This chapter has some time jumps as nothing really interesting would have during that time. Besides just some relatively easy fights.
Again some cringe moments in this one but it's part of the growing process.
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The rest of their stay passed in a gentle rhythm—quiet, uneventful, and strangely soothing. There were still a few highlights, of course. The riddles he'd challenged the cohort with had sparked laughter and light-hearted debates, while his first proper sparring session with Nephis had turned into something of a spectacle. A moment of pride, truthfully. Being recognized by the best swordswoman he knew wasn't something he took lightly.
And it *had* been something to behold—Changing Star's fighting style, fluid as water, shifting and graceful as ever, met the formless elegance of his Shadow Dance in a clash of blades and movement. Her longsword shimmered like silver lightning against the dusk-colored arc of his otachi. They had both fought without enchantments, without tricks—just raw technique and instinct. The Honor Bound remained sheathed, of course. A single strike from those monstrous blades would've shattered her sword. But that didn't matter. It wasn't about who was stronger. It was a dance of equals. A silent conversation in steel.
Afterward, the three of them—he, Nephis, and Cassie—had ended up sprawled beneath a shaded overhang, still catching their breath, exchanging stories, memories, and half-spoken thoughts that never would've found voice in front of the others. It was easy with them. Effortless. Familiar in a way that felt like coming home.
He'd missed them both more than he'd let himself admit.
Which was exactly why, that night, he'd quietly handed night watch duty to Kai and Harus without so much as a glance back.
He fell asleep surrounded by warmth.
Cassie had resumed her favorite position—curled half-on top of him like he was her personal mattress—and somehow, in her sleep, she'd dragged Nephis along too. The silver-haired heiress now slept on his other side, one hand lightly brushing his shoulder, her breath slow and even. The three of them were tangled together, all soft limbs and shared heat beneath a battered woolen blanket, as if the world hadn't torn itself to pieces around them.
He hadn't realized how starved he was for that kind of closeness—how much he'd missed the weight of Cassie against his chest, or the subtle comfort of Nephis just being near.
Of course, the morning that followed had… complications.
He woke up in stages: warmth, breath, the soft press of a thigh over his hip—and then the sharp awareness of something else. A certain involuntary reaction to the situation.
Cassie was still sleeping peacefully, her cheek resting against his collarbone, arms loosely wrapped around him. But his body had very much noticed her presence. And was very much responding.
Sunny froze, his face burning.
'Not intentional. Definitely not intentional. Just biology,' he told himself firmly. Just a normal, healthy reaction from a young man waking up wrapped in two beautiful women. Nothing more.
Cassie, mercifully, didn't stir. Or—if she did notice—chose not to say anything. She simply nestled closer, as if she belonged there. As if it was the most natural thing in the world.
Nephis stirred briefly, murmured something too quiet to catch, and shifted her arm across his stomach before settling again.
He lay there for a while, trying very hard not to think too much. Not about the heat, or the softness, or the faint scent of Cassie's hair, or the subtle curve of Nephis's hip against his side.
Eventually, things… calmed down. Physically, at least.
But part of him stayed awake long after that. Listening to their breaths. Counting their heartbeats. Trying to hold on to the moment a little longer before the day could take it away.
Later, they resumed their march southward. The first stretch of the journey wasn't so bad—the spiders still trailing them seemed almost banal to him.
But by the time they reached the headless colossus that loomed like a half-forgotten god over the desolate ruins, the creatures' behavior had grown… unsettling. Obscene, even. Sunless found himself grimacing more than once, especially when he caught Harus muttering vague curses under his breath.
Especially after finding the dead body of someone he could recognize from the Academy inside the egg sacks.
Still, the next two nights passed without incident. And again, both evenings, he found himself settling down beside Cassie and Nephis. It was unspoken, easy.
Cassie never asked for permission. She just laid against him like she belonged there, fingers curled in his cloak , body pressed close. Nephis didn't say much either—just slid down beside them, silent as always, her presence steady and grounding.
It wasn't anything. Just sharing warmth.
Just the need for something known, he told himself.
'*'
An animated giant statue was not something Sunny had expected.
Sure, he had known Cassie and Nephis would find a way to reach the last resting place of the First Bright Lord—but he hadn't been involved in the planning of the expedition. Not really. His time had been consumed by other responsibilities: strategizing the coming assault on the Crimson Spire, and doing everything in his power to ensure that whatever awaited them back on Earth wouldn't spiral into catastrophe.
...And now, here they were, riding across the cursed sea on the neck of a colossus.
The colossus strode through the pitch-dark waves with agonizing purpose, its chest parting the black water like a blade through silk. The six humans were huddled on the narrow platform formed by its severed neck, clinging to the time-worn stone as the ancient titan swayed with each titanic step. Furious winds howled around them, spraying cold seawater into their faces and clawing at their clothes. It was like standing on the prow of a ship being devoured by a storm—except the ship was headless, and made of stone.
