…After that, he drifted off to a dreamless sleep, for the first time in months.
Awaking to the rays of the bright sun, he rubbed his eyes as a yawn inevitably escaped him.
"You're awake?" A voice chirped from near him — Cassie.
He turned towards her, eyes shining with the knowledge of the human city — salvation.
She had to know.
"I had a dream last night, a dream of a human castle." He exclaimed.
Cassie didn't say anything for a while, the weight of his words sinking into her — they weren't the only ones trapped in this hopeless land, and… there could be a gateway there.
"Really?" She eventually said after some time, "Please tell me this is true Sunny! Can we… can we escape this place?"
"I— I can't be sure. My dreams, well, they're strange, inexplicable."
He slowly stood up, summoning wisdom's rod as he bathed in the warmth of the sun, looking at Cassie in return.
"But, it's better than nothing, isn't it?"
Absorbing the information from their surroundings, he found that Nephis was already awake, sitting near her seaweed bed, and staring into the distance. The sun was climbing the sky while the sea was still retreating — they had time until they had to move.
Turning over to where Nephis lay, he couldn't help but have complicated feelings about her. Over the past day of interactions, and his various dreams about the both of them, he had found out that she wasn't cold and aloof, but socially awkward.
It was something new to him at least, that the proud legacy was… well, everyone had things they weren't the best at, and for her, it seemed to be communication.
Not that he minded that of course.
As time soon passed, they devoured their breakfast, and Nephis shared her plan of their journey westward, receiving both him and Cassie's approval.
It was time for the journey westward.
—-
In the grey light of morning, they abandoned the hill, and retraced their steps from yesterday — knowing the path already, their small party made quick progress.
Nephis was walking in the front, her sword summoned, and her eyes warily scanning across the horizon. Sunny was in the middle, using wisdom's rod as a walking stick, following closely behind. While Cassie was in the back, a dagger in her hand, and her shadow roaming around, searching for any sort of threat.
They had asked him if he needed the rope to be guided, but instead he denied it, telling them his rod helped a bit with navigating, telling him all the directions he should turn to. According to Cassie, the rod was like a memory version of a certain app — one that helped with directions back in NQSC.
Well, the lie he told was that it could only tell directions, and not anything else.
It was necessary to maintain his blind, helpless image.
He… he had also decided to tell as little lies as possible — he needed the trust of both of them. He couldn't possibly survive alone after all. And… trust was built on shared secrets, so there was no other choice for him.
It was his best decision.
He had to commit to it.
Just like that, the cautious advance continued. Cassie's shadow, gloomy, scouted the area, and whenever a Scavenger was detected, they would plan their route ahead, trying to avoid as much fighting as possible.
But…
Even that had its limits.
Soon, they would be cornered into a fight.
And, he would have to hide behind something, and let them handle it.
Like the speak of the devil, it wasn't long before Cassie suddenly stopped, her eyes zooming in and staring at the turn they were about to take.
"We can't avoid it, there's only one scavenger though. What do you think, Neph?"
Nephis was silent, calculating any route they could take out — none. They were forced to take this road, it was the fastest way towards the distant statue. It would be risky to try anything more.
"...We'll face it. Remember the plan."
Sunny nodded, and prepared himself to hide — he couldn't interrupt, he would only be a burden.
It tasted bitter to his lips.
The section in front of them was quite the clearing, certainly large enough for a fight. The plan was for Nephis to take the attention — she had armor, a sword, and the best chance of survival. Cassie would dive into the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to strike with her dagger, and end the Scavenger's life.
It was a plan that, according to Cassie, had served them well in the past.
He could not interrupt.
There was nothing he could do. Sunny was useless here.
He had to rely on someone else.
…A pang of unrest grew in his heart.
Relying on someone…?
He had decided to do it for survival, but— it was affecting him more than he thought.
He gritted his teeth, he'll live through it. Soon, when he—
'That's right, no matter what I do, I'll always be blind.'
