Nephis held her mouth, trying not to laugh. Sunny was holding onto the slope with Moonlight Shard
"Don't you dare laugh!" Sunny glared at Nephis, which made her use more willpower to not laugh
Saint just stared at him before walking down to pull him back up
Calming herself, Nephis asked
"How did you even fall? The slope is only 20 degrees"
Sunny shrugged and spoke with a bit of irritation
"I don't know, I tripped"
All three of them slowly climbed down the hole which was the size of an ocean-it used to be at least-as they took small breaks to regain their stamina
Sunny tried not to trip again. Sunny had to hold Nephis hand since she couldn't see anything, unless she uses her Aspect but Sunny isn't willing to let her suffer just because she couldn't see
After walking down a little, they stopped to sleep for the night
Sunny settled everything down as he fell on his ass to lay down. Crossing his legs he sighed
"We have been descending this hole for about a day or two already"
Nephis spared him a glance before looking at their destination
"We crossed it in a few days on a boat, we went straight across, not down then up"
Sunny looked at her before sighing again
"I going to set a fire so we can eat"
Sunny set a fire with the help of Nephis. Soon a few sticks of meat was on the fire
The warm orange glow of the fire contrasting against Nephis beautiful face made Sunny uncomfortable for a bit
Nephis stared at the food before asking
"Why do you like to explore so much?"
Sunny raised an eyebrow before shrugging
"I just do I guess, not sure"
Nephis nodded before asking a bit teasingly
"So much so that I needed to drag you away from a ruins? Mind you, you were trying to jump into a hole that didn't seem to have an end"
Sunny gritted his teeth before spitting out
"Can't a man be curious? And! It had an end!"
Nephis nodded again before asking
"And how deep was it?"
Sunny looked away shamefully before speaking lowly
"30 meters"
Nephis smiled with the edges of her lips. Both of them ate in silence before Nephis said something, making Sunny's world crumble....
"Have you ever loved someone before?"
Sunny, confused at out of all the questions she could ask, she asks this question
"I guess I love my sister" Sunny took another bite of the meat
Nephis shook her head
"That's not what I meant. I mean, have you ever loved someone romantically before?"
Sunny thought for a few seconds before shaking his head
"In the outskirts, any type of emotion other than survival will get you killed"
Nephis nodded before eating again. They ate silently until Sunny decided to sleep
"Do you want to take first watch? Wait, we have Saint and my shadows to keep watch, and there isn't any Nightmare Creatures nearby" Sunny said before shaking the thoughts out of his head
"Ah whatever, good night" Sunny laid down and closed his eyes
Nephis saw Sunny's breathing even out, meaning that he lost to the battle of tiredness. Smiling faintly, she put out the fire and crawled towards Sunny
She sat next to Sunny's sleeping body, she laid down next to him, whispering
"Good night"
Saint watched them with indifference, but her eyes showed a bit of contempt at the sight of the two dense lovebirds
------ A day or two later
Sunny stood in front of a hole inside of a hole. It was full of darkness, sloshing around at a invisible barrier
Nephis held his shoulders to prevent Sunny from falling into the hole
"Let's go. I get chills just from looking at it" Sunny shivered and turned around
Nephis nodded and continued holding onto his shoulder
Soon nightfell-probaby, its hard to tell when everything is black-they set camp and rested
Laying next to each other, Nephis asked
"I'm quite envious that you are able to use essence"
Sunny turned his head to look at her before saying
"I mean, I could give you Soul Serpent to let you have essence"
Nephis stared at him wide eyed before shaking her head
"That's a nice thing to have, but you could keep it, I'm sure there's a catch" Nephis laid back down
"Actually, the only catch is that I am unable to use essence"
Nephis nodded before saying
"Still, you should keep it to yourself"
Sunny nodded before turning to look at the lightless sky. It was quite a uninteresting sky if Sunny wanted to be honest with him self
But it still felt nice to look at. It was like a promise of a distant sky (Ah, did you see what I did there :])
Sunny was practicing essense control so it seemed like he was sleeping, even though he wasn't. Nephis doesn't know that...
Nephis shifted and moved closer to Sunny, turning to her side to hold his arm, careful not to 'wake' him up
Sunny's heart rate instantly sped up, he started to blush uncontrollably. He tried to even his heart rate and breathing but he failed spectacularly (I keep being unable to spell 'Spectacularly' :-:)
And his blush increased when Nephis pressed her chest against his arm. He didn't move because it seems like Nephis was sleeping
'Oh may the dead gods help me!' Sunny thought
Sunny sent a mental command to Saint to gently pry her away. Saint seemed hesitant for some reason but she did it anyway
When she did however, Nephis groaned and held his arm tighter
'Huh?'
