'Where the hell did you come from?!'
Sunny strained his muscles as he resisted the pressure clamping down on him, from both above and below. Before him was a fleshy cavern, one that he didn't really want to enter.
He grunted as he felt himself be slammed into a wall, which was comparable to stubbing his toe before Awakening. In other words, it hurt like hell, but not enough for him to slacken and allow himself to become swallowed by a Transcendent Beast.
'Oh, yeah. This is the situation I got myself into, ladies and gentlemen. This snake sneaked me and is now trying to get its next meal!'
Sunny's muscle began to moan and cry out to him, wailing for him to stop torturing them. Fortunately, anything further would only lead to Sunny being being consumed… which didn't sound too bad, actually. With a push of his legs, Sunny leaped off the lower maw of the serpent of Abundance. The beasts's jaw clamped, then opened again as it attempted to get him back into its mouth.
Its plans were interrupted when Sunny leaped off of a platform of shadows, using the momentum to sprint up the side of a building. He summoned the Lance of Preservation, a cocky grin on his face as he leaped upwards off the edge of the roof.
The serpent followed without hesitation, its massive form covered in golden leaves and scales slithering up the side of the building with a tremendous amount of force, destroying its sides as it carved a path to reach Sunny, who was already falling back down with amber flames bouncing off his skin. Spreading his arms as if he was subject to crucifixion, he let gravity take whole as he dived into the open maw of the Beast.
For anyone else, the moment the serpent's maw shut, they would be subject to pitch darkness. For Sunny, even if the Lance of Preservation wasn't providing a light source, he'd be able to see just fine. Shadows revered him as their master, and wouldn't dare to veil anything behind them.
Still falling, Sunny quickly righted himself so that his legs were facing downwards. Then, he slammed them in opposite directions, the soles of his boots digging into the fleshy insides of the serpent as he slowed to a halt — well, not completely. The snake was still moving around, and since he was in it, that also meant that he was in motion… but who cared about any of that?
In any case, he was now within the serpent. He could have simply attacked it from outside, but a simple flick of its serpentine body could crush him. No, it was better to slay it from the inside, where everything would certainly be much safer and easier—
Sunny blinked as he smelt something strange. He also heard a sizzling sound. And why were the inner walls of the Beast suddenly getting slippery?!
Looking downwards, he saw a small pool of liquid — one that reminded him much of bile. Looking to his sides, he found that same liquid being secreted by the snakes fleshy insides.
Sunny blinked. Why were his boots starting to melt?
With a panicked expression, he quickly aimed the Lance of Preservation upwards. Intense flames exploded out from the base, imitating the thrusters of a rocket ship. Sunny grit his teeth as he felt himself being propelled upward, his feet no longer making contact with the serpent's insides.
From outside, an amber light flashed from under the serpent's scales, its body seizing suddenly as it began to fall away from the building it had climbed. A second later, its head exploded in a sudden flash of molten amber. Sunny flew upwards, the Lance of Preservation pointed towards the heavens for a few moments before he dismissed it.
[You have slain a Transcendent Beast, Mara-Struck Deviation: Serpent.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
Flipping backwards a few times — simply because he felt like it — Sunny landed on the ground, a contemplative look on his face.
When he first arrived, there had been no Mara-Struck above the Awakened Rank — excluding whatever was waiting at the bundle of roots in the center. His shadow sense stretched over the entire area, and he would have noticed a shadow as vast and deep as a Transcendent one.
Rather, the snake had just been born while he had been in the midst of clearing out the Mara-Struck. It had randomly materialized out of one of the minor roots scattered around the Artisanship Commission.
After a few moments of thinking, Sunny came to two possibilities:
The first was that the sudden spawning of the Transcendent Beast was completely random. There was a chance that no conditions had to be met. This would be the best scenario, which, although still worrying, meant that Sunny could continue to clean out the Mara-Struck present until the only threat remaining was the Transcendent Tyrant at the point where the roots intersected. He'd only need to watch out in case more of the stronger Mara-Struck appeared.
The second, and more concerning possibility, was that the traces of Abundance in each Mara-Struck he killed was being sent into a metaphorical cauldron. That cauldron may be 'cooking' stronger Mara-Struck.
Frankly, such a concept may be way off. He was only using his basic understanding of sorcery — no, how the world itself worked. Maybe he was being presumptuous, but he believed that under most circumstances, things like Essence, Memories, and even the energy created from Paths never truly disappeared. Rather, they are scattered and take on a different form.
At the very least, the destruction of a soul wasn't absolute. Whether through Soul Shards or Shadow Fragments, something would be left behind. Even Memories and Echoes were constructed based on those souls.
Who was to say that it was impossible for the deaths of weaker Mara-Struck to fuel the birth of stronger ones?