As soon as the Spell finished their words, Sunny felt like he was dropped out of nowhere, in freefall, air causing massive friction in his body until it was destroyed by the impact on deep, icy water.
'Agh! Seriously?'
Not daring to let panic settle in his heart, he cleared his mind and began to swim upwards, putting all his strength on it.
Panic, desperation, despair, they could all be useful depending on the situation, but they were tools, not enemies that control you. Frostblade made sure to teach Sunny the difference.
And now those emotions were useless.
Breaking the surface, he finally breathed a breath of air and began to analyze his surroundings to see where he was.
All he could see was darkness.
Dark sea, dark sky, no stars, no moon or sun, no shore, landmarks, nothing.
Only a dark sea stretching to the horizon.
"Damnation…"
Before he could think, he heard a sound, felt a subtle movement of the waves.
Something was coming.
He looked at the direction the sound came, a fin cut the water, hundreds of meters away.
But to be able to see at this distance…
Without a second thought, he wrapped both his shadows in his body and began to swim in the opposite direction, his unnatural strength more than doubled with the augmentation of both shadows, making him cut through the sea with extreme speed.
As he swimmed, he saw it, a dark mass rose not far away.
Immediately, he bolted to it, not sparing any energy.
He could feel it, the fin was getting closer and closer, moving faster and faster towards him.
Sunny's body hurt as he reached the black mass, touching the wet stone and climbing it quickly. Rolling on it and breathing heavily.
He felt safe, his body was in pain but not hurt, it was the consequence of using too much strength in too little time.
But as he looked to the fin approaching, he noticed that it was far too big, it towered over the mass of stone, it wasn't tall enough. He was not safe.
"Damnation!"
Sunny got up and summoned everything he could, [Puppeteer's Shroud] on his body, [BloodRaven] on his hand, [Nine's Regret] as a bracelet on his arm, then Dire Wraith appeared out of his shadow.
Wrapping one of his shadows on his body and the other on his odachi, he got on guard, ready to attack the monster as soon as it got out of the sea.
'I'm not going to die like this!'
The water split, the monstrous head of the creature appeared, its jaw opening to reveal the numerous teeth ready to destroy him.
As Sunless was about to swing his blade…
A colossal tentacle emerged from the sea, wrapping itself on the massive shark-like being and dragging it to the depths.
The creature struggled, desperation evident, but it was useless, it got dragged easily by the tentacle.
Silence was the only thing remaining on the sea.
Soon enough, it was only Sunless and his wolf companion who were on the mass of stone.
The heir of Song stood frozen by what had happened, the wolf turned to show his own surprise.
"I guess… I got lucky…"
The predator became the prey in a matter of seconds, a dreadful reminder of how the Dream Realm works.
He couldn't see any more creatures in the vicinity, the powerful tentacle must have taken the main predator of the area, still, Sunless didn't let his guard down. Anything could happen in the Dream Realm.
He sighed and sat on the rock, breathing slowly, still searching for any disturbances, be it in the water or the air.
Wraith, seemingly noticing his master's stress, came close and licked his face.
Sunny's surprise was not hidden, so was his smile.
"Hey, hey! Since when have you been so clingy?"
The docile action of the wolf contrasted his terrifying appearance, it didn't even seem like it was a dreadful wraith that rose from the dead to kill their own family.
'I wonder… If there's more to your story…'
Silent said that this wolf was one of the first Echos she got after awakening, it was a hard hunt, the wolf almost took her leg off.
The description said it came back to life…
'How, I wonder…'
The Wraith stopped licking him and looked at Sunless' arm with a puzzled face, well, as much as a ghost corpse of a wolf could. And started sniffing.
"What's the problem Wraith?"
Then he looked at what he was sniffing, his charm, [Nine's Regret].
"Oh… That…"
The Memory he got after killing Auro. It was a charm, a golden bracelet with red gems.
"I don't know what it does, but it's still a charm…"
Sunny looked at the dark sky. It reminded him of Revel, her aspect was tied to true darkness after all.
"She would love this place, not needing to cover herself every time she goes out…"
He sighed heavenly.
"Damnation… It hasn't even been a day… I think."
As his thoughts wandered, time passed, and soon enough, darkness became twilight, a sun began to rise. Revealing all the horrors of the Forgotten
—
"Huh… What an interesting zone…"
Sunny sat and watched as all the water of the sea retreated as soon as the light of the sun appeared, it was replaced with a beautiful, yet dreadful visage.
A somber grey sky and black earth created a backdrop for the crimson coral that were twisting like blades, forming a red, vibrant labyrinth.
It was like seeing the depths of the deep sea. Of an ancient, horrifying, deep blood sea.
Sunny still stood on top of the mass of rock, watching as the transformation happened, analyzing the labyrinth with unyielding focus.
Soon, he saw the corpse of the shark-like abomination that died trying to kill him, mangled beyond resemblance. He couldn't notice earlier but it was really massive. And the drop to it was also big, a couple hundred meters.
'Hmp… That's what you get.'
A twisted smirk found itself towards Sunless face, but quickly disappeared.
'I don't know how this zone completely works yet, I need to be careful.'
There were multiple questions that needed answers:
How the day and night cycle works, how much time there is until each cycle, the overall rank and class in the zone…
And many more.
He summoned Serpent out of his skin, the tattoo transforming into its true form, wrapping lightly on his neck.
Then he commanded his second shadow, which he named Happy, to get out of [BloodRaven].
"Scout, quickly."
