There are many words to describe what Rain is feeling right now: anger, confusion, maybe even sadness, but all she could say in that moment was, "Why?"
Her voice is weak and clearly full of pain. Alya had long lost consciousness, and Gean had transformed to withstand whatever Jacob had poisoned them with. But it was of no use.
Rain could feel her consciousness fading, but she had one last ace up her sleeve to maybe escape her death. While sending a strong electric impulse through her body, she could feel the effect of the poison subside. Jacob was slowly approaching her while he spoke, clearly showing his true face again.
"You know I could tell you that my father has ordered me to do this or someone else entirely. I could tell you that I had no other choice because I'm being controlled by someone. But no, the truth is that I just wanna do this."
Rain looked at him with a pained expression, not just because her body had been poisoned but because she was mentally hurt too. Never had she been betrayed like this.
"But why? Why are you doing this? We would have escaped this cave together and never seen each other again!"
Jacob just laughed and walked past her, raising his spear and bringing it down on Gean's neck, killing him on the spot. Rain was watching the scene while a spark of hatred ignited in her heart.
"YOU MONSTER! HOW COULD YOU DO THIS? HE HASN'T DONE ANYTHING TO YOU!"
Lightning started to shoot out of her, and her eyes were glowing with a dark purple light from the sparks dancing inside them. She could feel her body slowly gathering strength again, but it was still not enough to stand up, let alone fight. What she needed was more time, which she didn't have. Luckily for her, Jacob was not in a rush to finish his business.
"You call me a monster? Maybe I am. But you know who really is a monster? Your brother! How dare he humiliate me in front of everyone and my father."
Rain couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"That's what this is about? You wanna take revenge on my brother by killing me and my friends?"
Jacob laughed; he stood in front of Alya's unconscious body and raised his spear again.
"Well yes, if I can't kill him myself, then I need to find another way to break him. Killing you and the others is more than enough to do the trick."
He brought down his spear and severed Alya's neck too, kicking her head over to Rain so she could see her pained face, which slowly lost its color.
Rain screamed in sorrow while Jacob was making his way over to her.
"No need to scream like that. I will release you from your pain any second now, so don't worry."
He raised his spear once more and asked mockingly, "Any last words?"
Rain's eyes were full of tears and hatred. She shook her head, and Jacob grinned before bringing down his spear again when suddenly a black odachi manifested in Rain's hand, and she blocked it hard enough to stagger Jacob. Quickly, she jumped to her feet, still pained from the poison and the deaths of her friends. She swayed a little, her vision blurry from the tears and poison.
Jacob laughed again, clearly amused by Rain, who seemed like she hadn't given up yet. But he was sure that he could beat her in a fight, especially now that she was broken.
"Seems like you can still put up a fight, nice. That way it won't be so boring."
He closed the distance between him and Rain with one leap while swinging his spear, aiming for her heart, but Rain was still recovering at an alarming rate. So she blocked his strike. But sadly, Jacob was still a cunning warrior, so he hit her left arm instead, creating a deep wound that was most likely fatal if not treated in the next couple of minutes.
Rain fell to the ground, losing her black odachi. Jacob came closer with each step, again not hurried in any way, which gave her time to prepare an attack.
"Just give up, Ranni; you will die anyway, even if you escape somehow."
He was right; the wound on her arm was deep, and he had clearly severed a vein. Blood was flowing out of her at an alarming rate. But she wasn't done just yet. When he was close enough, Rain pointed an arm in his direction, which confused him at first, but when a lightning bolt shot out of her hand, his eyes went wide as it shot through his head, hitting the wall behind him.
He was just standing there with wide eyes, not moving a muscle, until an eerie smile crept up his lips.
"Are you retarded or something? I have immunity against electrical charges. Have you learned nothing these past weeks?"
Rain's face froze for a second before a sinister smile appeared on her lips.
"Of course I have learned something; I had the best teacher in two fucking worlds after all."
