Chapter 42

Once two opponents reach a supreme level of strength, they are able to determine the outcome of a battle merely by exchanging glances with their opponent. Both Sunny and Connector, a foe who Sunny had faced on a multitude of occasions, one who had clawed its way into the dream realm and back out on a multitude of occasions had reached such levels of strength.

The two stood still...calmly assessing their predictions of the battle.

As it turned out, for the first time in Sunny's life, he was utterly and completely overwhelmed if he were to fight Connector. There was no way forward, summoning Saint would only lead to a swift death for his most prized echo.

On the first assessment, it only took Connector one motion to kill Sunny.

It took ten deaths for Sunny to block a single blow.

Another five hundred before he could dodge without injury.

In total, it took three thousand and sixty-two foreseen deaths for Sunny to even begin to compete with Connector. In such little time, Sunny had been totally and utterly surpassed by the creature. And it appeared to have realised such a fact as well.

Throwing his hands in the air, Sunny let a devilish grin settle itself across his face. "Who cares!? Let's kill each other!" In a blur, the two were upon each other. Before Sunny could think of swinging his scythe, the Connector was only a few inches away from him, surging with raw power.

A chain of shadow shot up from the floor with brutal precision, a barbed hook slamming into Sunny's chest as he gasped in pain. "You've learnt something new!" He exclaimed, coughing up light amounts of blood as he was slammed into a wall of snow.

Sunny's hand moved instinctively, slicing apart the chain of shadow with brutal ease, but Connector didn't relent. Another hook lashed around Sunny's arm, tearing a thin trail of blood that was only inhibited slightly by the presence of the Onyx mantle.

Twisting his body, Sunny barely had time to blink before Connector struck, A blur of black steel slamming into his body with unrelenting aggression. The first blade came down in a brutal vertical arc, Sunny sidestepped, his shadow cloaked scythe snapping up to deflect the strike.

But before he could muster a counterattack, another three arms slammed into his side. Sunny barely had time to twist his body, placing the shaft of the scythe in the path of the blades as he was sent barrelling across the battlefield.

Gripping his scythe, Sunny surged to his feet, spinning his weapon in a defensive arc. His shadow coiled around him, forming spikes and tendrils that lashed out at Connector. But it wasn't enough.

His swords were everywhere, his presence unrelenting, his bloodlust unwavering.

Slicing through shadow and steel alike, one blade slammed into Sunny's scythe, the force of the blow fractured a bone in his forearm as he was sent deeper into the ground. Then, another three blades slammed into his scythe once more, continuing to drive him deeper into the ground.

Forming a fist, Sunny slammed it into the chest of Connector as he jumped backwards slightly. Twisting as he initiated combat once more, he slammed three blades into Sunny's side as he gritted his teeth. The blades bit and tore through his skin. Yet Sunny smiled through the pain before lashing out with his scythe, sending it behind Connector and roughly pulling forward, tearing a huge line across it's carapace.

Jumping backward, the two disengaged. Sunny tilted his head to the side mockingly. "Does your side hurt? You fucking fiend, who do you think you are taking the shadows from me!" Connector merely tilted his head, before mimicking Sunny's expressions of pain at being stabbed through the side.

A cold, spine chilling laugh escaped from Sunny's lips as he gripped his scythe once more. Oddly enough, Connector was far too strong to merely be a Corrupted Terror, he more-so resembled a titan in terms of pure physicality and yet Sunny didn't see the seventh soul core looming within it's soul.

Which meant only one thing, it was skill that played the biggest factor.

Ruffling his hair, Sunny smiled to himself before rushing in once more. With a single, devastating swing, he forced Connector to raise all six swords to block, the force of impact causing him to lean back at an impossible angle to lessen the impact. Yet Connector wasn't on the defensive for long.

One sword drove into Sunny's shoulder, before he brutally twisted it. Sunny offered no reaction, sweeping Connector's leg before slamming his foot into it's metal carapace, leaving a gigantic dent within the creature. Jumping backward, Sunny looked down to see his Achilles tendon had been cut as he stomped on the creature.

Shrugging, Sunny manipulated the shadows to act as a replacement before rushing in once more, ready to burn his life to kill the creature before him.

Across the battlefield, Nephis stood with a mortified expression marring her features as she watched the song of metal colliding with one another emanate throughout the clearing. Turning to Morgan, she looked for advice that ordinarily she would never ask for.

"Should we...help him? He just got a sword driven through his shoulder, to the hilt for spells sake!" Morgan looked at Nephis like she had just said the sky was falling down upon them, almost offended by the incredulity of her suggestion. "If we help him, he's going to try and kill us the first opportunity he gets. Leave the battle maniacs to their fight. But I'm sure you've realised it too, Sunny's getting stronger."

Nodding silently, their attention turned to the battlefield.

Sunny had holes littering his body, chains made from shadow lodged within his thigh as Sunny smiled through them and moved his body forward. It wasn't that he didn't feel the pain, he just didn't care. He needed blood, he needed to kill!

