Every muscle in their bodies ached. Exhaustion pressed down on them like a heavy weight, but Sunny and Nephis still managed to drag themselves toward Cassie before collapsing onto the ground beside her. The air was thick with tension, laced with the fading remnants of adrenaline.
Sunny took a deep, steadying breath before turning to Cassie.
"Cassie? Do you feel better?"
The question hung between them for several seconds. Finally, the blind girl gave a slow, hesitant nod.
'That's a relief…'
Even so, she didn't look well. Her face was almost ghostly pale, and her usually serene expression was clouded by something distant and unsettling. At least she had stopped trembling. But Sunny knew better—she was still trapped in the remnants of whatever horror she had seen.
He wasn't good at comforting people. He didn't have the right words for moments like these. But he understood one thing: distractions helped.
"Can I have some water?"
Cassie turned toward him, frowning slightly, as though confused by the request. Then, suddenly, she gasped, her sightless eyes widening.
"Oh! Oh, sorry. Yes, of course…"
With a flick of her hand, she summoned the limitless water bottle and passed it to him. Sunny accepted it with a grateful nod, bringing it to his lips and taking a few greedy gulps before handing it off to Nephis. The bottle made its way back to Cassie soon enough.
"You should drink some too," he urged.
She obeyed, taking a small sip. When she lowered the bottle, Sunny reached out and awkwardly patted her shoulder. The gesture was stiff, uncertain—comfort was not something that came naturally to him.
"Everything seems fine now. Uh… did you dream of another vision? You can tell us. If you want."
Cassie hesitated. Her fingers tightened slightly around the bottle, her breath hitching for just a moment before she whispered:
"I… don't know. Maybe it was just a nightmare."
Sunny and Nephis exchanged a look. A nightmare? That seemed unlikely. People didn't dream in the Dream Realm. Not unless it meant something.
Cassie exhaled softly.
"I don't really remember. It's all in fragments."
Sunny studied her carefully. She was rattled. He had seen her shaken before, but this was different—there was something deeply unsettled in the way she held herself. He needed to tread carefully.
"You can just tell us what you remember," he said, keeping his voice even and calm. "Maybe we'll be able to make sense of it together."
Cassie remained silent for a moment, then let out a quiet sigh. She nodded hesitantly.
When she finally spoke, her voice was almost fragile.
"At first, I saw… a boundless darkness, locked behind seven seals. Something vast was churning within it. I felt like if I looked at it directly, I would lose my mind. As I watched, terrified, the seals broke—one after another—until only one remained. And then… that seal broke, too."
Sunny felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
'The boundless darkness is probably the Dark Sea… but what are the seals?'
Cassie trembled slightly.
"After that… I don't know. It was as though my mind shattered into a thousand shards, each reflecting its own image. Most were dark and terrifying. Some, I've already forgotten. The others…"
Her words trailed off as she searched for the right way to describe what she had seen.
"I saw the human castle again. But this time, it was night. A lonely star burned in the black sky, and under its light, the castle was suddenly consumed by fire. Rivers of blood flowed down its halls. I saw a corpse in golden armor sitting on a throne… a woman with a bronze spear drowning in a tide of monsters… an archer trying to pierce the falling sky with his arrows."
Sunny listened carefully, analyzing every word.
'Obviously about the fall of the castle. But is it the past… or the future?'
'The lonely star… it could be the last one that died, leaving the sky bare. Or it's Neph—the Changing Star.'
Cassie took a shuddering breath before continuing.
"In the end, I saw a colossal, terrifying crimson spire. At its base, seven severed heads guarded seven locks. And at the top… a dying angel was being consumed by hungry shadows. When I saw the angel bleed, I suddenly felt as though… as though something so precious that it can't be described with words was taken from me."
Her voice dropped to barely a whisper.
"Then, I felt so much sorrow, pain, and rage that what little remained of my sanity seemed to disappear. That was when I woke up… I think."
Silence followed. A heavy, suffocating silence.
Sunny's mind raced.
'Shadows represent death—that was part of the Shadow God. Or… is it me? The only person with a divine Aspect related to shadows? But what is the angel? The heads… they must have something to do with the giant headless statue we're on.'
Nephis remained quiet, her expression unreadable. If she had any thoughts about the vision, she wasn't sharing them.
Sunny exhaled slowly, organizing his thoughts. He needed to break this down.
