Immediately after hearing the Spell voice, Wren found himself drowning in darkness. He was drowning in the sea made up from darkness, the Dark Sea.
'Strange, wasn't I supposed to be in-'
Wren immediately opened his eyes, and found himself drowning in a sea that was darker than it should be, he started to move himself up using the remaining air he had present in his lungs but he was too late and started to drown once again. Interestingly his body started to move upwards, as if some invisible force was moving him up.
'What the hell is going on?'
Before he could understand what was happening, he was already on the uneven surface made up of stone platform of around twelve meters in diameter. The surface was mostly flat, covered with grooves, and somewhat dry. Due to the regular shape of its edges, it seemed more like something man-made than a natural formation. But then again, here in the Dream Realm, it was hard to be sure that something "man-made" was actually made by humans, as opposed to...
'Let's not think about it, I am completely naked right now.'
Wren thought while shivering in cold. He summoned a memory to protect him from the cold, Wren watched as dark garments covered his body, following it were the grey metallic shoulder & arm guards with soft leather soled boots and finally a rugged black cloak with purple lines appeared on it. The Plotter's Cloak was covering him protecting him and most importantly it was keeping him warm, it was one of the few memories he had received from the Valor Clan, many were made by the blacksmiths while some were acquired by killing Nightmare creatures, Plotter's Cloak was one of them.
'Now what should we do?'
Wren extended his senses through the darkness, trying to find something useful and he did find three things, one a human being swimming to get away from a fish like Nightmare creature which was running away from another Nightmare creature, Wren didn't knew what it was all he saw was long dark tentacle as his senses had a limit.
'This is going to be a bit painful.'
Wren sighed and commanded the darkness to augment the human being, Sunny who was swimming for his life while augmented by his shadow suddenly felt his speed increase. He reached the black mass, stretched out his hands, and pulled himself out the water. He rolled away from the edge, scratching his skin on the uneven rocks, and jumped in fright when the whole surface underneath him shuddered after a minute, as though something massive had collided with it.
Sunny backed out, terrifying jaws appeared from the water, with rows and rows of giant teeth, each one as long as he was tall. He opened his eyes wide, understanding that the rock he had climbed on was not tall enough to save him from the monster. Suddenly a hand grabbed his bare shoulder and dragged him to the center, Sunny instinctually tried to escape the grip, but was stopped by a voice:
"Idiot, it's me Wren and please wear something."
'Ah I must have gone mad wait, wear something?'
Sunny then felt the cold on his bare skin, finally noticing that he was naked. On his defense, his life was more important than clothing himself. Embarrassed he summoned the Puppeteer's Shroud. But before the dark-grey garments could cover him completely, a colossal tentacle suddenly broke through the water and rose into the air like some strange, black tower. Before too long, it fell down, entangling the owner of the giant maw and pulling it back under the water.
Sunny lost the feeling in his legs and plopped on the ground, his mouth opened. His whole body was shaking. His whole body was covered but he still felt the chill in his bones.
A few seconds later, the dark sea was calm again, as though nothing had happened. The indifferent waves continued to move silently under the lightless sky.
"It wasn't trying to eat you rather it was trying to run away. You should be thankful of me that I helped you in the right time."
Wren appeared beside him, covered by a ragged cloak with purple lines, staring at the sea. Wren turned his towards him and smiled.
"Well quite a coincidence to find you here."
Sunny awkwardly returned the smile with his own, and asked Wren:
"You have any idea where we are in the Dream Realm, because I don't think any of the features of this place matches with the discovered regions."
Wren lingered for a moment, and then replied:
"No even I don't have any idea, where we are. I have spend most of the time in Dream Realm with my teacher for training, but there were no records for such place."
"Your teacher?" Sunny asked.
"She is a Saint." Wren replied.
Both of them were now silent, staring at the starless, dark void. Wren then asked:
"Your shadow can alert you if there is a danger, right?"
Sunny nodded. Wren then sat down and laid his back on the uneven surface, he looked at Sunny again.
"What are you waiting for? Let's sleep, your shadow will inform us."
Sunny then looked at his shadow, waited as if sending a mental command to it. He then sighed, and followed the example of Wren. Using his hands as a pillow. Not thinking about much, he stared into the black sky and waited. The sound of the undulating waves was, actually, quite relaxing.
After a while, he closed his eyes and listened. Minutes merged together, growing into hours.
... Suddenly, Sunny caught a slight change in the sound of the sea. It was as though something was shifting. He opened his eyes and noticed that one corner of the sky was slowly turning grey. Soon, a glimpse of a pale sun could be seen rising above the horizon.
A new day had come to the starless void.
And with it, the dark sea suddenly surged.
***
Wren and Sunny were both awake, staring at the strange phenomenon while standing at the edge of the platform. Sunny blinked and then kneeled to make sure that what he saw isn't an illusion, to confirm he looked at the direction of Wren who gave him a nod.
