The moment they slipped through the jagged breach in the ruined bow, the deafening roaring of the wind was abruptly cut off. It was replaced by a heavy vibe that felt worse than the noise outside.
Sunny landed softly on the rotting floorboards of the lower deck, his boots crushing something soft and wet. He looked down. The black moss that covered the exterior of the island was entirely gone, replaced by a thick, spongy carpet of reddish moss. It clung to the walls, crept over the ceiling beams, and pulsed slightly under his weight. Thick, muscular green vines wove through the red moss like veins, throbbing with an unnatural, sickly vitality.
The air inside the hull was stagnant and incredibly thick. It smelled like rain mixed with a cloying, sickly-sweet odor that instantly made Sunny's throat burn.
"Don't breathe deeply," Sunny warned, his voice muffled. He quickly pulled a thick strip of dark cloth from his pack and tied it securely over his nose and mouth. "The air is foul. I bet this entire place is flooded with spores from that dead tree outside."
Cielle stepped through the breach behind him, her white wings folding tightly against her back to avoid brushing against the narrow, vine-choked entrance. She did not have a cloth to tie around her face, so she simply pulled the high collar of her cloak up over her nose. Her green eyes scanned the oppressive, dimly lit corridor.
"It smells like a corpse," she noted flatly.
"A very old, very angry corpse," Sunny agreed.
Sunny slowly started his advancement, using his new memory almost like a makeshift cane, tapping the uneven, tilted floorboards ahead of them to test for traps or loose boards before he committed his weight.
With every breath he took, even through the cloth, Sunny could feel a sharp, burning sensation crawling down his throat and into his lungs. The sickly-sweet air was incredibly toxic. But almost immediately, a familiar, comforting heat flared deep within his chest. Blood Weave activated without him needing to command it. It had already began to ruthlessly break down the toxic spores before they could do any real damage to his system.
He was essentially immune to the ambient poison. Hail weaver!
Cielle, however, was not.
They moved deeper into the skewed corridor of the ancient ship. The floor was slanted at a harsh angle, forcing them to walk awkwardly along the intersection of the deck and the wall. The reddish moss squelched beneath their boots, occasionally releasing small, barely visible puffs of crimson dust into the stagnant air.
***
Cielle kept her eyes locked on the dark fabric of Sunny's back, following the exact path of his footsteps.
The air inside the ship was terrible. She was half sure that her flaw had made the sickly-sweet smell of the spores much more affective, addicting even, as it felt like a physical weight pressing down on her tongue. A kiss so sweet she could almost collapse. The taste was coating the back of her throat like syrup.
She took a shallow breath through the collar of her cloak, but it wasn't enough. The air felt thick, almost liquid.
A sudden wave of vertigo washed over her. The slanted walls of the corridor seemed to tilt further, the shadows stretching and bending at unnatural angles. The rhythmic squelching of the red moss beneath her boots sounded impossibly loud, echoing in her skull like a steady drumbeat.
She blinked hard, trying to clear the sudden glass over her vision. The green vines running along the walls seemed to pulse faster, their muscular fibers twitching in the dim light. She tightened her grip on her spear, her knuckles turning white, but the weapon felt strangely heavy in her hands.
She took another step, and her boot caught the edge of a raised floorboard. Her knee buckled slightly, her balance completely failing her for a fraction of a second.
***
Sunny heard the slight scuff of her boot and the sharp intake of breath. He spun around instantly to find Cielle was swaying slightly on her feet. Her eyes were unfocused, staring blankly at the floorboards. Her wings were drooping, the tips dragging lightly against the toxic red moss.
Sunny cursed under his breath. He closed the short distance between them in a single stride and reached out, his hand wrapping firmly around her elbow to physically steady her.
"Hey," Sunny said sharply, giving her arm a slight shake. "Look at me."
Cielle blinked slowly, her head tilting up. "The floor is moving," she mumbled, her voice lacking its usual crisp cadence.
"Damnation" Sunny felt his jaw clenching tightly behind his mask. "It's the spores. They are getting into your bloodstream. My blood is burning them out, but you don't have that protection. You need to take shallower breaths."
"I am taking shallow breaths," she replied, her brow furrowing in confusion. "But the air is very heavy. It tastes like rotting honey."
Sunny gritted his teeth, this was a helpless outcome. Not everyone had the blood of some daemon running through them afterall…. Before he could suggest turning back, the entire corridor around them suddenly shifted.
The floor had not collapsed, unexpectedly. Instead, it felt like a massive change in air pressure as a warm, humid gust of wind suddenly rushed down the narrow hallway from deeper within the ship.