Jacob was momentarily confused before something hit him like a truck from behind. He flew to the side and landed a couple of meters away, his whole body aching from pain. He tried to stand up, but something lunged at him—a big paw with claws pressing him to the ground, almost crushing him.
He couldn't look up since his head was pressed tightly to the floor. So he could only watch Rain approaching slowly while summoning back her black odachi. When she reached him, her hand moved upwards while she said with pride in her voice.
"You're such a good boy, Apollo; look how much you have grown."
The lightning she had thrown at Jacob wasn't meant to hurt him. She knew from the incident in the dojo and the past couple of weeks that Jacob's aspect had to do with lightning too, of course. So she knew that he had to be immune to it. Instead, she had summoned Apollo, who finished evolving a couple of days ago.
After praising Apollo for his performance, she leaned down to Jacob and held the odachi to his face while she whispered, "Any last words?"
Jacob had a panicked expression on his face, and his body was shaking.
"Please don't. I will give you anything you want. Just don't kill me. I need to get back to my clan. I'm sorry about your friends."
His begging made Rain even more furious.
"YOUR SORRY? YOU KILLED THEM, YOU MONSTER!"
Jacob started to cry, something she hadn't expected, but it sure as hell felt good. She took a deep breath and rose to her feet, holding the odachi high in the air. She commanded Apollo to free his head so he could look at her. He watched Rain staring at him with lightning dancing in her eyes and shooting out of her body while she brought her odachi down.
"WAIT, I STILL OWE YOU A FAVOR."
Rain stopped. Her body was still tense, but her facial features softened. Jacob smiled and said while stumbling over his words.
"Tha…that's right. Y…you…don't wanna waste the favor I owe you by ju…just killing me, ri…right?"
Rain gave him a nod and smiled.
"Right, so do me a favor and die."
The odachi cut through the air, aimed at Jacob's neck. He screamed like a woman who was about to be murdered, like he did in the beginning of their journey, and grew silent as his head was severed from his neck. The spell whispered into her ears, announcing the kill, and she could feel her soul core charging once more.
Rain, who was clearly relieved, fell to the ground, her body slowly losing strength because of all the blood she had lost from her wound. But before she fell unconscious, a hand landed on her back. It was big and hairy with sharp claws, but immediately she felt better. When she opened her eyes again, she could see a charming werewolf looking into her eyes.
Gean was still affected by the poison, but he could finally move again, using his aspect to heal Rain while Alya watched out for any other danger.
Rain was confused and relieved at the same time. She could have sworn that her friends had been killed by Jacob.
"How? I thought you guys were dead."
Alya chuckled and pointed at herself with a thumb while having a proud smile on her lips.
"Not on my watch. When I could feel that Jacob had poisoned us, I only pretended to be unconscious and conjured an illusion for him and you so you both would think that me and Gean were dead. It drained most of my essence, but we managed to survive that way."
Rain began to laugh. Tears of joy spilled out of her eyes as Gean continued to heal her. Slowly, the bleeding stopped, and the wound closed while her blood regenerated. Gean's aspect is of the supreme rank, after all, so his healing abilities are very potent. Not as good as Nephis, of course, but better than most other aspects that allowed their user to heal others. The only problem was that he couldn't heal himself with it, at least not nearly as well as he could with other people.
"But why did you conjure the illusion for me too?"
"I had no idea how good your acting would be, so I didn't take any chances. My plan was originally to wait until Jacob was distracted enough so he wouldn't notice me and Gean attacking him from behind. But as it seems, you had an ace up your sleeve. You called him Apollo, right?"
Apollo was sitting in front of Jacob's corpse. Rain could have ordered him to eat it, but she didn't want to burden him by eating disgusting meat.
'In the end, my poor boy gets a tummy ache because of how disgusting Jacob is.'
Rain slowly stood back up straight and gave both Gean and Alya a hug.
"I'm so glad that you are both alive. I don't know what I would have done next."
Gean scoffed and said jokingly, "I don't know, probably die because of blood loss."
Rain began to laugh again and patted him on the back.
"You're right; I would have been dead. Thanks for saving me."
"No problem."
