Chapter 26: [26]Sea of Nightnares
Sunny woke up in the night close to dawn from Cassie. Indeed, she dreamt of the horror of the Soul Devourer. She tried to warn him to pay attention to the attributes, but Sunny just said he knew about the tree's mind attacks and that he was going to get them out of here. She quickly forgot about her worries, as did Nephis, but Sunny cursed himself for letting himself fall asleep.
When dawn finally broke, Sunny had them all climb down the tree. This time, Sunny had Neph's support mostly, because she wasn't too far gone yet.
There were spire messengers circling overhead in the far distance, but Sunny and Gloomy paid it no mind. The things wouldn't dare come to the Soul Devourer on their own anyway.
"Listen, Neph, we need to build a boat. It should be made out if the demon's carcass."
"What? Don't tell me. . . "
"We need to get out of here Nephis. It's only going to get harder by the day to go west if you don't build the boat."
Nephis still had confusion and tension in her eyes. Still, she went back to the carapace demon and began to cut apart its metal shell. Just as before, Sunny spent the day gathering the fat of the carapace demon and as many leaves as he could.
There was a lot more fat left over in the body of the demon, because it had not been left out in the sun for a month.
Cassie was mostly fine on dried strip meat rations for now, despite her occasional complaint for a fruit from the Soul Devourer. Sunny paid that no mind.
Nephis finished the small boat at a much faster pace than she had before Sunny regressed. It was mostly thanks to her using her Aspect for a split second every once in a while, and the fact that she was not as mentally clouded by a month of being near the tree.
The boat and the flame timer were done by evening. Everything was going according to plan. There was just one detail left.
"Swap clothes between the two of you."
Nephis and Cassie blinked, and looked at him with confused eyes.
"I can only augment Memories of myself, and Nephis, who the Spell treats as an extension of me. We'll need to augment the enemy camoflauging effect of the outfit, so Cassie needs to trade clothes with one of us."
They realized that Sunny was maximizing their survival chances, and Cassie found herself wearing the seaweed like material of the under armor for the Starlight Legion Armor.
Nephis wore the unassuming tunic belonging to the Memory she had earned in her first nightmare. She was busy fashioning the seawave colored cloak into a sail.
"It's strange. Not matter what the two of you wear, you both always seem to look good in it."
Nephis turned to Sunny for a moment. Then, she turned away and smirked.
"Funny thing you should say that. You don't look half bad either, even in your birthday suit."
Pfft!
"Damnation, forget that! Neph, come on, forget you ever saw that!"
Nephis kept her little smirk on her face as she finally finished the boat's readiness.
As the dark night approached them, Naephis lied to Cassie about leaving and coaxed her into the boat. Sunny finally lit the homemade candle and returned to help Nephis push the surprisingly well made boat into the water.
Sunny and the girls made their escape into the cold waters of the dark sea, with the wind blowing staff pushing air into their improvised and augmented sail.
Once they made it into the distance by a ways, the Soul Devourer was lit ablaze. Cassie shuddered, finally fully free from the hex.
She turned and hugged Nephis for support. Nephis hugged her back, and Sunny had to be the one to remind her to focus on sending air into the sail. That did not stop the two from hugging the whole boat ride. Cassie just used the staff with Nephis sort of hugging her from behind.
It was a sort of ridiculous posture, but Sunny was happy that they were okay.
***
As it turns out, Sunny was an idiot. He was the worst kind of psychotic retard and he was regretted ever trying sail on this sea. Why?
Sunny's shadow sense was now much, much more potent than before. This meant that Sunny could send his senses deeper into the waters of the dark sea, and he really didn't like what he realized.
Fallen and Corrupted creatures too horrible to describe flashed by underneath them almost constantly.
Sunny was at his wits end sailing through the night, towards the dark city.
'Shark-like, squid-like, oh, that one is like a giant piranha.'
Sunny was most wary, however of what he couldn't sense. Every once in a while, Sunny felt something like a dark spot appear in his shadow sense where he should have been able to sense empty water.
Sunny knew that those things were creatures aligned to pure elemental darkness, or were something even more horrible. He did not want to find out.
Sunny kept steering the seemingly flimsy boat towards the dark city. Seconds turned into minutes, and those turned into hours. Sunny sailed swiftly and kept somehow avoiding detection of the awful sea creatures.
Finally, after enduring the sea for what felt like forever, Sunny saw the familiar stone hand rising out of the water, far into the distance. Sunny paid extra attention to the shadows, on extra high alert because of what happened to their boat last time, but no such incident happened.
The three of them made it to the stone hand of the statue, and Sunny could see the wall of the dark city in the distance.
Sunny had them abandon the boat here, because it was almost morning. Cassie used the wind of the staff to blow air through the sail of the boat, pushing it away from them quite a bit.
Once the three of them were situated on the statue, away from the water, the girls made Sunny and Gloomy turn away, and then they traded their armor back.
***
When morning came, Sunny and the girls watched as their boat was rushed away by the tide, and then caused to be pulled into the seemingly endless pit.
Sunny sighed. It had been a miracle the thing wasn't attacked.
In other news, Nephis and Cassie could now see the dark city beyond the labyrinth. They were excited to move on, but Sunny held them back. The three of them were damaged and tired, and they had just survived a harrowing journey through the labyrinth, so Sunny made them wait with him as he charted the course of their last stretch through the coral labyrinth.
The day passed quickly, especially after Sunny explained the path they would have to take to make it to the walls of the dark city.
Sunny had slept through the better half of the day, so he ended up on most of the night watch. Luckily, nothing strange happened, and the night passed too.
When morning finally came, the three of them crawled down the statue, making sure that they wouldn't fall or anything.
They almost made it to the grey city walls before they were attacked. Sunny found a familiar looking rock creature attached to his leg.
'I'd forgotten about this guy! How cute!'
Sunny turned to Nephis. She was looking at him, a hint of amusement in her eyes.
"Do you want a pet? We can name him chomper."
Nephis looked at him strangely for a second, then she rolled her eyes and continued walking. A moment later though, she stopped and turned back to Sunny.
. . . He couldn't cut the rocky monster. In fact, he had just broken the Azure Blade again trying.
'Damnation, again?'
Sunny looked at Nephis with a helpless expression.
She sighed, shook her head, and walked over to him. Then, she put her hand on his shoulder, and transferred the Midnight Shard over to him.
Sunny stared in her eyes for a second, muttered his thanks, and then summoned the blade. The elegant black Tachi was just as he remembered.
He augmented it with his shadow, and stabbed it into the creature, ending its existence.
[You have slain an awakened monster, Rolling Stone.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[You have received a Memory, Ordinary Rock]
Sunny chuckled.
"Do you want the sword back? It comes free with a rock."
Nephis tilted her head. Sunny found it cute.
"A rock?"
"I just received a Memory called the Ordinary Rock."
Nephis shook her head.
"Keep those, the sword is a gift. You know, for letting me borrow an armor, and then giving me another."
Sunny nodded his head.
"Then, let's hurry up and climb up this wall."
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone