"So that's your ingenious plan?" asked Nephis in a flat tone.
Sunny shrugged, though her lack of enthusiasm stung a little.
"Yeah, it'll work. Would it not?"
Nephis hadn't elaborated on the details from her dream. She seemed outwardly calm but he knew she was still very much scattered and shaken. He decided not to push her for now. Whatever it was, it could wait and if Nephis felt like sharing, she would.
Nephis just stared into his eyes with her striking grey eyes as she sighed softly.
"I suppose so. We'll have to leave."
Sunny grinned at her as he turned away and glanced at the lifeless corpse of the Shadow Wraith they had slain yesterday.
"We need something to eat."
Yes, that's right, they needed resources and a lot. The Shadow Wraith's blood was corrosive by nature, which made it unsafe and inedible.
For now with essence they could combat any weakness from exhaustion and hunger, but the endless expanse of the black sand was very dangerous with the invisible Shadow Wraiths waiting for any sign of life to attack.
"Any step we take is practically a beacon broadcasting our location to every Shadow Wraith in the area. So our only other option is to not walk. It might seem preposterous," he smiled. "With the Dark Wing it's possible."
That's right. The Dark Wing might not be a very useful memory, all it could do was help the user hover a little over the ground and glide around. Due to the nature of dangers they faced before in the forgotten shore it wasn't very useful, the maximum help it offered was preventing any type of fall damage from heights but now with that memory they were uniquely suited to navigating and travelling this treacherous environment.
Also with the oppressive gravity the dark wing further reinforced its utility value. The gravity immobilized them to the point they had to constantly use essence or augmentation from their aspects to move.
So even if the Dark Wing wasn't able to support them to the point of helping them hover, they could still remove any unnecessary burdens from the gravity and safely preserve essence.
Sunny summoned the Endless Spring and greedily drank as the cool water doused his body in euphoria. He passed the beautiful bottle to Nephis as he turned around.
"We should leave soon. The more time we waste, higher our weakness from hunger gets."
***
Surprisingly the Dark Wing was unaffected by the gravity. It managed to allow them to hover over the sand safely to the point that they didn't have to step on it.
This thing was quite the boon!
He was silently thankful to the fact that he hadn't fed the Dark Wing to Saint the moment he got it. Without it they would've run into at least five Shadow Wraiths by now.
...But still something didn't feel right. His heart was uneasy, irrationally so.
Sunny sighed. It was nothing new and his intuition had never been wrong, but still he silently wished that nothing bad would happen to them.
He tilted his head to look at Nephis who was behind him, they were both silent. Even if the Shadow Wraiths couldn't hear them Sunny and Nephis weren't making conversation nor talking.
Nephis simply didn't seem in the mood for one.
The Dark Wing was draped around her armor. She had received Cassie's Dark Wing back in the Crimson Spire which had further worked in their favor.
He focused in on her face. Nephis was simply indifferent and deadpan. The exhaustion was almost completely gone from her face, of course it had!
They both had slept for nearly 14 hours, well it was more of a rough estimate because Sunny couldn't keep track of time in this wretched place but still they both were refreshed.
Strangely though she still seemed a bit pale.
'She is probably thinking about that dream.'
Hoping to distract her from dark thoughts, Sunny opened his mouth to speak.
"Now that we've proven my ingenious plan works, do you have a specific place in mind to hunt for prey?" he smirked. "Or are we just going to fly around aimlessly?"
Nephis seemed indifferent to his teasing as she looked him in the eye and said:
"We should head for the plateaus."
He was confused and rightfully so.
Here in the dark expanse of the black sand they at least knew something, it was a bit explored. If they found some shadow creature that was safe to eat they'd be fine. All they had to set was a trap. And to further add the Plateaus was at least a hundred kilometers away. It'd take them a few hours of flying without rest to reach it.
With a dumbfounded reaction he asked, "What? Why the plateaus?"
Nephis simply shrugged but didn't answer.
"Come on, at least explain your reasoning?"
With a faint teasing smile she looked into his eyes.
"Sunny, do you trust me?"
And Sunny was shut up efficiently. It was the same damn question he had asked when he made that strange request back when they had fought the wraith. Nephis had reversed their roles and used that one moment in her favor to avoid explaining anything.
'This infuriating woman!'
All Sunny could do was stare at her, dumbfounded, as he stammered out a, "Yes" due to his flaw.
To that response, her smile grew. She shrugged and looked away.
Strangely, Sunny wasn't displeased—he had managed to improve her mood, which had been his original goal after all. Grumbling to himself incoherently, he turned away from Nephis with a small smile.
They flew in silence, it was strangely peaceful despite the fact that there were hordes of invisible murderous shadow creatures around that would stop at nothing to eat them.
They were flying a few kilometers away from the valley with the glowing red river, it seemed to be going in the same direction as the plateaus so they were using its light as an improvised compass but Sunny voted for them to fly away from it. That thing gave him the creeps.