"No prob…"
Both Alya and Gean said, at least Gean, because Alya didn't finish her sentence. Instead, her body began to tremble, and she shouted, "THE SPIDER IS BACK. RUUUUUN."
Like the days before, the spider had appeared out of nowhere, completely silent. They had figured out how the giant terror was doing it, of course. By using its strings, it was never touching the ground and glided softly through the cave, sneaking up on its prey, which in this case was Rain and her cohort.
They took off running while Rain dismissed Apollo; she didn't want to take any chances after all. They all knew instinctively to head for the small cave where their camp had been. Luckily, it wasn't too far away, and the spider was not particularly agile. Almost being caught by its strings, they reached the cave entrance before dozens of legs crashed into the wall, and rubble closed off the only entrance.
Driven mad by the stench of human souls, the Fallen Terror continued to hit the wall to dig its way toward Rain, Alya, and Gean. The three cowered together, holding each other in a tight hug, hoping for a miracle when suddenly their prayers seemed to be recognized by the dead gods, and the Terror stopped.
"Has it… stopped? But why?" Rain asked, still breathing heavily with her heart almost breaking out of her chest. Alya took a deep breath and said, "Maybe it has lost interest and has found something else to turn into a sack of AHHHHHHH."
Alya screamed as their surroundings shook again, this time much harder, only to grow silent moments later.
"What is happening?" Gean asked, frightened. Rain was the only one who could see in the dark but not through walls, so she had no idea and therefore no answer. All three of them waited for something to happen, and it did. Suddenly, the wall of rubble that had formed in front of them began to shake, but with much less intensity, as if something was digging its way to them but with much more caution than before.
They were still in fear, of course. Whatever had happened outside the cave was still a mystery to them, so they could only wait as the Terror was digging its way to them.
When the wall broke open again, something lunged at Rain, who was sitting closest to the entrance. She got dragged outside by whatever was grabbing her. Gean and Alya watched in horror as they failed to hold onto her. But in the next moment, they were both grabbed too.
They were all screaming and fighting for their lives when suddenly a voice spoke to them.
"Calm down, guys, you're safe. No need to scream at me."
The voice was deep and dark, so Alya and Gean didn't calm down one bit, especially when they saw what had grabbed them, and they freaked out even more. Only when Rain started laughing did they stop.
"Have you completely lost your mind now? This thing is gonna eat us; why are you laughing?" Alya said in fear while looking between Rain and the creature that was holding them all upside down. It had a crooked smile on its mouth, with reptilian red eyes and a face that looked like one from a dragon. Suddenly, the creature began to laugh, and it put them all down, feet first, of course.
Alya and Gean instantly summoned their weapons and got into a battle stance beside Rain, who for some reason did none of that and instead walked up to the monster, who dropped to one knee and gave it a hug. With a calm voice and lovely eyes, she said, "I missed you so much. Thanks for saving us; I love you, my cute monster."
Both Alya and Gean watched the scene before Gean tapped her on the shoulder and pointed at something. Alya followed his finger, and her eyes widened.
"It's… dead."
The Fallen Terror lay dead in front of them. Its giant body was completely still, with blood flowing out of its head while a crimson red scythe was stuck in it. Alya turned to Rain and what she had thought to be a nightmare creature just a second ago and noticed the six tails coming out of its back.
She pointed at them and asked, her voice full of awe, "Is that… Rick?"
The monster in question nodded and gave them its crooked smile again.
"Took you long enough."
Both Alya and Gean fell to their knees and let out a heavy sigh.
"You have to be fucking kidding me. How are we supposed to know? We haven't seen you like this before."
"True, but you, Alya, have seen one of my tails before, so you should have realized it sooner."
Alya rolled her eyes and spat, annoyed, "Sorry, but I was fighting for my life. I had better things to do than look at what exactly was grabbing me."
She took a deep breath and stood up.
"Men are unbelievable. Not an ounce of sensitivity in their bodies."
Rick began to laugh and rubbed the back of his head. Gean pointed at the Terror and asked, "So you killed the thing in one strike? That's… impressive."
