The journey to the castle across the Crimson Labyrinth of coral was a dangerous one and their choice to always fight the nightmare creatures when possible didn't help.
Logically speaking, two Sleepers wouldn't be able to efficiently fight and hunt multiple Awakened nightmare creatures every single day. Especially when they also had to protect another Sleeper with a crippling flaw.
But these weren't normal sleepers…
They were powerful legacies with years of training, and abilities that made all their enemies fall.
Sunny and Nephis went out of their way to kill as many nightmare creatures as they could, helping each other in the process.
It was obvious to Sunny that Nephis was still wary of the Prince of Song due to his Clan's hand in killing her father, but she seemed to ignore that for the time being, trusting him in fights with the nightmare creatures.
Even Awakened Monsters fell to them.
She had revealed her aspect to him after all. A flame that burned enemies, augmented herself, and healed wounds.
But she always hesitated to use it, Sunny had an idea as to why… Her flaw was terrible.
In return, he revealed his own aspect to her, hiding the fact that it was of the Divine rank, luckily, she didn't ask the rank.
He let Nephis have the soul shards as they were useless to him, in return, she let him deliver most of the killing blows to the nightmare creatures, that way, both of them would grow stronger. She didn't know why Sunny made the deal, but it seemed like she didn't care.
While they went out on hunts, Sunless always left Serpent with Cassie. Due to her flaw, she couldn't help in fights, so Sunny decided to let Serpent protect her.
After stepping in the second step of Shadow Dance, the Soul Serpent also upgraded its rank, becoming an Awakened Monster. It even gained a new attribute, [Soul Beast], letting it transform into any form of a beast of the same rank as itself.
Sunny didn't know why he could see the attributes of Serpent, maybe it had to do with being something of his own aspect.
He also gave Cassie an Echo he received after killing a carapace scavenger.
He wasn't going to turn it into a Shadow, Wraith was already enough and he wanted the fragments. So it was a little useless in his hands.
After many days and hunts… They found themselves in the middle of a wasteland, ash and dust were the only things that could be seen, a sea of dead corals, drained of life.
And in the middle of the ashes was Ashen Barrow. At the center of it stood a tree rising into the sky like a tower, its branches wide enough to cover the whole area in their shade. Its bark was as black as the water of the Dark Sea, while its leaves were as red as blood. The crimson crown of this majestic tree contrasted with the gray sky, making it strangely beautiful.
On the side of the tree, stood the spine of the skeletal remains of a colossal sea monster laying on an enormous mound of chaotically growing coral.
The three Sleepers and one wolf were on that spine, observing a giant Awakened Demon that was resting under the tree shade. A Carapace Demon.
"This is a bad idea."
Cassie spoke her mind, she had stated that multiple times, her companions never listened though.
"We should be fine, I already killed a Demon before, plus, this tree is a good place to camp."
The girls turned to stare at Sunless, not believing him.
"What? It's true! How do you think I got that armor?"
Nephis leaned on the wall of bone, looking at him with an indifferent expression. Her body is now wrapped in the Starlight Legion Armor, a new one she got after killing a Carapace Centurion, an Awakened Monster.
"Your family gave it to you, plus, it wasn't that strong, it broke after a few strikes."
Sunless sighed. The damn memory wasn't made for combat, so the protection it gave wasn't that strong, breaking after one Centurion slammed its pincer straight through it, luckily enough, killing the same Centurion gave Nephis the Starlight Legion Armor.
It was a pristine white plate armor over the black bodysuit. The armor looked light and elegant. The breastplate was engraved with seven shining stars that appeared to protect the torso.
"My family only gave me my echo and sword, and they already thought it was too much."
Cassie snuck in.
"Speaking of echo, why don't you just send him to fight it, they are the same rank and class, no?"
Sunny opened his mouth to reply, but Nephis beat him to it.
"In fact, with your shadow augmating, your echo might end up destroying it easily…"
Sunny looked at the two girls, then at his wolf companion that wasn't even half his own size, then at the giant Carapace Demon.
Gears began to turn in his head.
"Yeah… You may be right… But he'll need some help."
—
Becoming the heir of Shadow God meant a lot of things.
One of them was getting the attribute [Heir of Shadows].
It was the evolution of [Child of Shadows]. As such, the boons granted by it were exponentially upgraded.
Meaning that shadows protected him much more now, so much so that as long as there were shadows nearby, no creature of at least the Awakened rank could see him.
That theory was proven right time and time again, and now it is being proven once more.
