A Bond forged in dreams

Sunny was plunging into what seemed to be his certain death. A devil, even if it was fallen was a death sentence to Sunny.

If it was corrupted, then he was already dead.

As he was falling, Sunny heard the spell say something that was great for him in his desperate situation.

[You have slain a fallen monster: cursed herald.]

[You have recieved a memory.]

"Yes!" Sunny screamed in hope as he summoned his newfound memory, unaware of what it was.

In the next moment, he dropped into the ocean.

Nephis ran towards the edge of the cliff, her mind racing with fear for the first time after she had her first assassination attempt.

This time however, it was different, this time it was for someone else. It was a strange feeling really, for someone who had grown to not feel fear for her own life, to be afraid of losing another.

Especially someone who wasn't even her family.

And yet it was natural too, Nephis had known Sunny for three years now, they had grown to be close friends, even having moments that Transcended mere friendship.

She had a bond with him now, and she wasn't willing to lose it.

As she looked down from the cliff, she saw trembling black waters with occasional sighting of a few tentacles. Everytime they resurfaced, there were more and more cuts on them seeping muddy brown blood like liquid.

Sunny was probably under the water fighting for his life, she could feel it too, one of her flames had been healing him through all this time.

She couldn't see Sunny anymore, but she could feel it. His body was being broken by the abomination and reconstructed by her flames over and over again.

His hand would break off, his leg would twist in an unnatural way, his torso would get stabbed and a hole would form inside.

And yet, Sunny kept fighting, moving just about enough to avoid any fatal damage. Neph's flames kept healing all wounds he got too.

But it couldn't last forever, eventually Sunny would make a mistake and get hit in the brain or the heart, and Nephis wasn't close enough to heal that now.

She contemplated jumping down to help him, but decided against it. Right now he was being broken left and right by the creature. And he had all the augmentation he could get, a base Nephis would just die in seconds.

And that would in turn kill Sunny too. So she had no choice but to wait and hope that her Sunny would come back to her.

As she watched, the darkness seemed to receed into the abomination and the dark waters became less murky around it.

Noticing an apportunity, she yelled out. "Liam, get over here!"

***

Sunny found himself drowning in the dark sea again, thankfully that didn't last long as one of the three memories he had summoned manifested inside his mouth.

The Cerulean Pearl he had purchased allowed him to breathe underwater. Instantly he went from being a helpless rat to being a slightly less helpless rat in the middle of an ocean.

Then, the mermaid scale manifested around his Puppeteer's shroud, replacing the already unsummoned the last word.

It was a scale armour with light blue to purple coloured scales.

Finally, in his left hand the third memory manifested.

It was the ascendant memory obtained after killing the spire messenger.

As it formed, Sunny realised it was a weapon...a spear.

At the same time Sunny summoned it's runes.

Memory name: Skybeak.

Memory rank: Ascended.

Memory description: [Born to wage war against the invasions of the west and the monsters of the sea, the heralds of the mad queen learnt to fight in the sky and the sea.

Their beaks became the harbingers of defeat and their talons the weapons of unyielding slaughter.

But they had not grown to fight the shadows and so in the shadows they would drown.]

'Interesting, so this memory is capable of fighting in the water?'

Sunny wanted to ponder upon the implications of the memory's description but he didn't have time to do so now.

The tentacles of the harrowing abomination were descending all around him, he could not see them well but their presence was obviously felt.

Holding defiance underwater was very inefficient so sunny simply unsummoned the memory and chose to hold Skybeak in both hands instead.

Skybeak was a simple spear, with a twisting grey rod that looked like a whirlpool. It had the patterns of waves in it too, and bioluminescent runes on it, glowing with a pale yellow light.

It's blade was a crystalline azure colour with a silver glint.

As Sunny weilded the spear, the tentacled abomination attacked him. Almost immediately after Sunny had been plunged into the deep ocean.

A tentacle the size of a tower pillar lashed out, fast as a whip. Sunny barely had time to react—he twisted his body, his spear flashing forward, and he thrust it into the darkness.

He missed.

But the Kraken's strike connected.

Crack.

A wave of pain exploded through Sunny's ribs as the impact sent him hurtling through the water, spinning like a ragdoll. He had no time to recover before another tentacle slammed into him, this one aimed at his spine.

Crack.

His back bent unnaturally, his vision flashing white.

But then, one of Nephis' flames changed effect, healing him. Gaining some sense again, Sunny swam towards the devil.

