After killing the Carapace Centurion, the Sleeper quartet extracted the soul shards and extra ration meat from the Carapace Scavenger corpses before huddling under a bony shell made from William's [Osseous Exoarmor].
The teenagers were simply thankful not to be wet and miserable under the pouring rain anymore.
They decided to let Sunny's shadow stand guard for the night since all of them needed some rest. Even William, who was incapable of being physically tired, wanted to allow his brain to rest up a bit.
Luckily, nothing of note happened that night, and the storm had actually stopped sometime later.
When the morning came, none in the group was in any hurry to return back into the Labyrinth below; although, they did change their campsite to the other side of the cliff in case the nightmare creature corpses attracted any more predators.
Then, lo and behold, shortly after they moved away from the battle site, a dark spot appeared in the skies that attracted the attention of William, Nephis, and Sunless.
Soon, the spot got larger as it descended onto the cliff. The creature landed next to the Carapace Centurion in a whirlwind of dust and feathers.
It was like nothing Lost from Light or the Changing Star had ever seen in their lives. Even the Malevolent Star, who had only read about the creature, felt a feeling of dread when he witnessed such an abomination.
The new creature was massive, easily being twice as large as the three meter tall Carapace Centurion. Its body was a corpsely shade of white and was muscular akin to a fur-less lion. Two mighty paws supported its body at the back while six other paws emerged from its chest at the front. Each of these paws ended in long, sharp talons. The creature's head and wings were covered in black feathers - akin to a raven. Moreover, the head had two large avian eyes and a horrifying black beak.
(Image)
The Sleepers cautiously snooped at it from behind a boulder as the chimeric monstrosity was dining on the corpse of the Carapace Centurion. Using its talons, it broke apart the hard chitin of the awakened monster like wet tissue paper before feasting on the soft insides with its beak.
Then, when it had eaten its fill; using its multiple frontal paws, the winged monster grabbed several scavenger corpses and took off into the air - each beat of its wings causing miniature hurricanes in its wake.
It was moving west - to the apprehension of the Sleeper quartet.
"What do you guys think that thing was?" inquired Sunny, letting out a breath he had been holding unconsciously.
"I have no idea," muttered the silver-haired girl as she gazed at the direction the monster had gone.
'Fallen monster, Cursed Herald A.K.A Spire Messenger,' William reiterated in his mind grimly after watching the monster fly off.
"Your guess is as good as mine, Sunny," William shrugged.
Sunny nodded towards his companions and went to do his business. After all, weird monster or no, he still had his two thousand sword strikes to do.
William managed to get a campfire going, and the group had a delicious, sumptuous meal consisting of Carapace Centurion meat. Once stuffed, the Sleepers lay on their backs and decided to rest for the remainder of the day.
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(Cassia's POV)
Only a few months ago, the worst of Cassie's fears was getting bad grades on an exam and getting scolded by her parents; yet, now she felt like she held the weight of the whole world on her dainty shoulders.
She may have lost her sight of the present, but she could now see into the past and future. Yet, this knowledge brought its own sets of problems with it since she didn't know what to do with everything that her ability was showing her.
Should she speak of what she sees in an effort to avert or strive towards certain futures? Or is it the fact that she tells people about what happens in the future that causes the future event to happen in the first place?
Often, these questions would cause her to lose herself in her thoughts. As a result, most of the time, she would remain silent for long periods of time. Yet, just the night before, she saw something that gave her pause.
She saw a vision in which a figure made of blinding light and another cloaked in dark shadows fought against each other viciously. The angelic figure of light received several wounds that oozed the same shadows as her opponent; on the other hand, the shadowy figure's body had a multitude of brilliant wounds all over it.
The battle continued for what seemed to be eternity as the two entities continued to injure each other. It looked like some sort of duel-to-the-death kind of scenario.
However, just like anything in the world, everything has an end.
The battle concluded with the shadowy figure resting a dark blade against the throat of the angelic being. It tried to resist, but a simple push plunged the sword right into the incandescent throat of the angelic being.
Then, the vision ended.
From what she knew, there was a high chance that the angelic and shadowy beings were her companions: Nephis and Sunless, respectively.
It wierded her out that she saw a vision of these two trying to kill each other; as far as she had heard, there were not any major grievances between the two Sleepers.
Yet, she didn't know whether their relationship would be soured in the future one way or another.
Now, it fell onto her to decide what to do about the information. She could just reveal it to the whole group and hope for the best, or she could try to prevent that future from happening on her own.
There was also an additional option: she could just do nothing and just 'see' what would happen. Truth be told, as nice as it has been knowing Nephis and Sunless, they didn't hold that much of an important place in her heart. They were travel companions who had been brought together by their circumstances. They didn't try to help her at the academy when she was at her lowest; so, it was natural of her not to be too caught up in any future altercation of theirs.