Rick shrugged and put his hand in the air. The scythe shot right into his hand again, and he said nonchalantly, "It's just a Fallen Terror. It didn't put up much of a fight either."
Gean's jaw dropped a little, but soon he cleared his throat and said, "Yeah… right. Just a Fallen Terror. Glad you got here in the last second to save us."
Rick scoffed and said with a smile, "Actually, I got here almost immediately after the start of the Winter Solstice. I just followed you guys around to see how you would handle it on your own. And let me tell you, I'm impressed."
Now not only Gean and Alya looked at him with a deadpan expression; Rain too had trouble keeping her composure.
"You have been following us the entire time? How did you know where to find us?"
Rick shrugged, but before he could answer, Alya snapped and shouted, "And you didn't think of helping us when Jacob attacked us?"
"I mean, I would have if you guys lost control of the situation. Don't think it was easy for me sitting back watching you guys getting poisoned and Rain severely wounded. If I didn't know that Gean is a healer, I would have jumped in the moment I saw Jacob putting the poison into your food. And by the way, I knew that it wasn't deadly because I recognized the smell."
All three of them looked at Rick for a second and then palmed their faces.
"I thought the smell came from one of the plants because he cooked it. I'm such an idiot," Gean said. He had amazing senses too, not nearly as fine-tuned as Rick's, but the fact that he failed to recognize the smell as poison made him no less mad.
"Don't worry too much about it. Next time you know what to watch out for."
Gean slowly transformed back now that the fear of death had faded away. Rain turned to Rick and said, "Now we can finally leave. Thanks for believing in us."
He gave her a nod and froze as he noticed Alya's stare. She nodded and gave Rain a smirk.
"I think I got my answer. He doesn't have a dick in this form after all."
Out of reflex, Rick hid his private area with a hand while giving Alya a horrified glance.
"Why are you thinking about whether that body has a penis or not?"
Rain sighed deeply and chuckled because of how absurd the whole situation was.
"Because she has gone crazy over the last couple of weeks. Now let's go before she asks more questions."
After retrieving the soul shards from the Terror, they made their way over to the Citadel. On their way, they talked a bit when suddenly Rain pointed out an interesting subject.
"You haven't told us how you got here so fast and even how you found us."
"Oh, I just asked Cassie to describe where you ended up, and I immediately knew where to go. After all, this is where I landed on my Winter Solstice."
Suddenly it dawned on Rain. Rick had mentioned once that he ended up in a giant cave too. But he never said anything about giant crystals and especially nothing about a Fallen Terror dwelling here.
"How did I not realize that? Wait, so that means that we are under a Death Zone?"
Both Alya and Gean froze when Rain mentioned the words "Death Zone," but Rick just shrugged and said, "Oh yeah, sure. The Burned Forest is right above. This is the same cave, although a different region of it. The Citadel where I found Rapunzel is a couple hundred kilometers away. I've never been here before, but except for those crystals, it's identical."
Rain wanted to say something, but Alya beat her to it.
"So you have been in that area of the Dream Realm before? Cool, I guess. But what is it with that Rapunzel person? You have mentioned her before."
Rick chuckled and said, "Rapunzel is just a nickname for a friend of mine. You have met him his name is Mordy, and like I said, I found him in a Citadel further down this cave. It was a huge gamble using my anchor to this damn place because there was still a chance for that damn bird to still be here, but luckily he was nowhere to be seen."
Rain gulped as Rick mentioned the reason why he swore to never come back here and shivered. Alya noticed and asked curiously, "What bird? Now you're just making no sense. You have no problem with killing a Fallen Terror, but a bird is giving you trouble?"
He nodded and said evenly, "A cursed Terror would give everyone trouble. So yeah, I'm more scared of that bird."
Alya and Gean froze. Gean looked up to him and asked reluctantly, "Did you just say… cursed Terror?"
Without showing much of a reaction, Rick just gave him a nod and continued walking, leaving Alya and Gean speechless.