Nephis had long since extinguished her flames. The world around them was suffocatingly dark, the kind of darkness that pressed in from all directions and gnawed at the edges of sanity. Only Sunny could see anything at all, and so his role had become painfully clear: the cohort's only eyes.
He held fast, shadows anchoring him to the slick stone, his expression carved from grim determination. There was no room for fear. No room for hesitation. There was only one question echoing in his mind:
Would they make it in time?
The opposite shore was drawing near—or so he hoped. Crumbling remnants of the ancient bridge jutted from the sea, marking the end of the canyon. But the waves were rising faster than the colossus could walk. Far too fast.
"Sunny?!"
Effie's voice cut through the roar of the sea. He turned his head slightly, bracing himself against the gust.
"Prepare yourselves! We're going under! A few minutes, at least!"
The responses came as shouted curses and half-panicked groans.
Unseen by any of them, Sunny allowed himself a grim, wicked smile.
This would be his second descent into the cursed sea. A return to the darkness where men drowned and monsters slept. He couldn't help but think of Gunlaug. Wasn't this how the man had begun his rise to the throne of the Dark City?
Maybe Sunny would be king one day.
"...Now!"
The water surged. The shoulders of the colossus sank into the sea. The circular platform tilted beneath them, rising one final time before vanishing beneath the waves.
The cold struck like a slap. The salt burned. The pressure crushed against their chests.
Then the darkness swallowed them whole.
They clung to the stone, desperate to keep from being swept away. A single misstep would doom them. Even their strength—inhuman, as some of theirs was—meant little against the will of the cursed sea.
Sunny closed his eyes. Not that it mattered. Even with his gift, there was nothing to see in that suffocating abyss. Instead, he relied on his Shadow Sense, extending his awareness into the vast, oppressive dark, feeling for anything that moved.
All he could do now was endure.
His lungs burned. Even though he didn't require air to live—not with [Trinity]—his body hadn't forgotten what it meant to drown. Pain bloomed in his chest like fire.
'Damnation…'
If *he* was struggling, the others had to be far worse off. They needed to breathe.
Then he felt it.
One of the six shadows slipped.
Kai.
'Crap!'
Thank the gods for his soft heart—the archer had, before their descent, tied himself to Cassie with a length of the golden rope. He'd said it was to keep her safe. Now, it might've saved him.
Harus was already pulling, his skeletal arm winding the rope in like a reel. With his inhuman strength, Kai's unconscious form was a mere burden. Sunny could see him floating behind them like a broken doll, slack and helpless.
And then—impact.
The platform slammed upward with brutal force, nearly flinging Sunny from his perch. He bit back a snarl, every bone in his body screaming. The colossus was climbing. He had reached the far end of the canyon, his stone hands seizing the jagged cliffside. With a titanic groan, the statue hauled itself upward.
'Gods damn it!'
It felt like the world itself was trying to tear him apart. He wrapped two shadows around his torso, reinforcing bones and sinew, grit and muscle.
And then—light.
They broke the surface in a torrent of foam and sea spray.
Sunny gasped, the first breath in far too long. Around him, the others did the same, desperate and hoarse. Harus was already dragging Kai's body back to the center of the platform by one ankle, unbothered as always.
Sunny's eyes swept across the group. One by one, he counted them—alive, if not unharmed.
But then, his gaze drifted downward. And his body stilled.
A cold growl slipped from his lips.
Nephis turned, her voice edged with worry.
"Sunny? What is it?"
He didn't answer immediately. His eyes remained fixed on the torso of the giant, shadows writhing beneath his skin.
Finally, his voice came low and sharp, carrying like a warning across the platform:
"Something big and ugly decided to hitch a ride with us."
And in the black water below, something vast stirred.
'*'
The colossus emerged from the tumultuous depths like a titan reborn, rivers of black water cascading from its towering stone form. Each movement of the ancient giant sent tremors through the platform atop its severed neck, where the cohort clung to the swaying surface. Though the cursed sea now barely reached the statue's abdomen, Sunny knew it was only a temporary reprieve. Soon, the water would rise again—hungry, relentless—and the colossus would once more be submerged to its shoulders.
Which meant he didn't have much time.
Clinging flat against the colossus's broad stone chest, an unwelcome passenger had revealed itself. At first glance, it resembled some sick hybrid of a translucent jellyfish and an eel, grotesquely elegant and gleaming like a wet wound. But Sunny's sharp eyes saw deeper—entombed within its glistening flesh, suspended like a damned soul in amber, was the twisted skeleton of a massive humanoid creature. The sight of it triggered a visceral revulsion.
He gagged, despite himself.