Sure, she was unfair towards them, but it didn't change the fact that they were just acquaintances to her at best.
Yet, it just didn't feel right to ignore the vision outright. Something kept telling her in her mind to do something about it.
Facing this conundrum, she turned to the only person in the group who she considered as irreplaceable to her: William.
Using her hearing, Cassie listened to the breathing sounds coming from the people at the campsite.
As a result of her becoming blind, she had trained herself to recognize people based on their breathing rhythm or the way they walked; by now, she had become pretty proficient with her hearing.
Soon, she found the breathing rhythm she had associated with her white-haired companion as she went towards him.
His breathing was calm and slow, indicating that he was resting.
Approaching the tall male, Cassie asked in her soft, gentle voice, "William, can I ask you something?"
A moment of silence followed before he replied with a yawn, "Sure thing, Cass, fire away."
"Thank you. Uhm..... what do you do when you have to choose between several options but none of them seem favorable to you."
She didn't hear an answer immediately, but she felt a slight change in William's breathing.
'Curious,' she thought.
"Hmmm, what made you ask such a question?"
"I-It just happened to pass through my head," she stammered as she tried to find an excuse, "you know I have nothing better to do when all I do all day is just sitting around and being carried by the scavenger echo."
"There, there, I'm sure things are going to get better for you soon enough," he said gently as he patted her head. If she were being honest, it felt kind of weird at first to have a boy touch her head, but after a while, she found it calming and even enjoyable at times.
"Anyways," he continued as he retracted his hand, "in regards to your question, my mother always used to tell me that if I was ever put in such situations then I had to choose the option that I would regret the least."
'Regret the least, huh? Maybe I should get to know them better before deciding on anything,' Cassie pondered.
"On that note, I have a student to bea- I mean teach. See you later, Cass," William stated as he rose up to his feet and moved towards the direction where she heard Sunny swinging his sword.
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(Nephis POV)
She sat cross-legged in a meditative position with her hands resting on her knees.
Yet, she wasn't feeling relaxed or enlightened in any way; rather, her flawless face was scrunched into a deep grimace, and droplets of sweat were trickling down her forehead and back.
Nephis's teeth clenched hard as she suppressed painful grunts escapes from her mouth unwillingly.
Her hands were gripping her knees so hard that they were beginning to hurt. However, that was considered insignificant when compared to the pain that she was feeling currently all over her body.
Pure-white flames danced in her closed eyes as she felt waves of scorching energy course through her veins, burning them without causing any sort of damage. Nephis felt like a scalding torrent of flames was searing through her body and skin. With each passing second, otherwordly heat radiated from her soul itself, threatening to consume her whole.
Yet, even with all this pain, she felt a surge of power coursing through her as she continued using her flames.
That was her ability: flames that both empowered and tormented her in equal measure.
With a shaky sigh, Nephis stopped channeling her ability and opened her eyes.
"Are you done?"
If it wasn't for the cold and distant persona that she had grown accustomed to using, the silver-haired girl would've jumped out of her skin in fright.
"When did you come here, Cassie?" she asked the blond haired girl who was sitting near her.
"I've been here for a while now," she answered, "you were so focused on what you were doing that you didn't notice me. What were you doing - if you don't mind me asking?"
The heiress of the Immortal Flame Clan was having a feeling of déjà vu from Cassie's question. Didn't she ask William the same thing a few nights ago?
"Meditating," she replied curtly before trying to divert the conversation. "Do you need something?"
"Is that so..."
The blind oracle replied in a subtle tone but thankfully decided to drop it with the questions, "Alright. Also, yes, I just wanted to talk."
"Talk? Why?" Nephis couldn't hide the confusion in her voice upon hearing the strange request.
"I mean," the other girl started as she played with her blond locks, "we're both girls and I thought that since we will have to more journeying ahead of us that we could get to know each other better. You know, as friends, maybe?"
To say Nephis was surprised would be an understatement. She had always been curious about the 'girl talk' mentioned in TV shows and Webtoons that happened between friends.
However, due to being the heiress of a fallen Legacy Clan, she never got the opportunity to do so in fear that any person who she gets close with might be an assassin or be used against her by assassins.
Looking at the delicate girl before her who was nervously fiddling with her golden locks, a subtle smile appeared on Nephis's face, "I'd like that Cassie."
The girl seemed to brighten up considerably, "That's great! Then..."
And so began the talk between her and Cassie. Well, it was Cassie who was doing most of the talking with herself, chiming in whenever she was comfortable.
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(Sunny's POV)
The Sunny gazed at the grey skies of the Forgotten Shore as he lay down on his back panting. His hair stuck to his sweaty forehead while his pale face was flushed with exertion.