A soft ambiance of comfort settled on them as they flew tirelessly for a few hours. Neither talked but the atmosphere was nice. And even Nephis was relaxed, but in the dream realm that was the ultimate sin.
Something whooshed past him as Sunny found himself tumbling into the sand face first. The sand was all over him, he heard a muffled voice of Nephis calling out his name in strange concern but strangely Sunny couldn't think clearly.
But one familiar whisper broke him out of his strange mind hex:
[Your memory has been destroyed...]
Sunny practically jumped out of the sand—or at least, it felt like he did.
Pain consumed him as he struggled to stand upright, wobbling like a drunken man. He couldn't breathe, and his chest was ablaze with agony. A pained groan escaped his lips involuntarily, yet Sunny wasn't panicked.
In fact, he felt strangely... happy about the whole situation.
He looked down to see a black arrow lodged in his chest, right where his right lung should have been.
'So that's why I can't breathe?'
The calmness of the thought only deepened Sunny's confusion. He turned his head toward Nephis, who looked uncharacteristically panicked. Her wide eyes brimmed with fear—something Sunny never expected to see from her. Stranger still was the fact that those fearful eyes were locked onto him.
'Aww, didn't know she cared.'
Sunny turned away, seemingly indifferent. That's right—he was so happy right now! He was dying.
'I'm going to die, huh?', Sunny thought, a faint smile curling his lips.
The whole situation was baffling.
'Why am I so calm?'
He glanced around, hoping to spot his attacker and perhaps thank them for the grievous wound, but found no one. What a tragedy!
'Why am I so...'
Sunny's eyes widened in recognition. Summoning the Moonlight Shard, he flipped the ghostly stiletto and drove it into his own thigh. The searing pain snapped him out of the strange mind hex as panic surged through him.
'What the hell? A mind attack?'
He gritted his teeth and grabbed the arrow sticking out of his chest. Yanking it free, he relied on the Blood Weave to keep him alive. But, strangely, he was bleeding profusely.
"Damn... Damnation."
His gaze darted around frantically. Summoning the Midnight Shard to his hand, he tried to spot his assailant, but the world remained empty.
'Of course. That damn thing's invisible, just like every other Wraith here!'
For the first time since the Crimson Spire and the Black Knight from Dark City, Sunny felt a cold sense of fear set on him.
Nephis stood just a few meters away from him, the Nameless Sun in her hand and the Dark Wing dismissed. Her face was sickeningly pale, her wide eyes brimming with genuine concern as she gazed at him. She probably wanted nothing more than to touch and heal him with her Aspect, but she knew she couldn't move. Both of them stood utterly still, careful not to disturb the sand with even the faintest ripple.
But it was all futile. Sunny knew. If the Shadow Wraith could shoot him with an arrow it could see, unlike the things they had killed yesterday.
He looked around with wide eyes, his head was still clouded with blood loss but even that wasn't the worst part. Through the pain the mind hex was slowly returning.
Just to make sure, Sunny summoned his runes and checked his attributes trying to find something similar to the enthralled attribute.
And just as he feared he found an extra string of runes.
[Destined Death]: "You've been dealt with destined death by one of Shadow's children. Your approaching death is slow and alluring but also inevitable unless purified"
'...W-What? That can't be right?'
Sunny had survived horrors beyond comprehension to get to this point. He had originally wanted to live purely out of spite but now with Nephis, his cohort and his friends, he wanted to live. There were so many things he wanted to live for.
Sunny simply didn't want to die yet.
Nephis was calling out to him as she scanned the sands and the dimly lit black dunes for signs of an enemy but there were none.
That's when Sunny noticed a pattern on the sand, a train of ripples as it vanished. Suddenly a black arrow as dark as the night shot towards Nephis, but luckily Sunny had noticed the ripples and his hands were already moving in reflex.
He swatted the arrow away as it fell to the ground harmlessly. He was still in so much pain! But he could still fight!
'Good. It doesn't matter if this special wraith can see. With both Nephis and me combined that thing stands no chance.'
With resolution he looked at Nephis, but fate had other plans.
Nephis's face paled as blood dripped down her nose. She coughed up blood, an actual concerning amount.
At that sight Sunny felt more dread than he ever did before. He simply couldn't bear seeing her that way but that wasn't the worst of it. Nephis swayed as a disturbing gurgle escaped her throat as she fell into the sand limp.
'Was it the wraith?'
That seemed like the most plausible reason but she hadn't been damaged, in fact she seemed pristine with no injuries.
As Nephis laboriously tried to take in a shuddering breath, anything to breathe again, her whole body trembled. And that's when he realized.
It was the damn air!
He had thought that the air was just a form of torture and it posed no real threat but no, that wasn't it. Even if the pain seemed harmless it was breaking down their bodies and slowly poisoning them.
So why wasn't Sunny affected? Sunny already knew the answer to the question.
Blood weave.
And that's when he heard a disturbing and eerie cackle of joy echo through the dunes.
***
I'm sorry for doing that after cute fluff. it simply had to be done or it wouldn't be shadow slave