The sudden rush of air rippled over the thick carpet of reddish moss, causing the entire floor to rise and fall in a sickening motion. The muscular green vines running along the walls and ceiling flexed and tightened, shifting against the ancient wood like the tendons of a massive, living beast.
Sunny froze, holding his breath as the warm, sweet-smelling wind washed over them. It carried the distinct scent of blood and crushing decay.
"This is not a ship," Cielle muttered, leaning slightly against his arm for support. "It is a carcass. The wood is dead, but the vines are alive. They are using the ship like a shell. We are walking inside a parasite."
Sunny remembered the massive, dead tree coiled around the exterior of the hull, and the way its roots had pierced directly into the wood. He thought about the sudden appearance of the Sailor Dolls outside, bound together by the exact same green vines that currently pulsed along the walls around them.
"I think you are entirely right," Sunny agreed quietly, not letting go of her arm. "The ship is just a skeleton. The tree and the moss are the real monsters here."
He slowly let go of her elbow, watching her carefully to ensure she had her balance back. She gave a small nod, her grip tightening on her spear once more.
"Can you keep going?" he asked.
"I am functional," she stated, though she still sounded slightly breathless.
"Good. I need you to cover me" Sunny paused for a bit before grinning
"To be honest, im kinda scared right now you know, hehe. Hey i just heard it from some place but they say a kiss can drive away fear… " He would later scream internally for decades to come, playing this scene over and over again and cursing the world for existing. Sunny would then join the cult worshiping some bum called Dawn, even becoming that girl's nepo baby and acting like a sugar mommy. Anyways coming black to the damn bumm ahh cringy shadow.
Cielle blinked, caught a little off guard by the sudden confession, she processed his words again, and them again before she silently and gently placed a small kiss on his head and titled her head as if waiting for a confirmation. "The need for concern is… not needed?"
The nape of sunny turned crimson as he coughed and nodded. "Cough… anyways lets keep moving" Cielle looked a little more confused after that.
They continued their slow, now agonizing advance down the skewed corridor. The light filtering in from the breaches grew dimmer the deeper they went, forcing Sunny to rely more on his shadow sense to navigate the uneven footing. The air grew steadily thicker, the sickly-sweet smell clinging to their clothes and skin.
They skirted around a massive, collapsed section of the ceiling that had essentially turned a portion of the floor into a steep, vine-choked wall. As they carefully navigated the narrow path around the debris, a thin slant of pale light from a crack in the hull illuminated something resting against the red moss.
Sunny stopped immediately, his eyes locking onto the small, gleaming object.
It was a coin.
It sat perfectly alone on a relatively clear patch of wood, its golden surface untarnished by the surrounding rot and decay. The faint light caught the intricate engravings on its surface, highlighting the image of the colossal tree in full bloom.
Cielle stepped up beside him, her breathing shallow but steady. She looked down at the coin, then slowly knelt on the slanted floorboards, careful not to let her wings touch the toxic moss.
She leaned close, inspecting the gleaming gold without touching it.
"It matches," Cielle confirmed softly, looking up at him. " It is exactly identical to the ones I have been collecting. The tree is the same."
Sunny felt that familiar spike of adrenaline flare in his chest again. The treasure was real. The keys were literally lying on the floor, waiting to be picked up. He reached down, his gloved fingers plucking the cold, heavy coin from the wood. It felt perfectly solid, thrumming with a fain sensation. He slipped it securely into his pocket.
But the initial rush of triumph faded almost instantly, replaced by yet another layer of paranoia.
He looked down the dark, vine-choked corridor ahead of them.
"This is wrong," Sunny murmured, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"It is a coin," Cielle said, standing back up, though she swayed slightly as she did.
"Exactly," Sunny replied, his grip tightening on Cruel Sight. "It is a perfectly clean coin sitting right in the middle of our path in a completely ruined, parasite-infested shipwreck. It wasn't buried under the moss. It wasn't hidden in a chest. It was just sitting there, completely exposed."
They both shared the exact same, wary thought in the dim light.
It was entirely too convenient.
It looked exactly like a piece of bait leading a starving animal right into a trap.
"We should keep moving," Sunny decided, his voice hardening. "But we do not trust anything we see. Watch the walls, watch the ceiling, and try not to breathe."
They pressed deeper into the darkness of the hull, following the skewed, claustrophobic corridor as it wound its way toward the center of the ship. The silence was absolute, broken only by the squelch of their boots and the occasional, horrifying "exhalation" of warm wind that made the entire ship pulse around them.