He was beginning to regret asking William to train him instead of the Changing Star. His methods of teaching were certainly rough, but he would be lying if he said that it wasn't effective.
The effect had been imperceptible at first, but after having a few 'spars' with the taller boy, his reaction speed and footwork had improved steadily. Also, he had this nagging feeling somewhere deep within him that he was on the brink of discovering something very essential. He just didn't know what it was.
"Out of juice already?" The amused voice of his combat teacher reached his ears, causing him to sit up. His body groaned and protested against any further movement. He had sent his shadow to scout out a path for them through the labyrinth, so he had to fight with only his base physical strength.
When he looked at William, he didn't see even the smallest sign of exertion on the grinning bastard's face even though they had been sparring for the past two hours or so.
"Yes," he stated while trying to suppress a groan. Then, he raised his middle finger of his free hand at the white-haired Sleeper, "Fuck you, by the way."
William shook his head with a chuckle before sitting down next to Sunny.
The two boys sat there in comfortable silence as the winds gently caressed against their faces.
Sunny looked at the [Azure Blade] in his hand as his mind churned with thoughts, "Do you think the sword is the right weapon for me to use? Should I change weapons in the future."
He heard William hum, seemingly in thought, before replying with a shrug, "Well, it really depends on you personally."
An azure-colored sword manifested in William's hand, "The sword is considered the king of weapons due to its versatility in combat. It can essentially be used to pierce, cut, or even bash an opponent in you use the pommel or the crossguard ends. Of course, it is not the be-all end-all weapon."
The sword vanished into sprites of light before they were woven back to form an azure-colored spear.
"A spear has the advantage of having a long reach to keep enemies out of your personal space."
The spear changed into an azure colored warhammer.
(Image)
"A war hammer is a better option than a sword when facing armored opponents."
Then, the warhammer got dismissed and replaced by a slender azure rapier.
(Image)
"The rapier is essentially is the more slender and lighter cousin of the sword that is particularly potent in its thrust attacks although it can also be used to cut if required."
With that, the rapier also vanished into a shower of light sprites.
"However, all of this is based on if the weapon we use are mundane weapons and that we ourselves are mundane humans. Thus, it doesn't matter what weapon you use or what fighting style you employ since they are all tools to be used by you. At the end of the day, the true weapon at your disposal is yourself. You are the weapon."
"I see," Sunny said deep in thought. 'I am the weapon.'
After a while of deep thought, he decided to question the figurative elephant in the room - whatever an elephant was.
"How come you have so many weapon memories? I didn't even know there was a whole set of azure-series weapon memories."
William shrugged with his usual amused expression, "What can I say? I have good luck when it comes to memories it seems. What? Jealous?"
"You bet I am! I also fought my fair share of nightmare creatures yet I only got a weapon and an echo out of it!" Sunny complained at the unfairness of the whole situation.
"Calm down Sunny, it's not my fault that your luck is dog shit," William tried to placate the irrate pale boy but it only seemed to make him even more infuriated.
Thus, the two boys got into a scuffle that soon turned into another series of intense spars.
###################################
When it started getting dark and the Dark Sea began reconquering its territory, many scavengers had tried to climb up to the cliff in order to save themselves from the disastrous flood.
Thankfully, fighting off scavengers that were trying to gut up to the cliff proved to be a much easier venture than fighting them on land allowing William to have three easy kills that translated into six more soul fragments. (D20 = 4, 6, 4)
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Soul Fragments: 184/1000
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Speaking of dead scavengers, since their run-in with the surprise storm, William had lost his mental connection with his Corpse Scavengers completely.
Something that he had discovered about his [Raise Undead] ability over the past few day was that whenever one of his minions got severely injured, it would heal by using essence siphoned from himself which led to awkward moments of essence depletion during their journeys.
Also, his undead couldn't move past a certain distance from himself lest they return back to being corpses again. Moreover, this range seemed to increase in response to the increase in the number of soul fragments in his possession.
When the darkness finally settled, the quartet sat down to eat their dinner. The white-haired youth observed that Cassie and Nephis had grown a bit more friendly with each other. Also, even Sunny seemed to be less on-edge when talking with him.
All in all, the group seemed to be becoming more accustomed and friendly with each other.
With dinner finished, they extinguished the campfire and sat in the darkness while exchanging small talk before going to sleep.
William as usual had stayed guard during the night and had managed to engrave the second half of the [Ray of Enfeeblement] spell circle into his mental tower just in time to Arthas to warn him that Nephis was waking up.
When the morning sun rose and caused the Dark Sea to retreat, the group had resumed their journey after Sunny's shadow had fully scouted the way to the next suitable high rise.
