Sunless descended from the headless statue, his hands were cold and in his mind there was a mess, as he climbed down the shadow's screams continued to haunt his thoughts.
"I know! I KNOW! I'm here, shut the fuck up!!!" Sunny shouted.
The shadow still continued to call him. It seeked his solace, a kind of solace that he and only he could grant him.
The solace of death.
Those screams weren't pleasant at all and he alone could hear them, neither Cassie or his Shadow creatures could, only him.
As he set foot into the ground of the Forgotten Shore for the first time, his mind rapidly reviewed all the training and the knowledge that he adquired over the years. This for the sole purpose of killing the Carapace scavenger right there and now.
At some point, some words come back to him. Words that Jet had told him some time ago, while she was training him.
The memory of her voice gave him comfort.
---------------
"Sunny, remember! When you fight a Nightmare Creature: don't think, just act! Because the more you think, the more scared you will be."
---------------
So Sunny stopped thinking.
A part from the screams that were starting to hurt him, there was nothing else.
His mind was calm.
Very calm.
It was almost unnatural how calm he was.
He approached the creature from the side, keeping himself well away from its field of vision.
The marshy terrain was of no problem for him —Sunny was light and silent as a feather, blending perfectly with the surrounding environment and the shadows.
The Carapace scavenger didn't notice him. When he got close enough, Sunny sent his shadow on that of the scavenger, this time careful not to look at it directly.
By now, the screams had become terribly difficult to bear.
As soon his shadow touched that of the corrupted, Sunny did not hesitate to activate his ability to block it and with it his master.
The Carapace scavenger suddenly froze.
Quikly, Sunny ordered Serpent to turn into an halbert, he was too far away for a sword.
His tattoo shifted.
It moved to his right arm and continued until it morphed into a long black shaft with a sharp axe at one of the two ends in his hand.
Without a second thought, the halberd severed in a neat cut one of the Carapace scavenger's legs, passing through the part that connected the main body with one of his scythe-like legs, right where its flesh was exposed without any cover.
The creature fell to the ground screaming. Sunny then stepped on its shadow and turned Serpent into a scythe.
Not to copy Jet but it seemed to him like the most suitable weapon for the situation.
[Shadow blade] attribute description: "Soul Serpent can directly damage the shadows and severing them from their caster."
Sunny lowered his scythe on the scavenger's shadow, aiming right at the chaotic weaves that connected the shadow with its caster. The black scythe passed through the weaves, severing them from one side to the others like they were made of paper.
There was no sound, it did not touch neither the ground or the flesh, and it met any resistance.
The weaves were undone.
With a dull screech, the Carapace scavenger was dead and with it, the screams finally stopped.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast: Carapace scavenger.]
[You have received a Memory: azure blade.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
Sunny breathed a sigh of relief, even the Gloomy shadow did so. The screams were affecting even him.
Somewhere, in the depths of his Soul Sea. A shadow had finally found its longed, for who knows how long, peace.
***
Memory: [azure blade].
Memory Rank: Awakened.
Memory Type: Weapon.
Memory Description: [On this forgotten shore, only steel remembers.]
***
"..."
No words were spoken.
A cold silence hung above the environment where Sunny was staring at the carcass of the Carapace scavenger in front of him, motionless and silent.
Serpent, still in the form of the black scythe, stood beside him, the staff stuck in the ground and the blade above.
At this point, knowing the character, he should have said something like: "No, a lot of readers actually remember now."
But he didn't have the heart to say something like this right now.
He simply stood there, staring at the now dead Nightmare Creature, silent and motionless.
Meanwhile, some other words came back to him, this time spoken to him by the Elder who had instructed him with Thene in his First Nightmare.
---------------
"Sunless, who are we?" the Elder asked at him.
Sunny tilted his head, his eyebrows raised.
'And now what kind of stupid question is this?'
"Ummm! Are we not some kind of followers of death of sorts? Harbingers of Mercy and so on? Am I wrong?"
Sunny answered him with an uncertain smile.
The Elder shook his head, disappointed by his indolence.
"No, Sunless! We are yes, followers of death, of course! But HE is also the God of Peace.
We bring peace, Sunless. Not death."
The Elder explained him: "Death, unfortunately, is the only true weapon that the gods granted to us mortals against the corruption, Sunless. When a poor soul is afflicted by this plague, though the soul and spirit fail, the shadow remains.
Shadow and soul are one and the same, there is no difference.
By bringing death, we free the shadow and with it, the soul, whose corruption will then be washed away in the depths of the Shadow Realm. This is because death does not destroy corruption, it wash it away."
The elder paused for a moment before continuing.
He pointed his finger at Sunny, making his tone even more serious.
"Remember well, young shadow!"
"Because this, one day, will be your duty... and also your burden."
Sunny nodded, not so convinced by his blabbing. "Uh-uh!"
---------------
Now Sunny understands.
At that time, he treated those words with superficiality, but now... he really understands.
And if someone else like him had heard those screams, they too would have understood.
What corruption can do.
The agony felt by someone who has been corrupted.
The desire for it all to end as quickly as possible through the warm embrace of death.
Sunny sensed all of this and even more through the shadow of the Carapace scavenger.
"Find peace within me..."
He said, not with the same bravado he had when he killed the Champion of War in his first nightmare, but with respect.
"This is the mercy of Shadow."
"..."
And the silence returned.
For the first time, since his reincarnation, his cynicism wasn't there to help him get through a bad moment with an equally bad joke.
Something born in his previous life, when the childhood innocence clash against the hardships brought by the adolescence, and then it was sharpened by the years he spent in the Outskirts in this life.
A companion who with spite and crude jokes helped him move forward in life.
But now, it was not there to help him.
How it could? Since there was nothing to joke about here.
Just the thought scared him.