"Huh… so let's start at the beginning," he said, running a hand through his hair. "The darkness is probably the sea around us. I mean, not even I can see through it. But I have no idea what the seals are."
He frowned slightly.
"The next part… could be about the past? I mean, Cassie, you saw us entering the castle together. The star was probably the last one leaving the sky as it is now. Or it could be metaphorical… maybe even symbolic of you, Neph. Your true name does have 'star' in it."
He turned toward the silver-haired girl. She was deep in thought, her lips pressed into a thin line.
"The last part is obviously about the angel dying. Shadows equal death—at least in the culture of the Dream Realm. Or… it could have something to do with me, since I have a connection to shadows." He hesitated. "Also… there are probably six other statues like this one. The locks likely belong to the seals. But that depends on whether Cassie's visions are influenced by what she already knows."
Both girls were silent, listening intently. Neither interrupted him. Neither looked particularly thrilled by what he was saying.
Inwardly, however, Sunny felt… uneasy.
'A dying angel being consumed by shadows… why does that sound so ominous? I should try to stay away from angels in the future. Gee, what has my life become? A sentence like that doesn't even sound insane anymore…'
With that, they were finally ready to welcome a new day.
'*'
Nightmare Creatures with a single soul core were known as **beasts**—mindless, vicious, and driven solely by instinct. They were dangerous, but ultimately predictable. However, if a creature managed to develop—or was created with—a second core, it became something far worse. These were called **monsters**.
Unlike beasts, monsters possessed a warped form of intelligence. Though rudimentary, it was enough to make them infinitely deadlier. They were the next step in a Nightmare Creature's evolution, capable of strategy, deception, and an unsettling kind of malice.
And these two… they were exactly that.
At first glance, they resembled the carapace scavengers the group had encountered before, but the differences were impossible to ignore. For one, they were much larger—towering more than three meters high, their grotesque forms looming over the desolate ruins. Their armored carapace was thicker, its surface a deep, abyssal black streaked with crimson, as though soaked in centuries of blood.
Spiked protrusions jutted from their shells at dangerous angles, adding a cruel efficiency to their every movement. They carried themselves with an unnatural, predatory grace—more refined, more controlled than their lesser counterparts.
Still they did not possess the intelligence to gather Transcended soul shards.
That fact alone made Sunny and Nephis pause.
It was an important realization—one that would shape their approach moving forward. But for now, they would not act.
Before retreating, Sunny silently willed his shadow to slip away, its formless shape melting into the darkness. If they were going to face these monsters, they needed to understand them first.
And for that, they needed to watch.
'*'
Because of the shadow fragments Sunny had absorbed in the last few days, the range of Shadow Control has increased a little. However, it was still far from being enough to explore deep into the labyrinth. He only got the general direction in which the two large monsters were moving.
They were going west.
After telling this to Nephis, there was pretty much nothing else for him to do. In the end, Sunny decided to simply rest — the next day was promising to be full of hardships and danger, so it was in his best interest to let his body recover as much as it could.
Some time later, Sunny was lying on his back, staring at the grey sky. Cassie was sitting beside him, lost in her thoughts. Nephis was meditating. At least, that's what it looked like: she might as well had been asleep, for all Sunny knew.
After a while, Cassie turned to him.
"Sunny?"
He tilted his head to look at her.
"Yeah?"
The blind girl hesitated.
"Do you… do you think we'll be able to return home?"
Sunny glanced at her and furrowed his brow. A few seconds later, he turned away and looked at the sky again.
"Sure."
Cassie smiled:
"You really think so? Why?"
He sighed and tried to find the right words.
"Remember what I told you, you and Nephis are the perfect duo for this place. Combat, healing and information, that is what you need to start an expedition in to the unknown regions of the dream realm. You andNeph have all three covered."
"And you?"
"And me, what?"
Cassie suddenly giggled.
"Aren't you going to do anything? Or are you just going to be dead weight for me to lug around?"
"Of course I will do something! did you forget who your packing mule was for the last few days?"
The blind girl couldn't help but laugh. The melodic sound of her laughter made Sunny feel much better — he had not heard anything like that ever since coming to the Dream Realm. It was nice to see that people were still able to preserve a bit of mirth even in this hellish place.
It was like the first time they met in the academy, the nostalgia of the funn they had was lifting both there and mood.
After this sudden outburst, Cassia's expression slowly turned wistful. A few seconds later, she asked:
"What do you miss the most about home?"
