Sunny couldn't move. Even his two shadows, had frozen in place, looking at the two creatures ahead of them.
He heard what Leon had just said.
"Cursed Devil..."
His breathing grew hoarse, his vision felt blurry.
'Cursed...Cursed...'
The Cursed Devil was perhaps four hundred meters tall. Its wingspan exceeded that. The Great Titan it was fighting was comparable in scale — a massive rock golem, brown stone animated into something horrifying, its eyes a deep and violent crimson.
Sunny lost all the strength in his body to remain upright. He grabbed onto Birdie's feathers tightly.
They were dead.
They had to be.
What the hell could mere Sleepers do, to a cursed devil?
The two creatures were like two forces of opposing nature clashing against each other. The concept of fighting seemed too small a word for what was happening between them.
'We are going to die here and it won't even notice us.'
***
'Coming here was a terrible idea!'
His curiosity was generally the last thing to surrender, and yet even it had been quiet.
His eyes narrowed toward the rock golem, and he noticed seven orbs radiating a sick aura within the creature.
"Great Titan...it's fighting a great titan."
He whispered softly so that Kai and Sunny could hear.
Sunny seemed to give up trying anymore. Kai had already fallen unconscious as Leon grabbed onto him.
"Move before its will hits you!" Noah's voice had lost its usual dryness entirely.
He wanted to ask what will meant. Now was not the time.
"Birdie," he said.
Birdie did not need to be told twice. The enormous bird was already turning, the sweep of its wings creating a wind that nearly knocked Sunny off.
Leon summoned the halo. It became a bow in his hands almost instinctively. He held it for a while, and then slowly let it disappear a moment later.
Ascended bow against a Cursed creature.
He almost laughed.
Birdie was already flying away at its best speed.
Leon looked back, noticing the Great Titan slowly stand up, and open its huge maw.
As the titan opened its mouth, the color of the world changed.
That was the only way to describe it.
The light didn't intensify, the shadows didn't grow. Everything simply shifted its color scheming — like the sky itself had been glazed red.
Sunlight failed to arrive, and the world was outlined in black.
Birdie's speed dropped drastically, like it was being pulled backward toward the titan.
'Oh,' Leon thought, 'this is going to be very bad.'
Birdie was already being violently pulled backward toward the two behemoths clashing.
Sunny broke down in a cold sweat as he clutched onto Kai's unconscious body.
In moments like these, Leon's calmness felt scary.
That's when the blast wave hit.
Everything turned back to their original colors, the crimson hues disappearing completely. Leon stared at the titan and cursed devil with wide eyes.
It was as if time had frozen for a few seconds — the two creatures felt like statues of colossal scales, just there, frozen.
The blast wave, had not been aimed at them. And yet, it would still probably kill them.
'Oh...Shit...'
He immediately turned the broken halo into a large shield and held it in front of the trio.
Not stopping, he even—
But the time was up, and the impact hit.
But right before the impact, the Cursed Devil shot one of its giant arms at the titan.
The Cursed Devil's talons caught the Titan across the side of its head — one contemptuous swipe that redirected that colossal skull just enough. The blast meant for the sky drove itself into the earth instead.
BOOM
The wave hit the ground beneath, sending out waves of wind and debris flying, like the ripples in a water.
The outward residual force hit the shield Leon had thrown up, burned through it like it wasn't there, and kept going.
They were thrown away a significant distance.
Leon began to slowly understand how far they really were from the two behemoths.
It was so, so far, perhaps hundreds or thousands of miles away.
The ground beneath them split apart, opening up to a large canyon — but they were fine since they were in the air.
Until—
Birdie screeched loudly.
Leon widened his eyes.
The great bird came apart in a whirlwind of blue sparks that scattered and vanished, and then there was no Birdie. There was nothing between them and the open air.
The titan's attack had split the ground beneath them, creating a canyon that went down further than he could see, a darkness that swallowed depth entirely.
They fell into it.
***
Leon woke up to pain.
His body was in a sea of pain. He vividly remembered having his eyesight, hearing and everything else including shadow sense taken away as soon he entered the large canyon.
There was nothing to sense here.
His body fell down, tumbling onto the nearby rocks as he fell deeper and deeper. He didn't know how deep he had fallen.