After they reached the Citadel and found themselves standing in the main hall, the feeling of dread crept up their spines again. Even Rick looked at the scenery with a weird feeling.
"Are those all eggs?" Alya asked. Rain nodded and walked up to one of them. She summoned her black odachi and sliced it in half.
[You have slain Awakened Beast, Brood of the Widowmaker.]
[Your soul is charging.]
Her face lit up as the spell spoke the sweet words she had hoped to hear.
"That means that there are thousands of soul fragments for us here."
The excitement was almost unbearable. Quickly they made a plan. Rain would obliterate the eggs after overcharging them with her aspect to gain the maximum amount of arc fragments out of them, while Gean and Alya would get the soul shards.
Each of the eggs would only have one, but they would be of the Awakened rank, and since there are hundreds of them, they would surely saturate their cores. So they set their plan in motion.
After collapsing for the second time today, Rain was finally done absorbing the rest of the soul shards that Alya and Gean couldn't after saturating their cores. She had managed to form her third core, but not only that. She had earned a couple of memories as well, but inspecting those could wait until they got out of here.
It was actually night when they got done, so they quickly got out of there. Rick would appear in a government office where Effie and Jet would be waiting for him, while Rain, Alya, and Gean would wake up in their sleeping pods in the Academy.
They gave each other one last hug as sleepers, and when Rain touched the mysterious statue, her consciousness drifted away, and her appraisal began.
[Get ready for your Appraisal]
[The gracious Arcstrider ended up in a cave along with her companions. You have successfully saved an enemy from certain death only to be betrayed by said foul human. In the depths of a burned land you managed to survive against impossible odds and cleanse the world from the existence of a vile human soul.]
[Appraisal: Magnificent]
[Second Seal is Broken]
[Awakening Dormant Powers]
'Awesome, I'm getting a new ability.'
The spell continued….
[Awakening Aspect Ability…]
[...Aspect Ability acquired]
[Aspect Ability Name: Blink]
'Huh? What's that supposed to mean?'
Rain was a little confused by the name of her new ability, so she wanted to summon her runes to check what it meant, but first, the spell spoke again.
[Wake Up, Arcstrider]
And soon she found herself in her sleeping pod. She quickly summoned the Puppeteer Shroud, and soon a nurse came inside.
"I'm glad you have woken up, but… didn't you have black hair and pale skin before?"
Rain coughed awkwardly.
"OH, I guess that's because of my ascension. I think I will have to live with that now."
She said with a chuckle. Like she expected, the nurse just shrugged. Why would she even care, right?
After having a swift talk with the nurse and taking a shower, which after almost two weeks she desperately needed, Rain had one more thing to do: have a talk with an evaluation expert again and gather her things. She gave the woman a swift explanation of what had happened while leaving out Jacob and the Fallen Terror.
'No need to put a target on my back. His father must be furious.'
Dar had been in the academy as soon as possible after the death of his son was announced to him. Needless to say, he was heartbroken and ashamed. But Rain couldn't care less.
'His son was a plague for humanity. There is no need for an awakened like him.'
Harsh words, but in the end, Rain was right. What kind of monster would Jacob have become if allowed to ascend further? Someone who is willing to kill three people just because he had personal problems with one of their relatives is mad beyond reason.
Soon she reached the storage facility where all her belongings had been stored. She opened her communicator and wrote a message in the group with Rick, Alya and Gean.
"Leaving storage right now. I will see you guys at the gate."
She lifted her two heavy bags from the counter and waved at the person behind it.
"Wow, those have become much lighter. Being awakened is awesome."
She turned around and walked away. When she walked around a corner, suddenly she bumped into someone. She almost fell, but of course, Rick caught her like he always did. Instantly, a smile formed on her lips.
"Hey, I hope you're okay."
Rick blinked a couple of times. Needless to say, Rain looked even more beautiful now, so he needed a second to adjust, which made him look at her the same way he did when he first met her.
"Hi, I'm looking for a beautiful young lady with raven black hair and onyx-colored eyes. Have you seen her around?"