And then he found the power of the spear he held, it propelled him forward, manipulating the water currents around him to help move and strike faster.

As his ribs were knitted back to their healthy selves, his body shot forward and struck the devil with fascinating speed.

It was as if the sea itself was pushing Sunny towards the abomination.

What followed was a dance of steel and tentacles. Engaging against each other in a storm of absolute chaos.

The tentacles broke the little man again and again, but he never seemed to die. The spear seemed to strike at the tentacles but was swatted away everytime without dealing a proper wound.

But that fragile equilibrium was dynamic and unstable, and so it would soon change.

Eventually, Sunny drove his spear into its hide, sinking it deep. A grotesque squelch filled the water as his weapon carved through the monster's thick flesh, its enchanted edge leaving behind a gaping wound.

And then the devil began to bleed. Slowly at first, and then it's wound grew bigger.

The wound gushed forward an endless stream of dark red ichor into the abyss. The Kraken shuddered, its twenty-four tentacles were writhing in agony.

Sunny smiled grimly, only to be hit on the neck, his head twisted almost 180 degrees, but then he put his hands on his head and forced them back to normal. Neph's flames healed his broken neck.

And he moved again, vanishing from its counterattack and reappearing above its hulking body. Another thrust—another wound. More blood.

More tentacles followed him.

More injuries did too.

He would have died a long time ago if it wasn't for Nephis healing him.

But she was healing him. So he had no intention of losing.

Swinging Skybeak at an already bleeding tentacle, Sunny finally slashed it off the nightmare creature.

For the first time, the fallen devil had lost its limb. And unlike Sunny, it was not going to heal back up.

Slowly, the damage was accumulating on the devil. Sunny grinned like a prince maddened by bloodlust.

His spear spun again, hoping to cleave at another tentacle.

But before he did, the monster retreated it's tentacles all at once, and then it secreted... something?

'True darkness, this creature is of true darkness...' Sunny thought with tension as the hideous creature coated itself in its source element.

Bathing in newfound power the harrowing abomination didn't shoot it's tentacles forward.

Instead, it opened its massive grotesque maw and sucked in everything around it.

Sunny's heart seemed to stop for a moment as he was pulled in.

The void was folding inward, pulling all light, all motion, all existence into itself. And Sunny was not an exception.

He tried to move—but his body wouldn't obey.

Something far greater than gravity gripped him tight, dragging him towards the maw of the abyssal kraken.

And then came the tentacles.

As he was pulled in, the Kraken's limbs coiled around him. One wrapped around his leg—another crushed his arm. A third wrapped around his throat, cutting off even his enchanted breath.

And then they squeezed him with the strength of a fallen.

CRACK.

His spine broke again...no, not his spine, his entire body.

Everything inside his body broke this time.

The pressure folded his ribs, his vision flickering in and out. His limbs gave out, his spear tumbling from his fingers.

The Kraken had him.

And it was going to devour him whole.

But then—

The second flame Nephis had given him changed.

Instead of strengthening him, it was now healing.

".....Am....Ge.....Ere!!!..."

Sunny heard someone shout above him. He couldn't decipher who it was or what they were saying, but their voice was like an angel...their soothing voice filled him with the longing to fight on.

Just then, an arrow descended upon the tentacled abomination, and then another and then another.

Soon there was a volley of arrows being fired rapidly at the creature. The dark water was weakening the arrows and the fallen hide was not going to be pierced by an Awakened like Liam either.

But it did it's job of distraction nonetheless.

'Wait, it's not that dark anymore? Is this creature absorbing true darkness around itself?.' The two flames healed him back again as he gained consciousness.

His spear that had been lost from his grip just a moment ago had now floated a few feet away, Sunny grabbed the spear and took a simple stance.

At the same time, one of the arrows that fell on the creature shone with incandescent light as a flame flew out of it and streaked towards Sunny.

The flame merged with him, enhancing his strength.

'A third core? Nephis became a demon already? She does get more fragments than me when fighting, and she did kill more than I did in the last fight.

Did she absorb the spire messenger's soul shards to evolve?

In that case, Caster would have noticed her in pain, she doesn't have the same tolerance in this life afterall.

Damnation. He better not think of anything stupid, or he will learn to fear the shadows.'

As Sunny's body continued to heal towards perfection, he was dragged closer to the creature's maw.

Nephis must have been able to see him too, given how translucent the water looked now.