The sea seemed to be receding.
Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, the water level was dropping. The circular stone formation he had been taking shelter on used to barely protrude out of the waves, but now there were meters and meters of wet rock between him and the restless surface of the sea.
As the sun climbed up, the monstrous ebb tide continued. Soon, they found themselves standing on the edge of a tall cliff, with a hundred-meter drop separating him from the churning waters.
Beneath him, the rock formation broadened and changed shape. However, from Sunny's vantage point, it was hard to determine what that shape was, exactly.
At that time, the dark surface of the water began to be punctured here and there by sharp crimson blades. As it dropped even further, it was as though a crimson forest was slowly rising from the black depths. The "trees" were made of something resembling coral, growing chaotically into each other and stretching toward the sky.
They were colossal in size, with irregular protrusions entwining and merging together, looking monumental and eerie in the black and red reality of the sunlit void. The labyrinth formed by this strange reef stretched as far as Sunny could see, broken here and there by protruding cliffs, sudden chasms, and distant natural features.
His small circular island had turned into the peak of a strange, towering, irregularly shaped cliff. Looking down, he felt his head spinning. By then, the night had already fully retreated, letting morning finally take its place.
"What in the Spell is this?"
Wren didn't replied, he just stared at the Crimson labyrinth. He sighed and left the edge of the platform.
"Let's study this place before going down."
Sunny had already sent his shadow to scout his place, he went towards the center of the stone platform, and sat down concentrating on his shadow sense and gathering information from his shadow.
Habitually moving from one shadow to another, he began the descent. At this moment, Sunny was glad that shadows had no weight and were not affected by gravity.
While the shadow was busy climbing down, Sunny yawned.
"Say, don't you think that you need a name?"
Although his shadow was already too far away to hear him, they still could communicate through their shared connection. Of course, the fact that it could did not mean that it would. The shadow was sort of taciturn, mostly because it didn't have vocal cords and was unable to speak. Plus, its temper wasn't that great.
"How about... Shameless? No? What about... Shady? Also no? Hm, what about something simpler, like... What? Well, do you have suggestions then? Alright, alright! We'll shelve this conversation for later."
By the time he was done with this short monologue, the shadow had already reached the bottom of the cliff. The range of [Shadow Control] was not limitless, but it was just barely enough to explore their nearest surroundings.
Entering the labyrinth, Sunny found it to be extremely disorienting and convoluted. The paths between coral pillars were sometimes broad, sometimes narrow. They twisted and turned without any logic, often leading to dead ends or even back to where he started. More than that, some paths entered inside the "coral" mounds, turning into dark tunnels.
Meanwhile, Wren was burning his mind thinking situations, possible theories, outcomes and waited for information Sunny was gathering.
'Just where we are? If we think from the perspective of Chained Isles, there is a possibility that this place is near or after the Hollow Mountains. The sea is a major problem too not for me but for Sunny or maybe other if there were. The Prince of Darkness attribute of mine saved me yesterday from drowning. If so, is this sea also a Nightmare creature there is good chance it is, considering it is made up of darkness and is conscious the light.'
After an hour, Sunny's shadow had returned. Soon Sunny started to relay what he had learnt about this forsaken place.
Wren sighed as he heard all the information.
"So the hundreds of Nightmare creature were feasting on the corpse of the giant shark like-creature from yesterday, they look like a weird mix of demonic crab and a centaur. They were huge and heavily armored, well there would be no food shortage for few days. The platform is a colossal headless statue of a knight, interesting."
Sunny looked at Wren dumbfounded, about killing a Nightmare creature many times stronger than them but then again Wren is a legacy.
"So you are planning to kill them for food, then I will help you to kill them."
Wren then smiled but this time the smile was not looking a good sign for Sunny, Wren then summoned a memory, a leather bag shove his hand in and threw a big piece of dry meat & small glass bottle of water. Sunny caught the items hesitantly, looked at Wren with a bit of confusion.
"We are going to fight it, well particularly you. So eat well, You need to be ready for tomorrow."
Sunny was horrified, his skin was now even paler.
"W-What?"
Sunny blurted, however Wren's expression remained neutral.
"You need experience Sunny. I am saying this as your master, not as your friend."
'Fighting those monsters is better than being your student.'
In the four weeks, Wren had sharpened Sunny's instincts and movements to fight any opponent, the combat styles he taught Sunny however were more useful against Humans rather Nightmare Creatures. But they still did their work.
"And I am not asking this for free this time, I want you to give me half of the soul shard of each beast you kill."
Sunny this time didn't say anything and without hesitation he accepted the deal. He understood, that nothing was free in this world and considering how much Wren has taught him this was a small price he should pay.