Sunny tried to think of something, but failed. He wasn't sure that he even had a home in the real world — the tiny room he had been renting previously was nothing but a temporary shelter from the rain. As for the real world as a whole, his life there wasn't that pleasant either.
"I don't really have something that I miss."
Cassie was very surprised.
"Really? Don't you miss your family?"
Sunny smiled.
"No not really, I do have a baby sister that I want to get in touch with, but I would not call that missing as I haven't been with her for years, and you can't miss a stranger. But enough of me and my misery, tell me what you miss the most "
"I miss my family the most."
There was longing and sadness in her voice. Sunny didn't know what to say, so he stayed silent.
"Mom and dad must be really worried about me right now. No… no, actually, they wouldn't be worried. They would be heartbroken. They must think that I'm as well as dead already."
Sunny glanced at her and sighed.
"You seem to care about them a lot."
Cassie turned to him in confusion.
"Of course. Isn't it normal?"
Sunny stared at the grey sky. The wind smelled of rain.
After a while, he said:
"I wouldn't know."
'*'
After sunny and Neph finished their training , Neph and Cassie ate what remained of there rations. Cassie handed him some of her dried scavenger meat.
"You also need to eat something, sunny."
Her voice filled with worry.
"Thank Cassie but I'm not hungry, remember I don't need much to keep going."
"I know but still… you should still have something."
"Don't worry if I were hungry, you wouldn have to stop me from eating every thing ."
When the morning came and the dark sea retreated, they prepared to leave the giant statue. Nephis was the first one to climb down. Before that, she had a few words to say:
"Today will be different from before. There will be much more scavengers roaming in the labyrinth. We might not be able to create an ambush or avoid fighting several of them at once."
She looked at Sunny:
"If anything happens, your job is to bring Cassie away. We can retreat by using passages that are too narrow for the scavengers. If we get separated, proceed to the high point by yourselves. Don't wait for me. Do you understand?"
With a somber expression, he gave her a nod, that he did need to be told.Nephis returned it.
"Good. Time is of the essence, so let's go."
With that, she began the descent. After Nephis reached a point twenty or so meters below them, she found purchase and waited. Using the golden rope, Sunny lowered Cassie down. Just like while climbing up, they took turns helping the blind girl. Luckily, climbing down the statue was much easier.
Soon, they reached the ground.
Entering the labyrinth, the trio moved forward with haste. The shadow was ahead of them, scouting for monsters and optimal paths. Despite that, their progress was slow and chaotic. They had to constantly change direction to avoid groups of scavengers, often ending up in dead ends or moving further away from their destination.
It was taking sunny considerable effort as the scouts of the group to streamlined there route .
Still he could only delay the inevitable.
At some point, however, they inevitably ended up in a situation where a fight was unavoidable.
There was a large group of scavengers at their heels, and a pair of them blocking the path ahead. Neither of the two groups had noticed the Sleepers yet; however, since there were no other passages to turn into, it was only a matter of time.
Nephis considered their options for a few seconds. There was a scowl on her face. Finally, she said:
"If there's only two, we can take them."
Sunny looked at her with uncertainty in his eyes.
"But there's no time to set up an ambush."
He wasn't quite sure how they could fight two scavengers at once.His [twins bane] , was a two higher than the scavengers and sliced through them with ease, so he was not worried about his safety but rather if Neph could give him the opportunity to pounce.
Changing Star shrugged.
"It's almost the same. I'll attack first. You follow behind in the shadows and finish one off once they turn. Then, we kill the second one together."
'*'
After securing a good hiding spot for Cassie, Sunny and Nephis pressed forward, their focus locked on the battle ahead. Soon, two hulking silhouettes emerged in the distance, their monstrous forms shifting against the eerie gloom of the labyrinth.
Nephis glanced over her shoulder, her expression sharp and unwavering.
"Keep up."
Then, like a runner at the starting line, she bent one knee, drew a deep breath… and lunged forward.
'Damnation!'
Sunny's heart lurched as he bolted into the deep shadow cast by the labyrinth walls, sprinting at full speed. But no matter how fast he ran, the distance between them only grew.
For a fleeting moment, he was reminded of their first day at the Academy—walking behind her across the bridge. A familiar frustration gnawed at him.
Was this his fate? To always follow behind?
'Nah. I'm not that stupid.'