He'll always be blind — useless, hopeless, relying on someone.
He could never do something entirely by himself ever again.
They turned another corner, and he had to force himself to walk, to forget about his helplessness here.
Soon the clearing was in sight, along with the gruesome face of the Scavenger, who was still roaming slowly, its eyes blurry and unfocused, unaware of the threat in front of it.
A single command from Nephis, and they all moved to their respective spots — Cassie darting straight for the shadows, he cautiously running to a coral blade, while Nephis swung her sword, slowly walking towards it.
They were careful to make no sound.
And so they waited for it to walk into their trap.
One step, another; one more, a low screech.
A raise of a hand; a silver blade of light.
Thump, thump, he could hear his heart beat.
A glimmer of darkness; a dagger of shadow.
Noise overrode his dark world.
A rod of wisdom; a necessary flight.
A nod of heads; a movement of the sword.
Loud footsteps thumped the earth.
Loud screeches.
Loud shouts.
He summoned sloth — he needed to know what was happening.
A silver string appeared in front of him, and he grabbed it, forcing it to descend into his soul.
The darkness parted, and colour returned to him.
He could see now, he would know. What was happening.
The first thing his eyes landed on was the flutter of a silver mane — Nephis.
She was practically dancing, evading all the strikes of the Scavenger with effortless grace. As her sword parried attacks she couldn't block, or didn't afford to.
On her face, not a single shred of worry lay, her eyes were focused, still, on the actions of the Scavenger.
She was doing her job. It really was alright.
A second later, the Scavenger made an attack, swinging its pincer impressively onto the ground.
It was fast, precise, and most importantly, this was a healthy, breathing Scavenger. It wasn't hurt, unlike the one Sunny had faced last time.
Its attacks were like a flash of lightning — fast, unpredictable.
How Nephis could parry them and keep up with it was unthinkable to him. For even if he still had his sight, he would never be able to replicate that.
She wasn't even using her Aspect.
To say he was stunned would be an understatement, but… this was Changing Star, what else should he expect from her, the Sleeper who had obtained her True Name.
He could never be like that.
Nephis jumped back, and a flurry of movement erupted from the corner of his eyes.
A jump. A leap. An attack.
Cassie.
She leapt from the shadows, dagger in her hand, blue eyes impossibly deep.
She closed the distance almost immediately, landing on top of the carapace with a graceful roll, and raised her dagger.
A thrust. That was all it took.
The azure dagger slipped into a crack, and soon, the Scavenger stilled, before it fell onto the ground.
The fight was over. Just like that.
And Sunny had been worrying, worrying over nothing.
His only job was to stay still.
With that, the ethereal string left his core, and darkness once again consumed him.
There was nothing he could do.
He wasn't worth anything.
—-
Cassie dismissed the Azure Dagger, panting as she regained her bearings.
The Scavenger was dead. They had to continue westward.
"It's over…" She muttered, turning to Nephis in a plight to see if she was alright.
And indeed, Changing Star had already recovered, stabbing her blade into the insides of the Scavenger, digging for its soul shards, cutting into its meat.
Looking over to the coral blade at the side, Cassie quickly caught sight of Sunny, rushing over to check if anything had happened.
The blind boy was leaning against the wall, his eyes staring downward, like he wasn't in this world.
"Sunny, are you alright?" She asked, curious, "The fight's over."
He flinched, lifting his head in shock, looking around with a whip of his head, his expression betraying a sense of urgency within him. In a flash of an eye, those all changed, and soon, a weary smile was on his lips.
"Yeah, I'm fine. You should be worrying about yourself. Did anything special happen?"
At that moment, Sunny seemed so ordinary, as ordinary as a blind person could ever be. Staring at her with his blank eyes, a tired expression on his face, and a confused tone.
But she knew better.
Cassie knew that he could somewhat see — how else would he have defeated the monster before?
