Silent splashing echoes through the empty walls of coral.
More than a week has passed since his last kill.
The mud inside the coral labirynth is growing deeper the further he explores it. Near the enterance it was only about ankle-deep. It allowed him to walk almost comfortably, but now?
'Its already reaching above my knees.' He thought.
Not to long ago, maybe a day or two, a heavy storm reached his sorroundings. The underwater currents, like the storm above, were exponentially stronger then ever before. And the mud was the last sign of the disaster, it unraveled and lost its compression. Now the mud was much deeper, some placed were so deep he could completely drown in it.
His pace has slowed considerably, but there was atleast one good thing about it.
'There are almost no scavengers here.'
'Most likely because of the whale corps'
Well, there was another benefit he gained from it.
His new memory [Exoskeleton] helped him cover more distance. It was an amore typ memory made of thick, heavy, and rough carapace plates. Normallyits weight aloe would have been to much for him to carry, but thankfully it had some special attributes to help him. It weight more then 60kg, which was as heavy if not heavier as he himself. But if submerged under water, or atleast covered by it, it would strenghten his body. The weight would still be the same, but would feel lighter, almost weightless if under water.
Together with the enchantment and its design, he could traverse the mud faster then on regular ground.
Another splash, followed by a low roar rung out from behind him.
While it was true that scavengers became exceedingly rare, that did not mean it was empty.
Another kind of creature filled the power-vacume that was left behind by the crab-centaurs.
The new inhabitor of the labyrinth was a medium sized, red fish with skin that looked like rock. They had sharp, pointy teeth and even bigger spikes on their backs. Even though he called them fish they did not haave fins, only four stump like legs.
Still, they were fast and they hunted in groups. Luckily Sunny was able to avoid most of them, not once being directly attacked by one.
He was only slightly faster. Just two breath of distance behind him were the coral fish.
If it were not for his extensiv knowlage of his terrain he might be already dead.
Momets later the musd began to get more shallow, and soon he could walk again. Covered by a storm of light he thought:
'The amore is good and all in mud, but only inhibits me on land. And just like me those things are slower on land.'
When the amore completely dispersed he bagn to climb up a coral spike.
'How could those fool ever try to climb with those stump legs?' He thought while snickering.
On this mount he might be safe frome the coral fish, but the sea still posed a treat.
According to suns position he only had about two hours left to find a highpoint. And he already was to far away from his start point to return.
'The closer I get to the statue, the more monsters appear. At first it was those scavengers, then those snakes and now the fish.'
'Well, I still need to come close to those snakes, but what is up with that. How are there so many hostile creatures in such a smal place? I have not even reached the second high point!'
While thinking about his new opposition, the pest below him left, not because they lost interest but rather because they noticed some other creature.
Quickly climbing down, he sprinted and resummoned his more. He had to leave fast if he wanted to be spared from monster infighting.
He might be able to survive a fight with them, but not without cost. Thats what he found out last time. No sleeper should ever fight awakened creatures. They were simply to strong and resiliant. His first fewkills were purely out of luck. His memory was good for ambushes and of a high rank, and his other kills were made by his aspect. But using his eye inside the labyrinth was equivilant to suicide.
The treads of conciousness every living being had were flowing trough the coral. The madness of it would blind him the second he would be to close and in the worst care it could even infect him. The mind is the most vunerable of all, even if he could attack others minds he was not immune to retaliation.
After feeling the mind of whatever the coral was, he found something out about his ability. If touching the strings of mind he could read their content, emotion and more. If he would do this to mind of a sane human he will be ok, but the mind of a nightmare creature was so vastly different from his own and combined with their insanity it was simply dangerous.
Thats why he never once tried to kill abominations again. Still he got soul fragments, but instead of fighting himself he let them fight themself and stole the fruits of their efforts.
Being mostly submerged in mud he continued his sprint. The island infront of him was growing closer by the second.
And astonishingly he never met another creature on his way to his destination.
'Maybe Fated is for once blessing me with luck instead of trying to assainate me?' he thought to himself.
Carefully he summoned his other memory. The tread attached itself on a brach high above him and shortened. In a matter of seconds he arrived on the top.
The sight of the island instantly made his stomach flip.
A mass of broken, black chitin and feathers mounded itself in the form of a nest. It had a diameter of six meters and was two meters tall.
'How many scavengers would have been killed for this?' He thought to himself while eying the feathers.
Not once had he seen a creature resembeling a bird here.
Uncomfortabe memorys and uncontrollable feel began to rise in him while seeing the nest. Cold sweat soaked his very being.
The sound of light screaching shook him out of his shocked state.
Sounds were coming from the nest.
Climbing atop the nest he peeked over it.
Inside are three featherless, pale abominations. They looked similar to birds in the fact that they had a birds head, the rest of the body looked like a child tried to build a clay figurine out of clay that so wet it collapsed on itself.