He could not feel his left arm, his entire body was bruised. He tried looking around but everything was just pitch black.
It felt really similar to something he had encountered before.
The dark sea.
Except he could use his shadow sense in the dark sea.
He grimaced in pain as he summoned the broken halo into the form of a long staff.
Grabbing onto it, he balanced himself with the staff and activated the halo's enchantment with Aurelia's essence.
True Radiance:
[When invoked, the halo releases a burst of pure white radiance. This light repels true darkness, weakens shadows and distorts illusions.]
A bright light shone near the tip of the staff, illuminating his surroundings. Leon's eyes adjusted as he looked around.
It was like being inside a really, really dark cave with a singular torch that didn't illuminate much. The sphere of visibility it created was small.
He walked around slowly, noting his surroundings. It was as if he was standing on top of nothingness. Even though the light shone onto the ground, he couldn't see what it was made of — it was just pitch black.
Walking around, Leon breathed heavily. His injuries felt terrible, he wanted to use the crown to heal himself, but he wanted to know if Sunny and Kai were alright.
If their injuries were severe, he would be wasting charge on himself.
Leon suddenly tripped on something and fell down.
He groaned in pain, and looked back.
It was Sunny!
Sunny was grimacing in pain, his body was covered in injuries less severe compared to Leon.
He activated the crown and healed most of Sunny's injuries, still saving up a large amount.
Sunny slowly opened his eyes. He looked at the light Leon was holding and grimaced in pain.
"That thing...feels uncomfortable."
Leon frowned slightly. "There's true darkness everywhere, let's find Kai."
Sunny weakly pointed his finger in a certain direction. Walking toward there, they soon found Kai on the floor.
After healing him up, Kai opened his eyes.
Thankfully, none of them were seriously injured enough to spend a large amount of ember charge.
"We have to get out of here."
Sunny looked up at the darkness above them, below them, on every side. "Where's the exit?"
"Somewhere." Leon summoned the azure scythe. He kept the staff in his other hand. "There's something else here. We should find the exit before it finds us."
Sunny summoned his sword, while Kai summoned his bow and knocked an arrow.
They could hear footsteps out there in the darkness.
Leon frowned, gripping the azure scythe.
The footsteps became louder and louder, before it was right in front of them.
Leon listened to the footsteps, and expected a large monster, perhaps even a Corrupted Beast.
He tried using Shadow Sense again, but couldn't.
Whatever the creature was, finally stepped into the sphere of light.
It was a human.
A little girl appeared into the bright sphere of visibility. She looked around five or six years old.
She wore a simple leather dress. Her black hair was neatly tied into a ponytail as she held a doll made out of hay.
She looked up at the trio.
The little girl looked adorable. She looked up at them with a pleasant expression.
They knew they had just come into contact with perhaps the worst possible horror. If there was a creature that could shapeshift in this death zone, it had a sick sense of humor turning into a child.
The child smiled, and waved its little hand.
All three of them froze, staring at the girl in front of them.
It was impossible for some child to be here, it was a goddamn death zone after all.
Leon wanted to analyze the girl, he felt some sort of sick and creepy aura from the girl. Every single cell in his body screamed one simple thing.
She is wrong.
She felt utterly and completely wrong, like she shouldn't exist right now.
The girl slowly turned her head and looked at... She looked at Noah.
Leon didn't observe this. He was too busy thinking of a way out, to get away from this thing as fast as possible.
The creepy feeling was simply heightened by the fact that the darkness surrounding seemed enter the sphere of influence.
The light on the halo flickered.
The girl slowly shifted her gaze towards Sunny, looked closer at his chest.
Sunny observed the girl, as a chill ran down his spine. For some reason, she felt more terrifying than the cursed devil, or the great titan above the ground.
The light on Leon's staff flickered again, making the girl appear and disappear in their sight.
The situation was getting worse. Because now there were two girls.
With every flicker, the girl multiplied. Every flicker, another girl appeared, who looked like an exact clone of the first one.
Each new one formed some sort of circle around them.
Sunny's shadows — both of them — had pressed themselves as close to him as possible.
Kai gripped his bow so hard, the Memory cracked.
The girls formed a complete circle, and all opened their mouths.