Ahead of him, Changing Star tore across the battlefield with breathtaking speed. She was practically flying, her every stride sharp and precise. One arm was stretched back, sword tip gliding just above the ground, while the other sliced through the air with each powerful step.
The two scavengers only registered her presence seconds before impact. Their monstrous eyes gleamed with madness, viscous saliva dripping from their mandibles. With piercing screeches, they charged—pincers snapping hungrily.
Nephis did not slow.
She ran straight at them, as if planning to ram the creatures head-on.
Sunny's heart skipped a beat.
Four terrifying pincers lashed toward her.
Then, at the last possible moment, Nephis let herself drop.
Her body twisted, hitting the ground at full speed, sending her sliding through the slick mud. She narrowly passed between the scavengers' legs, dodging death by the barest fraction. As she skidded, she twisted mid-slide and stabbed her sword deep into the earth, bringing herself to an abrupt stop.
Something that showed how much superior her skills was even in her sleep deprived state.
Had she been a moment slower, she would have been impaled.
But the risk had been worth it.
Her reckless maneuver had forced the scavengers apart, and more importantly, their backs were now turned toward Sunny.
The second scavenger, lagging just a fraction behind its companion, was only now beginning to turn—too late.
Sunny was already moving.
His feet carried him up a narrow protrusion along the coral wall. With a fluid motion, he jumped, shadow-wrapped dagger in hand, aiming straight for the exposed weak point at the scavenger's back.
A flicker of steel.
A wet, sickening sound.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[You have…]
The battle was over before the creatures could react.
Sunny landed lightly on the damp ground, his dagger gleaming in the faint light. Enhanced by his growing power, the Pesh-kabz had made short work of them. The increased range, up to 32 meters, and cutting strength had allowed him to exploit their weaknesses with ruthless efficiency.
Stepping over the corpses, he turned toward Nephis.
She was the stronger of the two of them, no doubt—but even she hadn't been sleeping properly these past few days. He needed to check on her.
But as he rounded the bulky carcass of the fallen scavenger, he froze.
The only thing he heard was ragged, uneven breathing.
It brought up memories of a bygone life, it seemed that the lack of sleep had coughed up to her!
Then, a voice—strained and unsteady.
"D—don't… don't come any closer."
In the eerie stillness that followed the battle, her voice sounded strange. Small. Vulnerable.
A strange pressure settled over Sunny's chest. His instincts screamed that something was wrong.
Steeling himself, he took a step forward.
Nephis stood before him, her breath still uneven from exertion. A bloody gash marred her shoulder, though it didn't look fatal.
His gaze snagged on something else.
At some point during the fight, her borrowed top had been sliced apart. It now hung in useless tatters, leaving her bare from the waist up. She held one arm tightly across her chest, pressing it against herself in a feeble attempt at modesty.
Behind that slender arm—soft, supple, and unmistakably—
'Damn!'
Sunny stared for a hot minute, as if physically struck, and whipped around so fast his neck almost snapped.
An awkward silence stretched between them.
After what felt like an eternity, Sunny forced himself to speak, his voice strained.
"Are… are you alright?"
A long pause. Then, in a quiet, subdued voice:
"Yes."
"Good. Uh… good. I'll… uh… I'll go fetch Cassie then."
"...Alright."
Feeling as if an army of nightmare creatures was **chasing him**, he stiffly walked away. Then quickened his pace. Then nearly **ran**.
Desperate to erase the **very vivid image** from his mind, Sunny hurried back to where Cassie was waiting.
By the time they returned, he had already retrieved [Mother's Maw] from his soul sea, quickly handing over a fresh tank top,cutting the sack of grain that had been infected by fungi, from [A Stubborn Legacy]. He discarded it without a second thought.
Nephis, now fully dressed again, watched with mild curiosity.
"Memory?"
He opened his mouth to say no,but the word never came out.
Because, come to think of it
When he had slain the scavengers, the Spell had said something else. At the time, he had been too focused on the fight to pay attention.
"Let me check."
Summoning the runes, he scanned the familiar cluster of his Memories.
[Silver Bell], [Puppeteers' Shroud], [Azure Blade].
Hmm. Nothing new.
Then… what had the Spell been referring to?
Sunny frowned. His gaze drifted to the adjacent cluster.
Suddenly, his eyes widened.
There, glowing faintly, was a new set of runes.
[Echoes: Carapace Scavenger.]