Blanding into the shadows, Sunny slowly and stealthy walked closer to the resting Demon. His two shadows wrapped in his body.
Truth is, Wraith could very well defeat the Demon alone with the augmentation of his shadows. Despite the size difference, the shadow wolf was strong enough to compete, making the battle a matter of chance. However, Sunless would rather not take that chance.
It would be a failure to do so.
So he would just assassinate the Demon's chances before the battle.
He climbed the bark of the tree to get behind the Carapace Demon, summoning both the [BloodRaven] and the [Bone Fang]. Prepared to use his essence with Serpent in its tattoo form.
Then, he jumped, landing on the back of the nightmare creature.
The Demon quickly woke up and shifted to kill whoever interrupted its sleep, but it was already too late.
Sunny sliced the carapace of the creature with [BloodRaven], the ascended weapon easily tore through it. Blood splattered as Sunny pierced [Bone Fang] into the wound he caused on the Demon.
The Demon screamed in pain and anger, shifting violently to get rid of the human on his back.
Sunny thrusted the poisoned dagger deeper into the Demon's flesh. The objective was to weaken the creature with the poison, making it easier to kill it. He would leave the dagger inside the body to keep feeding it with constant poison, then get out of the back, summoning Wraith to do the rest.
But not everything went as planned, the Demon strained its muscles, not letting Sunny take his hand away.
His eyes widened in surprise, then he realized. The Demon had planted its rear legs into the ash and began to rise its front legs. It was planning to fall into the tree from behind, crushing Sunny.
'Like I'll let you!'
He manipulated the serpent to give him more strength through his essence, and now with his two shadows augmenting him, his strength was incredible, but it wasn't enough.
So he used [BloodRaven] to make another cut right beside the wound he caused, weakening the body enough so that he was able to get his hand out of the creature's flesh, leaving [Bone Fang] inside.
He rushed to get out of the Demon's back, it was already half way into failing, running until he jumped out of it into a roll on the ash.
A huge boom invaded his ears as the creature finally fell into the tree, leaving a mark into the black bark.
Soon, the Nightmare Spell announced to him.
[Your memory has been destroyed.]
"Oh well, it did its job."
The Demon was visibly weak, the wounds and the poison were tearing at it, and now, it was in a horrible position to defend itself.
From Sunny's shadow, a ghost of a wolf rose, bearing its fangs to face the weakened crab-like creature.
Sunny transferred one of his own shadows to wrap into Wraith, doubling the power of the wolf that began to run at high speed, ready to kill the Demon.
The Carapace Demon turned its head to look at the new attacker, raising the scythe-like pincer and descending a strike to pierce the wolf.
However, it was weak, slow. The target was small and fast.
The shadow wolf easily dodged and climbed the arm of the Demon, biting the joints of the arm.
The carapace cracked and fell apart, flesh tore and blood splattered, the arm was ripped out. Another primal scream of pain was heard on the Ashen Barrow.
The Demon raised its other arm in a desperate attempt to defend itself. But a black lance pierced its shoulder, right on the place where the carapace didn't protect the flesh so movement wouldn't be imparted. The attack was stopped completely.
The culprit was Sunless, who summoned Serpent and used the [Soul Weapon] to transform it into a lance, then wrapped the gloomy shadow into it, making it stronger. Launching it to the shoulder of the nightmare creature.
Completely defenceless, the Carapace Demon had its head ripped off by the hands of the shadow wolf.
[You have slain an Awakened Demon, Carapace Demon.]
[Your shadow grows stronger…]
[You have received a Memory.]
Sunny smirked in satisfaction, and walked back to the colossal spine where the girls were.
Cassie was shocked and had her mouth gaped, Nephis must have told her what happened.
"Sunny… Did you really just kill an Awakened Demon by yourself?!"
The boy chuckled and smirked.
"See Neph? I told you I already defeated Demons."
Nephis still had an indifferent facade in her face, but her eyes showed something different. It was small, but Sunny could see it. Worrie… Fear… Anger.
And Sunny understood why.
When she looked at him, she still saw Sunless Song, the son of the woman that helped kill her father.
Even with all these days fighting together, even with their talks in the academy…
She didn't trust him.
Of course she didn't, all Nephis could see was his mothers mistakes. Her regrets and failures.
So when Nephis saw him killing the Awakened Demon, she saw a potential enemy's strength, not an ally's…
But if that was true, then it raised an important question.
'Why did you approach me Nephis?'