A plague that can only be washed away by death... is no fun at all.
...
Once the moment passed, Sunny took Serpent back and went to harvest the soul shard from the scavenger's body.
As he did so, he couldn't help but think.
"Troublesome." Sunny murmured to himself, "How should I behave now with this sword of Damocle hanging over my head?"
Sunny never went down the headless statue to kill the Carapace scavenger, all the way here, because he was forced to do so.
He didn't have that cursed [Shadow bond], instead, he had the [Lightless Crown].
***
Aspect: [Lightless Crown].
Aspect Rank: Divine.
Aspect Description: [You are a miraculous shadow left behind by a dead god. As a divine shadow, you possess plenty of strange and wondrous powers. However, your existence is empty and lonesome, bound by your Crown to be an apostle of death and his heir.]
Innate ability: [Lightless reigns].
Ability Description: [You hold a domain over shadows and death. You possess incredible authority over shadows and death. Since death is the end of all things, you bring death to all that touch your domain.]
***
By 'you bring death to all that touch your domain', it means that he is a natural conduit of death, and death is the only cure against the corruption.
Sunny holds no domain right now, he is just a sleeper. The shadows revere him, but he could not control them yet.
All except his.
When the Gloomy shadow touched that of the Nightmare creature, it reacted to his presence, seeking to find its peace in him from the corruption.
So, it doesn't activate with his shadow sense but only through his shadow, otherwise the Corrupted Devil of the last night could have triggered the same effect.
"And that, hell yes, that would have been a real mess for me, no doubt about it." He said in a low voice, then resumed his reasoning.
Venturing the Dream Realm without his perception would have surely made his journey much more complicated.
And this brings us to: 'bound by your Crown to be an apostle of death'.
That is to say: he is already bound! And if a shadow seeks death, as an apostle of death, he has to bring death.
It's not an order, his body moved on its own before he could think of doing otherwise.
He went there on his own free will without a second thought.
This is his duty... and also his burden.
The crown's burden.
Another thing is [the Death], now that Sunny has almost experienced what it feels like to be corrupted, he knows how this worked.
Death does not destroy corruption, it wash it away.
When he glanced at the chaotic weaves of the Carapace scavenger, in the second after he looked away, the image of these has been completely removed from his mind, like it vanished into thin air.
But this proved that his immunity to corruption was not absolute. What if one day his lineage was not strong enough to wash away the seed of corruption brought to him by a higher power?
Only the future will tell us.
"Here it is."
As he thought about it, Sunny finally pulled out the soul shard.
All happy with his little gain.
Quikly, he summoned the [Traveler's backpack] and put the shard inside the Memory. He then entered into his Soul Sea, leaving Serpent out to protect him for a moment.
The vast, quiet black sea below him and the lonely lightless sun above welcomed him with their usual silence, and so did the eerie shades in the distance.
Sunny resummoned the [Traveler's backpack] there and took from it the soul shard, throwing it in the black ground of his Soul Sea.
It worked.
The shard remained there, on the surface of the black water, motionless and undisturbed.
It was surprising to find out that he could do such a thing; after all, that was what the storage Memory was for. Which is why he didn't bother finding one more large. In the endless surface of his Soul Sea, Sunny could bring a lot of stuff inside here but he still doesn't know the maximum extent, or if there is one to begin with. He had already done some experiments at the Academy back then with the Memory.
It was like having a little world inside him. A dark and eldrich world, only populated by the dead. But still a world.
Perhaps this was the true use of a Soul Sea.
Who knows?
Sunny emerged from his Soul sea, not even a moment had passed out there.
he turned to Serpent, seeing him in a battle pose, staring at his back.
Sunny tilted his head, not understanding. He turned.
When he realized why, his eyes widened.
The ground was trembling.
A bunch of grab-like Nightmare Creatures were heading right toward him.
This time they were Carapace centurion.
A lot of them.
And they just spotted him.
"FUCK!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
...
...
Step.
"Ah!"
...
...
Step.
"Aah!"
...
...
Another step.
"AAAh!"
'Why? Why does being me means only suffering and pain?'
After surviving the brawl with the Chernobyl cousins of Mr Krab, Sunny made his way back to the headless statue.
As he climbed back, he couldn't help but curse out aloud.
Every step he took forward hurt like hell. His arm was injured once again, but this time they took also his right leg. Serpent had to heal him all over again in his tattoo form through [Shadow guide].
If the Priestess hadn't helped him with a couple of arrows from the statue, most likely, they would have even torn it apart, and not just the leg.
'Shit! I should put some ice on it, if only there was any in this damned hellhole.' He thought as he looked at his bruised arm.
"No, wait!"
Sunny stopped halfway up the climb, thinking about it for a moment.
He blinked. "In my previous life I studied medicine, do you remember?" He asked at his shadow that was an invaluable helper but not an invaluable listener.
The shadow shrugged.
As if Gloomy had said yes to him, Sunny continued: "Why didn't I think to bring first aid supplies? Why haven't I thought about making better use of my knowledge in general?"
...
No answer.
Sunny's eye twitched. Out of anger, he was about to slam his head against the wall that he was climbing, but decided to restrain himself from doing so at the last moment, not wanting to injure himself any further.
He was really pissed off now, because he already knew who the real culprit behind all this was.
"Superficiality." He muttered.
"MY DAMNED SUPERFICIALITY!"
This isn't the first time it has done this to him.
Once again he has been superficial and took what he had for granted, without thinking it through further.
Sunny was so pissed off that he couldn't even form a coherent sentence without cursing.
"Of course! OF COURSE! Because I... Me... you... ...huff!!!" To avoid thinking about it too much, Sunny decided to grit his teeth and start climbing again.
Cassie will definitely be waiting for him.
Let's just hope she's not too worried about him.