After a few hours of him trying to calm down, he did and fell asleep quite comfortably
When he woke up, Nephis was already looming over him, she reached down and gently pinched Sunny fully awake
"Ow!" Sunny sat up and rubbed the spot where Nephis pinched him
Nephis stared at him before pointing at the rest of the supplies
Sunny groaned and picked up the supplies. They continued on their journey
------ A few days later
Sunny collapsed onto the ground, accidentally grabbing a fistful of dirt in his hand
Nephis stared at him incrediousbly before sighing
"It's just flat ground not all of the world's treasure"
Sunny pushed himself up and dusted the dirt off his clothes before saying
"After needing to climb that hole, flat ground is a miracle"
Nephis rolled her eyes before pulling Sunny by the wrist to continuing the journey
Soon they saw a massive tree, it was beautiful, obsidian colored bark and crimson leaves
It was pleasing to look at
It was good
It was giving
Its the best thing ever
Sunny smacked the side of his head before sighing
"Wow, still quite an effect"
Nephis stared at the tree before shaking her head. Sunny pulled Nephis back while giving Saint a command to move forward, wrapping both of his shadows around her
Saint ran with a torch in hand, sprinting straight at the tree
A couple of monsters appeared from the ground but Saint just obliterated them with a swipe of her shield
[You have slain an Awakened Beast...]
[Your Shadow grows stronger!]
[You have slain an Dormant Beast...]
[[Your Shadow grows stronger!]
[You have slain and Awakened Demon...]
[Your Shadow grows stronger!]
Nephis looked at the bloody spectacle with an impassive expression. Sunny meanwhile was grinning the whole time
Saint soon reached the trunk of the massive tree and she dropped the torch near the trunk before bolting back to them
The entire tree was burning and Sunny was enjoying every single moment
Nephis looked at it before at Sunny, then she looked at the tree again
"Beautiful isn't it?" Sunny said with enjoyment
Nephis simply nodded which dampened his mood a little. They continued watching the tree burn, Saint hasn't been with them yet because Sunny sent her to murder as much of the enthralled Nightmare Creature as she can without getting hurt too badly
A Dormant Monster tried to attack Sunny but he side stepped to the right and pierced it's head with Moonlight Shard
[Your Shadow grows stronger]
All of the Nightmare Creatures began to eat each other when the Soul Devouring Tree lost most of it's mind controlling powers
Sunny watched Saint massacre a lot of the Nightmare Creatures with delight in his eyes as the shadow fragments kept filling in his soul
Nephis just frowned at the sight of the slaughter. Sunny held her shoulders and asked
"What's wrong?"
Nephis glanced at him before shaking her head
"Nothing, it's just that I dislike the memory of getting stuck here"
Sunny nodded and continued watching the tree burn in white flames
Sunny checked his runes and then grinned
[Shadow Fragments: 1936/2000]
'I am getting so much fragments from this!'
Saint kept killing so his fragments kept going up. Soon almost all of the Nightmare Creatures died, they either got mauled, ripped, burned, cut, slashed. The ones that survived are the ones that ran away
Sunny kept grinning the whole time until a sudden pain in his chest scared him
Noticing Sunny sudden fall to his knees, Nephis held Sunny's shoulders
[You have slain Corrupted Terror, Soul Dervouring Tree]
[Your Shadow grows stronger!]
Sunny would have thought that this is the reason why he suddenly felt pain in his chest, but his mind is blank due to the pain he felt of forming a Soul Core
Saint walked up to Sunny and Nephis, looking at Sunny with an indifference gaze
"Will he be okay?" Nephis asked Saint for no reason
Saint didn't reply or move at all, she just kept staring at Sunny. Strangely enough, Nephis felt calm with the gaze Saint was giving
After the cruel pain of forming a Soul Core was done, Sunny let out a shaky growl
Nephis immediately asked with a hint of worry in her voice
"Did you form your Soul Core? Is the pain done?"