Compared to the stone behemoth, the thing seemed small, but that was an illusion. In truth, the creature was as large as a train, its gaping jaws rimmed with curved fangs long enough to pierce a man clean through. It could swallow someone whole—and it had undoubtedly done so in the past.
"Curses," Sunny muttered, his lip curling.
The one scrap of comfort was that the monster didn't seem to be Corrupted. It was merely Fallen—though nothing about it felt merciful. Likely, it survived by leeching from even greater horrors, a scavenger of the deep that clung to predators like barnacles to whales.
The moment Nephis spoke, Sunny noticed the long feelers of the thing twitch and undulate. It was listening. Worse, it was reacting. The eel turned slightly, not yet aggressive, but alert. Then, when Sunny answered Nephis, the feelers rippled again. The abomination rotated fully, and its eyeless face tilted toward them.
"Crap…" he hissed.
Without warning, tendrils slithered from beneath its grotesque body, slipping into cracks in the colossus's weathered stone. It began to pull itself upward, inching toward the neck.
Toward them.
Something in Nephis must have sensed it, because pale sparks ignited in her eyes, a flicker of fire yearning to bloom. But Sunny reached out and pressed a firm hand to her shoulder, shaking his head.
"Don't."
The tone left no room for argument. Lighting a beacon in the cursed sea would be suicide. The cohort had agreed—fire was the last resort, the signal of no return. Once it was lit, there would be no shadows to hide in. Only battle, blood, and death.
They weren't there. Not yet.
"I'll handle it," Sunny said grimly, stepping away.
The monster was his to deal with.
He didn't waste time. First, he summoned a bow—just an Awakened Memory, gifted to him during his time with the Host. Nothing extravagant, but it had a single, potent enchantment: it could accelerate projectiles far beyond what its simple design suggested. Then, he summoned something far deadlier—[Blood Debt], the Ascended-grade arrows he'd earned after slaying the Corpse Eater.
He leapt down.
Sliding across the rain-slick stone, Sunny caught himself on the colossus's shoulder with one hand, barely avoiding a plunge into the churning waves below. To his right, the giant's arm swung ponderously. To his left, the collar of its stone-carved tunic stretched across the chest in an elegant curve—a narrow path leading to the creature.
He sprinted across the slick stone, every step a battle to stay upright. Below, the grotesque monster dragged its enormous mass upward, closer and closer. Sunny's sharp eyes picked out every nightmarish detail—flesh like boiling jelly, bones like warped ivory beneath.
He grimaced. "What the hell. Why does everything have to be so disgusting?"
Then, with a dry chuckle, he raised the bow. "I'm doing you a favor. Nothing that ugly should be allowed to suffer."
Drawing the string back, Sunny wrapped all four of his shadows around the arrow and let it fly.
The black shaft shot forward like a streak of vengeful lightning. It struck precisely where the eye socket of the entombed skull would be—if the thing had any eyes at all.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Sunny's gut clenched. Was there even blood to drain? He prepared to leap into melee if necessary—then the creature convulsed.
With a grotesque wheeze, the abomination's translucent flesh shriveled. The watery body deflated like a punctured bladder, collapsing in on itself until only the deformed skull remained. It peeled from the stone and plummeted into the dark sea below.
Just before it vanished into the depths, the spell's cold voice echoed in Sunny's mind:
**[You have slain a Fallen Monster: Forlorn Paradise.]**
**[Your shadow grows stronger.]**
Sunny exhaled through his nose, tension bleeding from his shoulders. No new Memory, sadly… but the odds were never high.
'*'
In the grey hush of morning, Sunny did nothing at all. He simply sat where he was, his back against the cool stone, and let his eyes wander across the endless vistas of the Labyrinth.
Bleak? Yes. Monotonous? Absolutely. But there was still a strange, haunting beauty to this accursed land. The Forgotten Shore stretched before him like a dream gone sour—a canvas painted in somber greys and violent crimsons. Above, the overcast sky loomed vast and lightless, a permanent shroud of ash-colored clouds. Below, the land was carved from blackened earth, its every hill and crag a silhouette against the eerie glow of the coral sea.
A sea that didn't shimmer or sparkle like any ocean he remembered. No, it bled—a jagged expanse of twisting, knife-like coral blades the color of fresh wounds. Even now, they swayed gently in an unseen current, brushing against the distant ruins like some living thing. The beauty of it all was grim, dangerous… and utterly enthralling.
Sunny found himself staring longer than he meant to.
The Forgotten Shore was many things. Wretched. Deadly. Unknowable. But it was also fascinating. Even if most of his "explorations" ended in some miserable creature dying beneath his blade, there was something deeply satisfying in the act of uncovering its mysteries. In his own morbid way, he *was* a passionate explorer.