He said with a smile. Rain couldn't help but throw the bags away and pull Rick into a much-needed kiss. They hadn't had a chance to do so in two weeks, after all. True, they had just met in the Dream Realm, but that didn't count since Rick was in the beast body.
After some time, their lips parted, and they quickly left the academy. In front of the gates, they met Alya and Gean. She had expected to be the first in front of the gates, but their kiss must have been longer than expected. All three of them came close for a hug. They would have loved to talk about their new abilities, but they decided to do so later because a PTV was already honking at them.
It was a small shock for Gean to meet Jet again. After all, he had expected to never see her again. But that wasn't all, of course, since Effie was driving them.
"So you couldn't tell me that Saint Athena would also be here?" Gean asked a little nervously. Effie chuckled and waved a hand.
"Effie is more than enough. But tell me, Gean, how does it feel to have slept with a saint as a sleeper?"
Both Gean's and Jet's jaws dropped. The rest sighed and said, "Here we go."
Jet quickly got a hold of herself and took a deep breath.
"Effie… why? Just tell me why did you have to ask such a thing? And more importantly, how the fuck do you know that?"
"Oh come on, isn't it obvious? I visited you a couple of times, and two weeks before the Winter Solstice, you are suddenly in a much better mood? And now you sit beside that guy being all weird all of a sudden. I might not be the smartest person in the world, but we had a BBQ earlier, so my brain got a fresh dose of protein. Now tell me I'm wrong or let the guy answer my question."
Jet sighed and just turned to the window, not saying a single word. Gean took a deep breath and answered.
"I would feel much better if we didn't discuss this subject. For my own and Jet's sake."
Jet couldn't help but smile a little. She turned to him, got closer to Gean's ear, and whispered something. Once again, Rick could clearly understand what she was saying, but he acted like he couldn't. Gean listened closely, and suddenly he had a grin on his face.
"Aha, should I really ask her about that?"
Jet gave him a nod.
"I will tell you how it feels if you tell me what kind of body you have been put in for your second nightmare."
Luckily, they were on the highway and not making a turn at the moment because Effie froze for a second. The subject of her body in the second nightmare was a sensitive one. She cleared her throat and looked through the rearview mirror to give Jet an annoyed glance.
"Nope, it's fine then. I will ask no further questions."
Rick's eyes widened, and he said in disbelief, "That really shut you up? There is something that is embarrassing even for you?"
Effie sighed and nodded. With a low voice, she said, "That's probably the only thing. So yes, I'm accepting defeat."
Everyone else cheered. Minutes later, they reached their destination. It was Nephis Mansion. They walked inside to greet the others. Rick and Rain hadn't seen them in over a month now, well, except for Sunny, but that hardly counted.
Everyone was a little emotional, to say the least. Especially Gean had to fight his transformation but failed to do so when meeting legends like Changing Star, Song of the Fallen, who had gotten a little bigger in one specific area, Nightingale, and another saint he hadn't met before, along with the ominous Rapunzel, exceeded his stress threshold.
Seeing a werewolf was nothing new for most of them. Either due to the media or the Dream Realm, they had actually seen many before. When it happened, though, Effie turned to Jet and whispered, "Now he looks more like your type. A bit hairy, but still handsome."
Which left Jet a bit annoyed again. Since Alya and Gean had nowhere to go, Nephis had decided to take them in. They would stay here in the mansion for the time being until plans had been made. Mordy was here at all times, so they would have someone they could turn to if they needed something.
That was the plan for now. That was not all, of course. Additionally, Sunny and the others had prepared a party. Something that Gean and Alya hadn't expected at all.
Hours later, they were all gathered in the mansion's garden. Alcohol flowed like the blood from the Fallen Terror, and the company was fantastic. Not only did Nephis' whole cohort gather, which was rare since most of the time everyone was busy with their usual responsibilities, but today they had time. Even some of the Fire Keepers had decided to come. Gorn and Sid had long made their relationship public and were sitting next to Aiko, who got bored after weeks of not having to work. Somehow, she had started to miss working at the café.