Yet his mind remained ever calculating, 'If they're shadows, I can manipulate them too, no?' Expending essence, the shadows quickly pulled themselves away from his thighs, allowing him to charge at Connector uninhibited. Connector itself looked confused at the occurrence, the sudden realisation that it didn't hold supreme control over the shadows settling in.

And yet, it didn't have much time to contemplate. A jade scythe slashed across his chest, staggering back, blood dripped from Connector's chest as pain lanced through it's body. Yet it didn't relent, it was now a war of attrition, who could last the longest despite their harrowing injuries.

Connector moved fluidly, dodging an incoming slash from Sunny before lodging a single blade into Sunny's thigh in a single deft motion. However, Sunny span midair, slamming the tip of his scythe's blade into Connector's side, only being protected from being impaled with the help of three swords to protect it.

Before it could attempt to build momentum, Sunny grasped the blade that had been lodged in his thigh, lunging forward, he lodged it in the shoulder of Connector as a bloody grin settled itself across his face. "I believe... that's yours."

A fist slammed into Sunny's face for his troubles, now a hand had been freed from a weapon to engage in hand-to-hand combat. However, Sunny was no slouch. Connector was much too tall for Sunny to attempt to grasp his collarbone, so he grasped the creatures ribs directly.

Tightening his grip, he felt something shatter within Connector as he twisted his body and slammed the creature headfirst into the ground without remorse. Before he knew it, Connector had already recovered. In a show of balance and poise that Sunny had never seen from a nightmare creature, it mixed a cartwheel and a front-flip, pushing itself off the floor before slamming it's heel into Sunny's head.

Sunny slammed into the snow with a huge thud, however, the horrifying looking foot of the creature slammed into his ribs as it sent him into the air. Sunny watched with a dazed expression as it leaned back, before an attack that he couldn't even see slammed into his jaw and sent him flying upwards.

'Don't tell me, he's surpassed the threshold of speed!'

Speed, strength, technique and durability. All of these thresholds needed to be shattered to access strength that could regularly only be done if one rose in rank. And to think a nightmare creature had done it before him no less!

Summoning the Sin of Solace once more, Sunny dug it into the ground to avoid being flung farther than he would have liked before using it to propel himself forward. He felt the air shift as another kick slammed into his jaw but this time he was prepared, grasping onto the foot of Connector, Sunny licked his bloody lips and bit into the creatures calve.

Pulling his head back, Sunny watched as onyx blood poured from the open wound as he hastily chewed and swallowed. He only had enough time to raise his arm to block as a blade flew towards his head. It pieced through his arm, leaving it lodged within Sunny's body.

But Sunny had been waiting for an opportunity like that.

Spinning his body as the blade lodged itself within his arm, Sunny snapped the blade with the force of his movement before dismissing his pale green scythe. Ripping the broken sword shard from his arm, Sunny leapt onto Connector like a rabid animal, lodging the broken blade into it's eye.

Connector roared in pain, thrashing and throwing Sunny onto the ground as blood gushed from the open wound. Sunny looked over his form, blood weave could not stem the amounts of bleeding that the fight had caused but he didn't care.

Stretching an arm forward, he ordered the shadows to bind the creature, so it was unable to move. Connector, despite the harrowing amounts of pain it was going through, remained lucid enough to attempt to resist the control over shadows being exerted by Sunny. 

But then, he had been cruelly forced to learn the difference between a beast and a divine shadow.

The shadows recognised his command, yet did not listen. Indifferently, they surged forward and lodged themselves within each of Connector's arms, inhibiting his movement. Forcefully, it was made to drop it's remaining four swords from his arms as Sunny stared at the struggling creature.

Looking downwards, he opened and closed his fist before smiling to himself. "I think I get it now." Tensing his muscles, he threw a fist forward from afar, the sound of his fist piercing through the sound barrier sent snow flying as Connector was hit with a literal vacuum of air.

Sunny continued to close in on the creature, levelling continuous blows on the maddened beast without giving it a second of reprieve. And now, he stood only a few feet away from the harrowing nightmare creature.

Unsurprisingly, at Sunny's close proximity, rage fuelled it's strength as it strained its muscles and burst through the chains. Sunny summoned Saint to the side, ordering her to draw a circle in the dishevelled and dispersed snow that surrounded the two.

In the brief moment of distraction, blood emerged from Sunny's mouth as he looked downwards, despite holding no blade, Connector managed to flick a sword into Sunny's lung. Yet Sunny remained unperturbed. In mere moments, the circle had been drawn.

A fist flew towards Sunny's face, extending an arm, he shifted his body weight, grasping the fist in his own with fluidity that made every other motion he had done in his life seem crude and amateurish. Then, he slammed the creatures head into the floor with blinding speed and strength.

The ground shook, even the mountain of snow that Nephis dwelled on trembled slightly at the impact. Kneeling downward, Sunny stared at Connector with a devilish smile on his face, blood cascading from his body as he shook his head to avoid it getting in his eye.

"In this circle, I will kill you or you'll kill me. But I don't plan on dying here, so how about it? Let's put our heart and soul on the line!"