Out there, scattered across the horizon, lay secrets begging to be unearthed. Towering skeletons of titanic beasts, their weathered bones marked with signs of forgotten wars. Shattered hulls of enormous vessels, half-submerged in black silt and coral, their innards torn out by things long gone. Gaping abyssal pits, where even shadows feared to linger. He saw things he could not name, things that defied description—twisted silhouettes and impossible structures half-swallowed by time and curse.
He even glimpsed the remains of ancient cities, now nothing but vague impressions in the coral—arches and spires barely recognizable beneath the crimson overgrowth. Once proud, now nameless. No one remembered them. No one mourned them.
Perhaps they had thrived once, alongside the Dark City—or perhaps they came before. It hardly mattered. The sea had claimed them, and time had finished what the curse began. Only the cursed capital remained, stubborn in its slow decay. A last bastion of humanity—or what was left of it.
Sunny exhaled softly. He didn't feel sentimental. Just… aware. Aware that all things fell, no matter how high they stood.
His idle reverie was interrupted when Cassie suddenly turned toward the south, her blind eyes narrowing with unease. The abrupt motion pulled Sunny's attention instantly. His sense of dread sparked like flint.
Nephis turned to her, voice low but sharp.
"Cassie? Do you feel something?"
The Oracle tilted her head slightly, her brow furrowing in thought.
"I… think a storm is coming," she said, uncertain.
Sunny glanced up at the ever-dreary sky. Still the same washed-out grey, heavy with cloud but giving no obvious warning. No rumble of thunder. No wind yet. Just that strange, suffocating quiet.
But he believed her. Storms on the Shore came with no warning. One moment the world was dead and still—next, the heavens screamed and the sea came to devour everything in its path.
If Cassie said a storm was coming, then a storm *was* coming.
'Damn.'
It meant everything would get worse. The cursed sea would rise early. Rain, lightning, creatures driven mad by whatever passed for instinct in this place. Winds powerful enough to rip them off the shoulders of a moving colossus.
Nephis braced herself. "You heard her. Prepare—"
"Wait," Cassie interrupted, her voice taut. "There's something else."
The group froze.
"You're sensing another threat?" Nephis asked.
Cassie frowned, her head tilting again. "No… not sensing. I just… I *hear* something. A rustling."
A rustling.
Everyone went still.
Sunny's breath hitched faintly, his body tensing. The word conjured something wrong in his mind—something that didn't belong in the silence of the Shore.
Then, Kai reacted. He turned so fast it made Sunny flinch, summoning his bow with wide, panicked eyes. A black blur shot through the air.
A loud *thud* rang out as something slammed into the platform, the force of the impact sending cracks across the stone. A high-pitched screech followed—brief and ugly.
A black arrow protruded from the twitching corpse.
Sunny's heart jumped. The thing had been in a dive. Another second, and it might have torn someone off the platform.
The creature looked like a giant locust, its chitinous body black and gleaming. Thin wings buzzed and flailed even in death, gusting wind around them. Nephis didn't wait—she stormed forward, grabbed the thrashing corpse, and hurled it into the abyss below.
Kai was already preparing another shot.
Sunny blinked, brain catching up.
'Why is he—'
"Swarms!" Kai shouted, eyes still wide. "These things hunt in *swarms*! Get ready!"
Sunny was already moving, summoning [Honor Bound] and the Stone Saint in one smooth motion. The rustling was louder now—coming from *everywhere*, like a storm of wings.
A black dot fell from the sky—then another. And another.
Effie's spear streaked through the air, impaling the first. The creature exploded into wet shards midair.
She barely had time to dismiss her weapon before more came.
Kai loosed another arrow. Harus roared, his chains lashing out—cutting, crushing.
"Cassie!" Nephis shouted, sword raised. "Wind!"
Flinching, the blind girl raised her hands. White sparks danced around her fingers, a shape beginning to form—wooden, familiar.
The Quiet Dancer and Bold Hoofer launched from her side like arrows, intercepting a locust in midair and piercing it clean through.
Then came the shield. Razor shards of enchanted metal formed around Cassie, spinning like a miniature maelstrom—waiting to slice anything that came too close.
And finally, with a rush, her staff pulsed and released a gale.
Wind tore upward into the sky, disrupting the flight of the approaching swarm. Wings faltered. Bodies twisted off-course.
One, crippled by the gust, crashed onto the platform and lunged at Sunny.
He moved on instinct, blade flashing. The locust's head flew from its shoulders.
…But its momentum carried it forward anyway. The chitinous mass slammed into Sunny, sending him staggering.
His Ascended armor took the brunt of it.
He swore under his breath—then froze, eyes going wide.
In the chaos, he had glanced down.
And what he saw below made his blood stir.
From the winding paths of the Labyrinth, countless dark shapes were emerging… crawling, leaping, scaling the towering stone form of the colossus.
The real fight was only just beginning.