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(Sunless's POV)
Sunny sat on top of a dead Carapace Scavenger while whiping off its azure blood from his face. The runes of the spell were floating before him.
[You shadow grows stronger.]
There was the sound of cracking carapaces indicated that Nephis was already extracting the soul shards of the slain nightmare creatures.
Meanwhile, he was gazing at the sight of the latest carnage that they had been a part of.
It has been a 2 weeks since the storm had surprised them and due to that, they had taken a more thorough approach when traversing the Coral Labyrinth. Their method of dealing with threats had not changed much other than that they were now actively hunting for small groups of monsters to slay in order to get stronger.
Honestly, with three clearly abnormal Sleepers and an echo, their little assault group was strong enough to fight against most threats in hidden in the red coral walls.
The path between two crimson walls was littered with countless corpses of nightmare creatures.
At first, they wanted to lure the Carapace Centurion - as named by his combat instructor - that had been pursuing them for the last few days to the narrow path to use its considerable size against it, but as always, things took a turn to the worse rather quickly.
Attracted by the sound of the fight, a group of Carapace Scavengers and weird centipede like nightmare creatures who had been fighting against the Carapace Legion came to join the fight.
Not that far from him, he saw William breaking through the carapace of the centurion to extract its soul shard. His body was covered head to toe in azure and brown blood from the nightmare creatures and his armor had small cracks all over it.
Sunny and Nephis had thought to use the two nightmare tribe's animosity against each other to make them fight but as soon as they came to the clearing, they had immediately charged at William.
It was as if something was attracting the nightmare creatures to the white-haired Sleeper since from the start of the battle royale to the end, he had been in the thick of the fight and had personally killed the most out of all of them.
Yet, he didn't look even winded at the end. Sunny didn't know if he should be jealous or not.
In addition to a change in their hunting strategies, the members of the group also changed as a whole.
For starters, Nephis had changed the armor she wore from the tunic to a full body pristine white armor that she had acquired from somewhere and with the armor came a change in her combat abilites.
Due to the many soul shards that they acquired by hunting nightmare creatures, the silver-haired Sleeper was becoming more and more powerful. She was slowly but surely reaching the peak of human physical ability and the threshold of superhuman prowess.
Sunny too had been improving beyond his wildest expectation. He had spent many hours training and sparing with William and then consolidated his training by the sweat and blood he shed while fighting against the monsters of the labyrinth.
However, it all paled in comparison to the sudden... moment of clarity - let's say - that he experience in one particular life-or-death moment that he had when one of their ambushes went horribly wrong.
It was at that moment when he was on the brink of death that he felt his mind become clearer than ever before; so much so that he even perceived the world in a different light. It was also due to this moment of clarity that he was able to save himself from dying.
Thankfully, the Changing Star's healing ability made it so that no lasting injury remained on his body.
As a result of acquiring this clarity, his combat abilities had increased by leaps and bounds allowing him to turn the knowledge he gained from battles into seeds of understanding to further his mastery over the sword.
Next, was their resident blind oracle. Honestly speaking, Sunny didn't observe much change in the delicate girl since she was mostly kept out of combat but he noticed that she was getting stronger - most likely from absorbing soul shards given to her by William. This strength had allowed her to be able to adapt to living with her disability. If nothing, he thought that she was doing an incredible job to adapt to her debilitating flaw.
Finally, last but not least, was his own combat instructor: William. Truth be told, Sunny didn't know what to make of the guy.
He was generally an easy going guy to be around and had naturally become the leader of their group without any of them noticing. Not like anyone had any reservations against it and it was not that he was doing a bad job at it per se. In fact, thanks to him, they had grown from being strangers to each other to having some sort of weird friendship going on.
Hell, he even managed to make Nephis say more than three words in a normal conversation.
Also, whenever there was a battle he was always on the frontline wielding his sinister sword as he stabbed and severed nightmare creatures left and right.
He had always contributed to the bulk of their day's soul shard acquisition and had even shared it with Nephis and Cassie in many instances.
He had tried to also share some of the shards with Sunny but he had refused on grounds that he was already giving him his soul shards for teaching him.
At times, Sunny wondered if William had a divine ranked aspect like him but he soon threw these stupid notions out of the window. Divine ranked aspects were already rarer than finding a needle in hay stack. What were the chances of two such people being in the same group?
Anyways, thanks to his monstrous fighting ability, they were able to fight through most encounters with minimal injuries due to him always being in the thick of the fight.
With all that added, their group had turned from a quartet of lost kids in the Forgotten Shore into a cohort of well-equiped, experienced and battle-hardened survivors.
Somehow, their goal to reach the mysterious human citadel didn't seem that impossible anymore.
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Sorry for the delay. I'll try to post the next chapter shortly after.
I wish you a happy reading time and a great day!