"ሠቹልህቹዪ"
A large pain erupted in his mind before the creature even finish its words.
Whatever it was trying to tell was not supposed to be heard by human minds.
Leon immediately grabbed Sunny and Kai, turned into the broken halo into a platform beneath them with curved edges, a basin, something to stand on.
He used all the charge and shot up into the air, with the black surface as a shield. The surface of the platform heat up immediately, and they gained altitude fast.
The little girl tilted her head in an unnatural angle as the trio shot up.
The creature then smiled wide. So wide that her cheeks felt like they were torn apart.
The trio could not see this of course, since the darkness enveloped their sight again.
But before it could do anything, the air changed once again.
Leon recognized this pressure, it was the titan again. They were being pulled back up.
Combined with the explosive jump Leon performed, their speed grew immense as they shot up.
Moments later, the trio clutched onto the sides of the platform, as they shot up into the sky, out of the abysmal darkness.
The three looked up and lost all hope once again.
The titan was right above them.
It did not even feel like a creature, it was simply too large. His brain failed to comprehend the sheer size of it.
'How did we... How?'
He was sure they were kilometers away, possibly hundreds. And yet in just a few moments, he was now directly beneath the titan.
Many questions surfaced in his head.
How long had it truly been?
How far was he thrown away?
His brain could imagine a thousand ways they could die right now. No, perhaps it was a million.
The titan was about to launch its terrifying blast wave at the cursed devil, who was up in the air, clashing with the titan.
'If that blast hits...'
Leon could not think of a way out. No amount of explosion could save them now. No halo, no Birdie, no cloak would save him now.
He tried remembering all the happy moments. But nothing came to mind as he watched the large mass in front of him.
'I am dead...'
Leon's thoughts were occupied with death, so he couldn't see the faint blue aura surrounding them.
Sunny and Kai had already given up.
Leon's thoughts were similar.
We should not have come on this journey.
I should have come alone like always.
That's a Great Titan.
Why couldn't I be stronger.
At least it was better than dying to that abomination under the chasm. Simply getting turned into dust sounded better than turning into some sort of puppet.
The titan opened its mouth.
A large ray of crimson light enveloped everything around them.
Sunlight disappeared, and the world turned red.
Leon turned toward Kai and Sunny who were on their knees. Sunny clenched his fists, looking at the titan, while Kai looked down.
'I can't imagine what they must be feeling...'
He had already forgotten what fear felt like.
The crimson light swallowed the sky.
And then it stopped.
The charge simply — stopped. The sound of the gathering energy reversed itself
Leon widened his eyes as he shot his head up.
The Titan's enormous head turned slowly, and looked at the mountains.
He turned his head toward the mountains too.
He could not make out what the Titan was looking at. Whatever was there, if anything was there, was too far away. But the Titan was looking at it with the complete, absolute attention.
The three were pulled away by a large current of wind.
The giant bird was flying away. The Cursed Devil's departure tore a vacuum in its wake, and they were pulled into it.
Leon tried summoning Birdie again, but it didn't appear.
He gritted his teeth, and copied Kai's aspect, and yet it was useless, because the pull was too strong.
Leon tried to grab Sunny and Kai, but they were too far. He almost grazed Sunny's fingers, but couldn't grab on.
He saw the titan disappear from view.
The cursed bird had cracked open the space again, and opened another rift.
'Nononono'
Leon tried use the crown to shoot him off-course from the portal, but there was no charge.
He didn't have time to think.
Leon was pulled into the rift.
***
Passing through the portal felt like he had gone through an abyss of blades tightly pushing against you.
Every single Memory Leon had on him, all shattered, and disappeared into sparks.
He was suddenly blinded by bright sunlight, and assaulted by unbearable heat.
Leon almost lost consciousness entirely, but somehow held on. He could hear the whistling of wind.
Leon pushed his eyes open, and looked around.
Below him, was a large expanse of gold — no, sand. It was a vast body of sand spreading as far as he could see.
The desert was flat and featureless, except for a single dark shape in the far distance.
He was so high up in the air, free-falling towards the large desert.
He looked at the shape, or rather the dot in the distance.
His eyes narrowed. The distance was significant but the outline was wrong, as if it was almost nearby.
It almost looked like....
'A pyramid?'