Sunny nodded twice to answer both of her questions as he slowly raised to his feet
Sunny glanced down at his shadow and saw a new guy. But the new guy ran away to check up on the corpses mearby
'He's a strange one' Sunny stared at the Shadow curiously
Nephis also stared at the Shadow but shook her head
"Let's collect the Soul Shards" Sunny turned Soul Serpent into a odachi
After a couple of hours of butchering the Nightmare Creatures, they gotten all of the Soul Shards
Sunny pushed all of the Soul Shards to Nephis and she reluctantly cursed all of them
"You can kill and crush Soul Shards to get more powerful. While I can only kill to get more powerful, such a scam" Sunny grunted
Nephis after she finished absorbing the Soul Shards, she walked over to Sunny and patted his shoulder
"I'll try to make you land the final hit on the Nightmare Creatures we might find along the way" Nephis smiled with the ends of her lips
Sunny nodded and began harvesting the edible meat on the Nightmare Creatures
Sunny collected some meat before realising that he gotten a few memories
'I hope I get something good!' Sunny had high hopes
Sunny checked his runes and his hopes immediately got crushed after reading most of it. Only one was pretty useful
[Memory: Blood of the Brood Mother]
[Memory description:
The Brood Mother was a kind and forgiving mother, it wanted to care for its children and anyone that it adopted. The children loved her and helped her with everything she does even if she didn't want to put them in danger, the mother gave up and fed her children her own blood to strengthen them, the children loved her more when they received her blood. But the Brood Mother saw ancient humans kill one of her children and she went into a frenzy, killing everything in sight even her own children when they tried to stop her. When the massacre was finished, she realisied what she had done and wandered the world until she succumbed to Corruption]
[Memory enchantments: Strength of a Mother, Blood vessels, Blood of madness]
[Strength of a Mother description:
It increases your strength the more maturnal protection you feel for someone. You will still get more stronger even if you don't have such feelings]
[Blood vessels description:
This enchantment increases your blood flow, allowing more oxygen to reach your limbs. It can also slowly stop blood from flowing out of your body]
[Blood of madness description:
If you drink too much of the blood, you will go mad in fury, feeling the desire to kill everything in your vicinity until your bloodlust is satisfied. It can also make your Soul succumb to Corruption]
Sunny stared at the runes before scoffing
'This is bullshit! It's just a weaker version of Blood Weave'
Nephis saw Sunny stare into somewhere so she decided to check up on him
Gently slapping him on the face to wake him up
"What's wrong?"
Sunny shook his head and grabbed her hand to transfer the Memory. Nephis accepted and read the runes while Sunny fed Saint the useless Memories
'I can see why he gave it to me, its basically only useful to me specifically' Nephis checked the runes
They were still holding hands without noticing until Sunny looked down
He pulled back abruptly and apologised
"I held your hand for too long, sorry" Sunny scratched the back of his neck and looked away
"Its fine"
Nephis summoned the Memory into her hands
A beautiful vial with intricate patterns appeared into a fountain of white sparks. It was pretty small for a tube but pretty big for a vial so it was somewhere in between
Nephis popped open the vial while Sunny looked at it with her, and she flipped it upside down
A steady stream a crimson liquid flowed out and it did not stop until 3 minutes of pouring
'Interesting' Nephis dismissed the Memory
They grabbed all of the meat and put it inside of bags Sunny made and gave it to Saint to carry
"Let's camp somewhere else, I don't feel safe near the tree" Sunny pointed at a cave that was pretty far away
Nephis nodded and held Sunny's hand so she wouldn't get lost
After quite a walk, they reached the cave and made a small fire. They roasted a few strips of meat on the fire
The waited for the food to be done cooking so they talked about a few things they wanted
"I never really thought about what I want since I didn't think I would turn 18 or even 19 at all, so I don't really have a dream other than living a good life with my friends" Sunny tilted his head to the right
Nephis nodded and hugged her knees then asked
"I'm a included in that dream?" Nephis turned away, not feeling worthy of being in his dream
Sunny raised his eyebrow and nodded
"Of course you would be there, you're my friend after all" Sunny grinned
Nephis nodded again and slowly turned to look at him with a pale smile
"Thanks" Nephis stared at the fire
Sunny was confused but didn't push
"So, what's your dream other than killing your father's killer and destroying the Nightmare Spell?"
Nephis thought for a second before saying a bit sorrowfully
"Probably the same as yours, but this type of world won't allow such dreams"
Sunny nodded and took a piece of meat from the fire, he was able to take a bite but gritted his teeth and stood up
Nephis looked at him Co fused before he said
"Something is approaching" Sunny rolled his eyes and walked out
Nephis wanted to follow but Sunny told her to tend to the fire instead. She heard a few noises and a shriek until everything went quiet
Worried, she tried to go out but saw Sunny drenched in blood and Saint dragging a Carapace Scavenger body
Relieved, she sat back down and gave Sunny his food
"Hold onto that for a bit" Sunny grunted and turned around
Nephis nodded as Sunny walked around a corner as she saw white sparks appear
Sunny dismissed Puppeteers Shroud and summoned Endless Spring to wash the blood off himself
After done washing, he summoned Puppeteer Shroud back and walked back
Sunny received his food from Nephis as he handed her Endless Spring. They drank and ate until they fell asleep next to each other
Saint watched both of them sleeping shoulder to shoulder and she moved to make Nephis head lay on Sunny's shoulder
Contempt, she walked out to guard then