Of course, Rain, Gean, and Alya had been testing their new abilities throughout. Rain finally knew what [Blink] exactly meant now, and to her delight, it was basically teleportation. When she threw a lightning bolt, she could choose to be sent with it and appear at its destination.
Gean was now able to heal himself with the same speed as others and could even do so from a distance. To be more specific, his aspect didn't simply allow him to heal wounds but to reverse time in a way that the wound would heal since technically it had never happened.
Alya got an incredible new power too. Before, she always had to conjure the illusion for every person individually. Now she could manipulate her surroundings in a way that would be visible to everyone. Which on this evening would become the most entertaining ability.
Now Alya could conjure a giant canvas and play everything she wanted from her head. Together with Cassie, she could even play scenes from other people's minds, which made the whole thing even more interesting. Sunny already had something in mind that everyone else had forgotten, so it would hit them like a truck. Especially Effie, since this was just for her. Sunny knew more than anyone else how much she hated her body in the second nightmare.
In front of them played a specific scene that was perhaps the pinnacle of humiliation for Effie. The conjured canvas showed a scene from their second nightmare. Instantly, Effie tried to hide somewhere when, through Sunny's POV, she could be clearly seen sitting on a chair, barely reaching over the table with her head while eating pastry with astonishing speed. Sunny explained how the nightmare had been going for him before they met. At the end of his speech, he said, "Overall, I guess it could have been worse."
Everyone just had their mouths wide open. They may have forgotten, but Sunny always made it a point to explain what had happened to him with as little detail as he could so it would sound outrageous. Not that it wasn't outrageous to begin with what he had been through, but how he explained it made the whole thing even more ridiculous.
But that wasn't the part that was especially interesting to him. Soon Effie, with the body of a child and of course its voice, spoke, which made everyone laugh again. It was clear that it was Effie since the little girl had shoved a piece of pastry into her mouth before she began to speak.
"What the hell could have been worse than that?"
There was silence for a second as everyone waited for Sunny's answer.
"I don't know… I could have been sent into the body of a worm? Or even worse… a child."
In the next moment, everyone broke out into laughter; some people even fell from their chairs. The ones that were close to Effie, like Jet, looked at her with a wide grin, watching the gluttonous huntress losing her composure while the rest gave Sunny a thumbs up.
In the end, it was fine, of course. Well, except for the fact that Effie had thrown her drink at the canvas, which was not real, so her glass hit a window instead.
Now everyone was interested to see more. Sunny was like a secret stash of hilarious and epic things that had happened to him and the others, so everyone was shouting for more.
The next thing everyone was interested in was Sunny weaving. They had never seen it before, so they all watched it with awe as the world how Sunny saw it was revealed to them in detail as he showed them multiple scenes from him weaving.
They couldn't comprehend how he was able to see through it all and understand it. Nephis, who was sitting right next to him, leaned over and whispered with a smile.
"So this is how you got so skilled with your hands. You have been training for years, it seems."
"Of course! Do you have a specific wish?"
Nephis thought about it for a second and said, "I don't think we can show what I would like to see from your POV here. But why don't you give Cassie something that is your favorite memory of me where I'm dressed, of course?"
Sunny had to think about it. There were countless memories that included Neph that he loved, but he already had something in mind. He turned to Cassie and looked into her eyes. A tear ran down her face when she received the collection of memories Sunny had chosen to show them. He couldn't decide on one, so it had to be multiple. Cassie transferred them to Alya, and the young girl smiled.
Soon, the canvas showed the summary of short memories, and to sum it all up, it was just Nephis smiling and laughing. Every short memory was just Sunny admiring Nephis's beautiful smile over the years, from the time on the forgotten shore all the way to recent events.
The small crowd all turned to him. Some of them were confused about why there were images and short memories on the canvas showing Nephis smiling and laughing, but when Nephis began to sob a little and said what she had requested, everyone just let out an "Awwwww." Of course, Nephis's tears were tears of joy, no doubt.