Wren smiled and walked to the edge of the platform, sitting there watching the sunset. Sunny sighed and looked to his shadow.
'I hope I don't regret it.'
***
Just as Sunny expected, as soon as the sun touched the horizon, a deafening rumble could be heard coming from somewhere below. The monsters instantly stopped their feast and scurried away, some hiding inside the coral pillars, some simply burying themselves in the soft soil.
A few minutes later, the first streams of black water appeared in the labyrinth. Their volume quickly grew, and soon an apocalyptic flood devoured everything around. The sea was returning with the approach of the night.
Sunny stared at this unimaginable process, thoughts churning in his head.
In an hour, the circular platform was the only thing above the dark waters once again.
With a full stomach and a head full of thoughts, mostly paranoid ones. Sunny returned to the center of the platform and sat down. After a while, he beckoned to his shadow and said:
"Wake me up if anything happens."
He looked at Wren who was sitting in lotus position, doing something. Sunny didn't feel compelled to ask Wren, so he left him alone. Then, he closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep. His consciousness quickly slid into the sweet embrace of darkness, giving Sunny some well-needed rest.
In the middle of the night, however, a sudden impulse stirred him awake. Sunny jumped to his feet, his groggy mind full of tense apprehension. He was afraid that the owner of the giant tentacle had come back to finish the job.
Or maybe some other horror from the depths had sensed him and decided to snack on human meat.
However, the sea was quiet and calm. He didn't hear any abnormalities around the knight's statue.
"What is it?" Sunny whispered, addressing the shadow.
The shadow silently pointed him in a particular direction, Wren was also staring at that direction, frowning.
Turning his head, Sunny squinted. He quickly understood why it was a good idea to wake up.
Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to see... Out there in the distance, a few kilometers away, a small orange light was shimmering in the darkness. Its reflections were rising and falling with the movement of waves.
It was too far away to make out any details, so Sunny just stared at it for a while. Pretty soon, the light disappeared.
"What you think, other Sleepers, a trap set up by monster or natural phenomenon?"
Wren stared at Sunny, in his grey eyes, darkness surged violently. Sunny sighed and replied:
"All of them are possible, but the possibility of other Sleepers is most."
Wren nodded, but his eyes were still staring at the same direction. For a second they widened, but returned to normal. He looked towards the starless void and then at Sunny.
"Change of plans, we will explore the labyrinth day after."
Sunny got confused, and asked:
"Any particular reason?"
"We will see it soon."
Sunny groaned in frustration, Wren doesn't tell him many things and Sunny knows that he had noticed something.
'This is so frustrating, I might die from secrets before a Nightmare Creature kills me.'
***
Currently Sunny was fighting the Nightmare Creature that had lunged at him. But it was the beast unlucky day, he had tried to catch Sunny off guard and met with a straight kick on it's face. Creating a distance between them, Sunny ran to the side ways of the beast trying to attack it.
But the beast was faster and the pincer came close to his eye, in defense he blocked it with the white dagger Wren had gave him. The jagged, chitinous blades were so close that he could clearly see bits of mud sticking to their surface.
Sunny landed few meters back, avoiding the unexpected strike. The good thing was that he managed to avoid being injured or even killed. The bad thing was that the beast was not giving Sunny time, unable to quickly create distance between him and the attacker. The massive pincer was still hovering above.
'Why did that bastard leave, I take it back his company was better than fighting this beast.'
The pincer was coming from the side ways threatening to slice Sunny into half, but Sunny using this an opportunity jumped straight on the pincer and sliced where the joints were supposed to be.
The blade was sharp enough to damage the joints, making the other pincer of the beast useless. Even after losing it's main weapon the beast was still unaffected and continued to attack Sunny.
The white dagger was drenched in Azure blood, and Sunny was finding a opportunity to kill the beast immediately. A crazy idea came to his mind, but he immediately declined it considering how crazy and how dangerous idea it was.
But looking at the beast pitful state Sunny had thought to give it a chance. When the beast had attacked Sunny it was already in a bad shape: half of its eight scythe- like legs were broken, and there were cracks in its thick carapace, each oozing with viscous azure blood. Additionally, he was missing one of its two pincer arms, which seemed to had been torn off entirely at the shoulder.
'Have I become crazy?'
Sunny was dodging, suddenly he stumbled and falled on his back which was obviously a trap, but the beast used it's instincts not it's mind and lunged at him opening it's mouth, dark viscous fluid flowing through it.
As the beast was about the eat Sunny's head, Sunny had augmented the white dagger with his shadow and strucked it straight into beast eyes, the pressure from the attack was so much that the brain was immediately dead after receiving the crushing blow.
The dead beast laid his head on Sunny's chest, who was sighing in relief that his crazy plan had worked.
[You have slain an awakened beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[You have received a Memory: Azure Blade.]
[... Your shadow grows stronger.]