Just a little further down the hall, they found a second coin lying near a shattered doorway.
After that, they found a third.
It was a blatant trail, leading them directly into the deepest, darkest bowels of the wreck. Sunny picked them up with a growing sense of dread, his greed constantly warring with his survival instincts. Every step they took felt heavier than the last.
The deeper they went, the more toxic the air became. The red moss grew thicker, turning the walls into spongy, pulsing flesh, and the sickly-sweet smell of the spores became almost unbearable.
Cielle was struggling. Her steps were becoming increasingly uncertain, her boots dragging heavily against the floorboards. The pale flush of her skin had taken on an unhealthy, grayish tint in the dim light. She was fighting a losing battle against the accumulating poison in her lungs, her body completely overwhelmed by the constant sensory assault of the toxic environment.
Sunny stopped abruptly as Cielle stumbled hard against the slanted wall, her spear clattering loudly against the ancient wood. She leaned heavily against the pulsing green vines, her eyes squeezed shut as she gasped for air, coughing weakly into the collar of her cloak.
"That's it, we have to turn back," Sunny said immediately, dropping Cruel Sight to grab her shoulders. "You can't breathe. The spores are too thick down here."
Cielle shook her head weakly, her hands gripping his forearms to keep herself upright. "I am fine... it is just the air..."
"Dont be stubborn this time" Sunny snapped, his voice sharp with worry. "My blood can handle it, yours can't. We are leaving."
Before Sunny could pull her away, Cielle squeezed her eyes shut tighter, a deep furrow forming between her brows.
Suddenly, a brilliant, blinding flash of light erupted from her body.
Sunny threw his arm up to shield his eyes, stumbling back a step. The light was incredibly intense, completely banishing the oppressive darkness of the corridor in an instant. It was not a violent explosion, but a sudden, overwhelming expansion of her essence.
The heavy, suffocating air around them visibly rippled.
A perfectly spherical dome materialized around Cielle, extending outward to encompass Sunny as well. The moment the light washed over him, the cloying, sickly-sweet smell of the spores vanished completely. The burning sensation in his throat instantly disappeared.
He took a cautious breath. The air inside the dome was incredibly pure, crisp, and clean. It felt like standing on a high mountain peak at dawn, entirely devoid of any corruption, rot, or poison.
The Seraphic Domain?
Sunny lowered his arm, staring in absolute shock. The domain pushed against the red moss and the green vines, forcing the toxic air completely out of its radius. Cielle stood in the center of the clean light, her breathing instantly steadying as she pulled the pure air into her lungs. The grayish tint faded from her skin, replaced by a healthy, vibrant flush. She opened her green eyes, looking around the illuminated corridor with a hint of surprise.
"What did you just do?" Sunny asked, his voice echoing loudly in the sudden, clean silence of the dome.
Cielle looked down at her hands, then at the glowing boundary of the domain holding back the poisonous air.
"I cleared the air?" she stated, sounding just as confused as he was.
"I can see that," Sunny said, gesturing wildly at the now glowing sphere. "I thought your domain only manipulated space and gravity! When did it start purifying toxic spores from the air?"
Cielle blinked slowly, her wings shifting slightly behind her. "I did not know it could do that," she admitted flatly. "I just wanted to breathe. So I pushed the bad air away."
Sunny stared at her, completely dumbfounded by the unhinged logic. 'She just wanted to breathe. So she accidentally discovered a completely new, life-saving application of her Aspect purely by being annoyed at the poison? Plot armor! Thats plot armor when is see it… ref.. Do you damn job man'
He let out a long, exhausted sigh, shaking his head. "Right. Of course. Why wouldn't you?"
Cielle picked up her spear from the floorboards, her demeanor instantly returning to its usual grace now that she could actually breathe. She looked down the illuminated corridor, where the trail of scattered coins continued into the darkness beyond the edge of her glowing domain.
"We do not have to turn back now," she pointed out logically.
Sunny looked at the path ahead, the gold coins gleaming softly in the reflection of her light. The air in his lungs was clean, but the knot of paranoia in his stomach remained tightly coiled.
"No," Sunny agreed grimly, picking Cruel Sight back up. "We don't. But whatever is dropping these coins knows we are coming. Stay close. Do not drop that domain for a single second."
Cielle would have scoffed a little due to the stupidness of that command.
"No shit sherelock" Sunny grimaced after hearing that
"Too much internet cielle.. What next? 6, 8-1?"