But he wasn't worried at all, and he was sure that Nephis wasn't either.

Because he had a very simple plan to deal with the threat in front of him.

As he was moments away from being eaten,

Nephis' flames changed, all three empowered his strength.

And then, augmented with three shadows, three flames and shadow cradle— Sunny shot his spear with full force inside the maw of the vile creature.

A flash of silver streaked in the all consuming darkness.

Faster than thought.

Faster than the true darkness.

The spear drove forward, not toward the beast's body, but into its very core—the nucleus of its dark existence.

The kraken shuddered as a soundless howl rang through the depths of the dark sea. The Kraken's body spasmed, its titanic limbs flailing wildly as its massive existence began to fade.

It was bleeding uncontrollably.

More than before. More than ever.

A torrent of abyssal ichor filled the sea, the creature's lifeblood spilling endlessly.

It convulsed.

It withered.

And then, at last, it fell still.

[You have slain a fallen devil: Abyssal kraken]

[You have recieved a...]

It's corpse fell down towards the sea bed, or so it tried— but Sunny summoned frozen and absorbed the corpse inside.

Sunny—wounded, broken, whole again—floated in the silence, his spear still in his grip.

He had won.

But as he stared into the empty blackness coming back around the dark sea, where the Kraken had been, he knew:

The sea had more monsters yet.

And so he couldn't afford to be here for long. Before the shedding of blood attracted more creatures, he swam upwards and climbed the cliff.

***

[The foreign tyrant's duel with the walking statue is finally starting. Aspidokhelone, go and see if you can bring me it's Soul shards.

If it manages to survive longer than a week after you have arrived there, return with haste.]

A massive crimson tree stood in the middle of an ashen barrow, it's branches piercing the heavens and its roots drilling into the pits of hell.

Somewhere in its canopy, a giant egg remained.

And somewhere farther from the tree was a giant tortoise. The tree didn't speak, and neither did the tortoise.

And yet they conversed, or rather the tree commanded without a sliver of rebuttal.

Soon the tortoise rose from its position and dug deep into soil. It was moving towards west.

If the burned forest was north and the hollow mountains were south that is.

***

Sunny checked his runes.

Shadow fragments: [1936/3000]

'Hmm, I could bring this to over 2000 with the supreme devil egg and the awakened demon at the crimson tree. But then again, it has definitely changed too.'

Sunny stretched up a little, he was lying down on the solid ground away from the rest of the cohort.

The dark sea was mildly raging with the fights beneath them, but since there was no corpse to devour, the monsters just moved on.

His three shadows were keeping watch, so they did not have to worry.

The rest of the cohort was also resting, they were doing much better than him. But they had also been more affected by the horrors of the forgotten shore.

Except perhaps Nephis, but even she was tired and exhausted from all the fighting.

As he went through everything that has happened ever since he arrived on the forgotten shore, he heard footsteps coming closer towards him.

It was Nephis.

Shifting slightly, he smiled at her.

"So, missed me?"

She smiled back slightly.

"No, why would I miss you, you don't leave me alone at all anyway."

His smirk widened.

"And yet here you are, coming to me yourself."

Nephis shrugged.

"Everyone is resting. The last fight took alot out of everyone, so I thought I would check up on you. You had it the worst among us."

Sunny closed his eyes, enjoying the comfort of lying down on a solid surface. Nephis was right, his body had been pushed to the extreme limit lately.

"It is what it is, I'm a demon too unlike others so I can handle it."

He slowly opened his eyes to look at Nephis again. She was standing right next to him, a slight smile tugging at her lips.

And yet, there was a hidden expression of pity on her face, she was sad to see him hurt.

She had also not forgotten that he could see in the night's darkness while she herself could not.

She was looking at him directly because of it.

"Thank you Neph, I would have died if it wasn't for you."

"Don't thank me, you would have done the same for me. Besides..."

With that, she stopped for a bit and kicked at his torso playfully. That action made Sunny blink twice too.

"I am a demon too, so I can handle it.

But are you sure it's alright to be so lax, I get that your shadows are keeping watch. But there's a small war going on between the dark sea's dwellers. What if they attack?"

Sunny thought for a moment.

"It's alright, it's at best a non lethal tussling between them, if the corrupted fought each other with everything they had we would all be dead by now.

They probably would have if there was an actual corpse to feed on. But courtesy of yours truly."

