing this monotonic activity. The River of Time was surprisingly calm; most nightmare creatures didn't dare to approach the mighty vessel of the Sovereign of Death, and most of the ones that did didn't have the chance to even get close, as Sunny's Death Will was able to kill most of them, at least those nightmare creatures that were below the Corrupted rank.
Days and nights passed in this monotonous routine of observation and analysis when boredom was almost unbearable. Sunny used to create a small ball made of shadows and launch it in the air, catching it when it fell down, while still keeping an eye on that flying bastard. The strange behavior of the nightmare creature made him nervous. It was peculiar and abnormal.
"Why haven't you attacked me yet, bastard? You just fly and fly; too bad that I cannot reach you...You would have been dead already."
Sunny murmured under his breath, and as he had just done that, an event occurred. If Sunny had already regained his True Name and connection to fate, he would have bet his pancake recipe that it was [Fated] working in the back, as on the horizon the shape of a butterfly appeared in the sky. It was a giant butterfly, a great monster whose kind Sunny had already encountered once. There were hundreds of thousands of these nightmare creatures in the Tomb of Ariel, as he once saw them resting on the inner side of the Black Pyramid. As the creature was flying in his direction, Sunny looked at it and just sighed.
"Damnation"
....
The Giant Butterfly was an immense creature with a scattering size that would make several buildings dwarf in comparison. Certainly it was a powerful opponent for most, but not for Sunny, as it was a mere monster without intellect, and he was a Supreme Titan, even 7 of them technically speaking. The butterfly was already approaching his location while he was preparing a bow to shoot it down, but instead of attacking him, the nightmare creature continued to fly upwards as it was mesmerized by the Great Titan in the sky; with time, it became smaller and smaller as it roared at the skies. If somebody would have looked at it from the ketch, it was the size of a hand palm. The second it was mere meters from the black dot, something unseen happened: a piercing, otherworldly scream came from the sky, followed by a light explosion that blinded Sunny. When his vision returned a few seconds later, it shook him to his core...
The giant butterfly was falling from the sky, half of its right wing torn off its body with a myriad of wounds covering its body; it was dead. Sunny was speechless; he knew that he could defeat this kind of nightmare creature quickly but not in an instant. The Great Titan that had been following him the last few days was in a category of his own.
After a few minutes the body of the now dead butterfly was swallowed by the great river; its remains would function as a source of sustenance for many lesser beings. In the meantime Sunny's worries were growing by the minute; he was frantically trying to come up with a solution for his situation, but he was becoming tired. With every step he took while walking on the ketch, his eyes were becoming weak; every time he blinked, the darkness stayed a bit longer. Why was it happening?
He was a Supreme, but before he could answer that question, it was already too late; he had fallen asleep while standing...
When Sunny woke up, the 7 suns of the great river were already hidden; he was in a strange position laying on the ground, as if he had fallen on it by accident, but he hadn't, at least he thought so. His last memories before everything went dark were hazy, even if they shouldn't be, especially since he had [Mind Weave], thanks to which his mind potency was a sight to behold; it allowed him to live 7 lives at the same time without any instabilities. Before he had the time to reactivate his shadow sense, which was strangely turned off when he lost his consciousness, he looked upward to where the black dot should be; even though it was total darkness, Sunny could see in it without issues. That's when the true problem came: the thing wasn't there. His face paled as the realization hit him.
The Great Titan made his move; he started to look for it frantically across the sky to no avail. He thought that it finally had decided to leave him alone, but it wasn't such a case.
Only when he looked in front of him did he see the nightmare creature.
It was sitting on the opposite side of the ketch, looking at him in the dark...