The next thing in line was Rain calling Sunny a brat on their first meeting, along with a compilation of fails during their training. For the first time, Rain could actually see what their relationship was like before Sunny lost his fate, and she sure as hell was pissed at herself for how many times she failed to do a simple task, but it was amusing nonetheless.
"I really massacred those potatoes."
Especially her realizing who Sunny's seemingly permanent guest was and her first reaction seeing Kai back then, or Cassie, for example, made her blush, along with her excuse for leaving because of having to do homework.
"Am I allowed to laugh, or will you be mad?" Rick asked, which earned him an annoyed glance from Rain.
"Now everyone had fun watching fails from me. What about you? Show us some of yours, Sunny," Rain shouted. Sunny gave her a smile and shrugged.
The next thing that appeared on the canvas wasn't perhaps what everyone had expected, but in some ways, they were indeed "fails." At least things Sunny considered as "fails."
He pointed at the canvas and said, "I know I have told some of you before, but this is how I handled my flaw in the beginning. Not very smart, I can tell you that much upfront."
From the time he was staring at Jet's breast and getting his shit rocked all the way to the greeting ceremony where he talked to a lot of sleepers to figure out how to handle his flaw, he was laughing. Everyone else looked at it with hands covering their mouths. He left out one or two especially embarrassing moments because even he wasn't brave enough to show them.
When they had seen enough of Sunny's immature and dirty-minded younger self, he moved to the next part.
"That's basically how I trained the whole time I was alone in the Dark City."
Seeing Saint attacking Sunny and him being tossed through the room was a rare sight but soon got old, so he gave them the next.
"This one is from the time I was trying to stop Goliath, the fallen titan in Antarctica. Mind you, I was a master back then."
"Didn't you kill him?" Jet asked, confused.
"Yeah, but first he killed me. Well, kinda… just watch."
They watched Sunny telling Luster to continue driving and that he would catch up. Unfortunately, the guy wasn't here today, but he wouldn't be able to hold onto those memories anyway since he had been there and would forget them. But everyone else could, so he had no problem with showing the memory.
Soon they saw Sunny riding on top of Nightmare towards the titan Goliath. When he stopped and even had the nerve to call the thing "Blockhead," everyone chuckled. Soon they watched in awe as Sunny manifested countless chains that wrapped around Goliath, and the titan actually came to a halt.
Only when a voice that sounded like Sunny but more mockingly and crazily whispered the word "Useless" in his ear did the chains around one of Goliath's legs snap, and it shot forward, hitting Sunny.
Some people in the audience gasped while others covered their mouths to hold back a laugh. They all had a lot of questions, of course, which Sunny had to answer.
"Naturally."
After explaining what the Sin of Solace was and how he even survived the kick of a titan, everyone was actually more confused than before. The rest of the evening went on with different wishes from people. Everyone wanted to know how their first meeting with Sunny went. Some of those were funny, while others were confusing or just crazy.
When most of the people had left, it was just his whole cohort along with Alya, Gean, Rain, Rick, and Mordy left.
"Now the last thing I'm gonna show you is a special kind of one. Most of you already know how it happened, but none of you has actually seen it."
What Sunny had chosen to show them next was a memory that had been burned into his mind. A scene he will never forget and will forever be reminded of until he finally gets his fate back. The end of their third nightmare played on the canvas, and everyone was watching it closely.
He had chosen to spare them with the conversation he had with Cassie and focused solely on everything that happened from the moment he got rid of the Sin of Solace. Seeing him talk seemingly to himself but from the future was interesting. Not even Sunny knew what to conclude out of this conversation, so he showed it to the others in hope that they could. But of course, there wasn't much. In the end, the canvas showed the famous vile thieving bird tearing at Sunny's chest. The screams of pain he let out made all of them shudder.
For the last part of this scene, he skipped to something that Nephis could actually remember. It was him rushing at her, full of excitement, and her eyes full of confusion staring back at him. He had lived through this scene in his nightmares ever since more than once, and the words he said at the end with a bitter laugh were, "I'm free."