The happy shadow quickly, and happily, moved, dropping the dark rock to reach the ground, Sunless focusing on it, watching it's every movement.
He summoned Serpent so it could stay on guard with Wraith and Gloomy. Who knows? Maybe a damn bird could appear and steal his arm or something.
And of course, Gloomy was annoyed, not because he wanted to scout for Sunny, but because he was jealous that Happy got away from their master.
Sunless ignored the mute ramblings of the shadow and looked through the eyes of the happy shadow.
The shark-like monster sat destroyed on top of the black stone, its flesh being ripped and eaten by beasts that emerged after the sea retreated.
They had four pairs of long, segmented legs that ended in scythe-like protrusions. From the center of their carapaces protruded human-like torsos clad in thick, chitinous armor. Their heads—if that was even the right word—sat directly atop their torsos with no neck in between. Narrow eye slits stared lifelessly above viscous mouths filled with slimy mandibles. Instead of hands, they wielded enormous pincers.
'Their biological structure and strength seems like Awakened, and the attitude and instincts are primitive, beasts, most likely… There's no coordination, so they are not thralls of a Tyrant, good.'
They looked like ants trying to eat a massive animal.
Sunny commanded Happy to come back, when it turned, a massive statue of a knight carved in black stone appeared in the shadow's sight, however, it was missing its head…
Sunny was on top of it.
Opening his own eyes and commanding Happy to come back, Sunless sighed and started to think.
"There are about 10 or more of them, but they are separated, in groups of 2 to 4."
His two shadow companions and his own gloomy shadow looked at him.
"I don't know how much time I have until the day ends and climbing back will take a long time.
However, at the same time, I don't know how much time the night has here, I could be stuck here for weeks for all I know, I need food."
He got up and stretched his arms.
"Time to hunt."
—
He quickly climbed down the massive statue, making sure to make as little sound as possible.
He had Gloomy and the returned Happy wrapped around him and serpent in tattoo form in his body. Wraith was dismissed and now rested on his soul sea.
Reaching the ground, he summoned [BloodRaven] in his hand, hiding in the shadows, watching his targets, three of the scavenger creatures eating the flesh of the shark abomination greedily.
Summoning Wraith and Serpent, he gave a mental command to both, and the wolf moved away from the scene. While the snake slid through the dark stone, moving to the right side of the three creatures.
It may have been a Dormant Monster, useless in a fight, but it served very well as a distraction.
The three nightmare creatures stopped eating and looked at the small sliding serpent that passed the ground, its presence annoyed and angered the beasts that prepared to kill the nuisance.
Until a human slashed the head of one of them with a crimson odachi.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[Your Shadow grows stronger…]
Sunny had jumped to reach the head of the creature, using the flesh in the surroundings so his jump reached a greater height. Enough so his blade could slice the head of the beast.
It was relatively simple to kill it, the Awakened creature's carapace armor was nothing compared to an Ascended blade made by a powerful Saint.
The head fell towards the remaining two scavengers. Primal rage filled both their eyes, rushing to where they thought their target was with their scythe-like limbs. But they found nothing but shadows and air.
They searched the surroundings, confusion explicit in their mannerisms.
But their search was meaningless, another beast lost its life, a small knife was launched in the shadows, finding its way into the scavenger's eye. The beast dropped, a dead corpse remaining in the husk.
The remaining one once again rushed to the place it thought the attacker was, but once again found nothing.
In the end, it's fate was the same, a dead husk on the ground, the torso gutted through by a black crimson blade…
—
Sunny was eating the horrible meat of the scavengers, it was rough and raw.
He sighed and finished eating, even the shark-like meat of the bigger abomination was bad.
'If only I could actually cook it…'
But he couldn't, the fire would draw unwanted attention, and he was technically already surrounded by multiple of the carapace scavengers, even if big walls of flesh were in between them.
He was ready to leave, gathering some of the meat and putting in the [Endless Torture], although the pouch always had knives, it didn't mean it was completely full of infinite knives, it was closer to a pouch that created knives when he reached inside it, so he could hold some meat in it.
'It's time to return to the top of the statue, better not push my luck, especially not with [Fated].'
Serpent returned to his skin, turning into a tattoo.
He looked at the tall structure he was about to climb.
"Reminds me of climbing Ravenheart's mountain as a part of Frostblade's training."
But before he could leave, he still had one more thing to take care of…
Beside him, there was quite a bunch of red coral dense enough to not see through.
Suddenly, a pincer moved from behind it to pierce him.
Sunny had already noticed something was in there with shadow sense, so his dodge was simple and effective.
A carapace scavenger emerged, it was wounded and battered, missing one of its pincers.
'So you were discarded for not being strong enough?'
Sunny scratched the back of his neck, unbothered by the abomination that eyed him with hunger.
"I guess that's why you were hiding, searching for some weak, lonely prey, unfortunately for you…"
The beast moved to pierce his heart.
"I'm not alone."
A shadow landed on top of the scavenger with enough force to topple it to the ground, halting its advance.
Wraith then bit the shoulder of the beast and showed the difference between Beast and a Demon.
The wolf easily tore the carapace and ripped the entire half of the torso, taking the remaining pincer with it.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[Your shadow grows stronger…]
[You have received a Memory.]
"A Memory?"
He smiled, a good surprise, he had a little time so he decided to see what it was.
[Memory: Azure Blade.
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Type: Weapon.
Memory Description: [On this forgotten shore, only steel remembers.]
"Only steel?"
Sunless smirked and let arrogance fuel his voice for once.
"Let's see if that's still true after I get out."