He smiled at her with am amused expression, she seemed to sense it even without seeing it herself,

As she sat down next to him and patted his forehead a bit, then she suddenly changed her trajectory to his lips.

"Oww! What the-"

"Good job, now tell me, what are we doing tomorrow?"

Sunny's head tilted a bit.

"You...want to plan alone huh?"

Nephis nodded, not choosing to voice her answer.

Sunny looked at her for a while, his lips contorting into a smile. She was growing wary of Caster already, it was perfect. She didn't want him to know everything they were going to do.

'She's a natural." Sunny thought at the same time he replied.

"Well, come next morning I will go scout out the area with my shadows. I will take caster too, his speed will come in handy.

And while he is gone, I want you to oversee my scavvy eating the corpse of the messenger and the kraken both. The shadow has some sort of evolutionary requirement that needs shadow fragments.

And those fragments aren't being earned by killing monsters like me, so I'm assuming there's another way to feed it fragments. Since it's a scavenger, it should be able to grow stronger by eating the corpses around it."

Sunny twisted his words to tell her the truth while hiding the fact that he already knew how his shadows evolved.

He also did in fact speculate that his scavenger will grow by eating flesh like fiend did. Only that it would not acquire new powers.

"While I take Caster away, you make sure to absorb all the fragments we have left. After giving the others their share depending on their work done ofcourse.

The corpses of the scavengers will not be completely gone either, most of them would be left by the dark sea dwellers simply because its not worth their time.

You can get serpent to get you the fragments from them too.

Other than that, I don't think we have anything else to do."

A slight breeze was flowing as Sunny talked, so Nephis was enjoying herself feeling it. Her hair flowed vividly in the darkness, appearing to be murky white in the darkness instead of pure.

And only Sunny's eyes could see them. He took a moment to enjoy himself, lost from the night, in his eyes only the silhouette of Nephis remained.

Nephis opened her eyes and looked at him. The breeze still flowing through her.

"Thank you for the kind gesture, but I'd rather take out the soul shards myself. You should take your shadow with you as protection.

And I'm not taking more soul shards just because I worked hard. These people will be valuable too once their soul grows stronger."

Sunny protested. "But Neph-"

"Shhhh" Nephis put a finger on his lips. "Sunny, this is my way of living. This is what makes me, me. So don't tell me to change it now please. You already know my flaw too."

Sunny lowered his eyes. It was true, she wasn't going to hoard more resources even if that was the correct choice. It was just how Nephis was, he couldn't do anything about it.

But he could do something about her hand. As she naturally pulled her hand away and tried to get up, he grabbed her wrist with his own hand and stopped her.

"Sunny what is thi-"

"Shhh Nephis, where are you going now? Everyone has already eaten. They are all sleeping too."

Nephis yanked her hand away. This time Sunny didn't block her.

"I was going back to sleep too. Why did you do it?"

Her face was laden with a slight blush.

"Do what?" Sunny feigned ignorance non chalantly, yet deep down his heart was beating heavy.

'This is it. I'm actually doing it! Just play it cool sunny!'

Neph's expression changed to a little frown. Her blush deepening.

"Grab my hand like that, obviously."

"Oh well, why don't you just lie down here for a while. Demons should stick together when with so many humans."

"And why would I lie down here?"

"Well it's pretty soft compared to the usual rocky surface."

Nephis raised an eyebrow. "Oh? How is that?"

"You can put your head on my arm." Sunnys grin remained plastered on his face as he anticipated Neph's reaction.

Even though she couldn't see him, he was tense with apprehension. Not willing to move until she had given him an answer.

Would she accept and actually lie down? Would she deny him? Anything was possible. The saint Nephis he had come to know would have loved to do so but at the same time the Nephis of forgotten shore had no such relationship with him and was highly awkward.

And the Nephis of the current timeline...was a weird mixture of the two, she wasn't as awkward nor was she not close to him. And yet, their relationship was barely anything more than mere friendship right now.

So sunny had decided to risk it all today. He couldn't wait to get back with his lover again and he couldn't refuse a moment to tease her either.

As he waited for her answer, a worm of doubt began to crawl at his mind. What if she refused? What if she rejected his advances?

What if this moment caused them to never get together?

And at the same time, there was a burning hope too. That she'd accept. That's she would be happy.

That this moment would advance their relationship closer to a real couple.

However, much to his surprise, when Nephis finally spoke up,

Her reaction was nothing close to what he had expected.