It was his secret to tell though, and she wouldn't want to ruin their friendship.
Sunless was more trustworthy than Changing Star.
So she wouldn't question why he was leaning on something, why he wasn't aware of her, why he didn't seem to be on this shore just a moment ago.
Cassie would stay silent, keeping this information safe in her mind.
She wouldn't betray him, unless it was for his own good.
'Heh. What am I thinking again? That wouldn't happen.'
Well, she would never know what the future held.
Cassie smiled at Sunny, answering his earlier question.
"Not really. Everything was fine."
"Yeah right. With all that thumping and sounds that you guys caused, who wouldn't be worried?" He snorted.
"I didn't have much to do, Nephis was the one doing all the work."
She said, looking into the sky with a faraway expression.
"Come on then, Nephis is almost done with butchering the carcass, we'll have to leave soon."
Sunny gave her a nod, before following behind her, the strange walking stick tapping onto the floor yet again.
Yes, they still had to go westward. She could think about everything once they were safe.
—-
And so, they made their way towards the headless statue. The path was smooth, as they encountered no Scavengers, and made it to the statue before sundown.
Currently, Sunny was being transported up the statue by the rope Memory Nephis had, being pulled by both of them onto the statue.
Well, he couldn't possibly climb up himself.
'Why did I have to make myself so weak…' He sighed, as they tiredly pulled him up, 'I even memorized the exact footings of the statue!'
He was in no place to complain though, it wasn't like he was the one giving effort .
After a while, the cohort reached the top, all of them breathing a sigh of relief. They had made it. Just in time.
Sunset came a few minutes later. And a deep rumble emitted from the earth. The dark sea was back, swallowing everything in its sight.
Silently, the group ate the dried strips of Scavenger meat, and passed the Endless Spring around — they couldn't possibly light a fire now that the night was imminent.
As they finished their meal, Changing Star took out the spoils of their journey. Without a word, she split two of them for Cassie and took two for herself. Then, she gave one to Sunny.
"Your share." She simply said when he asked what the thing in front of him was.
Sunny was confused. He didn't do anything, why would she give him a soul shard?
"Why?" He questioned her, unease laced in his tone, "I didn't do anything to help."
Nephis stared at him, as if confused by his question.
"You contributed in your own way. Without you, we wouldn't know where to go."
"I didn't kill the scavenger!" Sunny insisted, "And… my visions aren't that useful."
Sure, if it were any normal circumstance, he wouldn't say no to a free meal. But for Nephis to be this generous? It would be suspicious, and he had long learnt to never trust anything someone gave to him — there was always their will behind such an action.
Everyone was for themselves.
So… why would Nephis give him something so precious?
"Don't you want to grow strong?" She asked, tilting her head.
"Of course I want to! But it would be more useful for you to take it!"
Nephis was silent for quite some time, as if thinking about the meaning of his words.
"It would be," She eventually said, "But only in the short term. In the long term, it would be best for everyone to be strong."
"...You need it more than me," Sunny answered in reply, "What long term if we die!? It's better to think of now than the future!"
"Why would we?" The silver haired girl asked, "Why would we die?"
"But those were Awakened Beasts just now! A Sleeper shouldn't face something like that! We could die!" He argued, swinging his hand as if expressing his point.
"We won't die," Changing Star said, silver flames dancing in her eyes, her voice full of authority — like she was proclaiming something, "For if it were our will, who dares stop us?"
Her silver hair was flying, the soft breeze of the Forgotten Shore lifting it up, into the dark, dark sky, as if telling the world that this girl — no, Sleeper — would yearn for a forgotten dream, no matter who dared to stand in her way.
At this moment, at least to Sunny, Nephis was like a goddess, with flames of her will blazing in her eyes.
…It awakened something deep within him, something that he never knew, something that he lost with a part of him being taken.
Hunger. Greed. But more importantly, spite.
As a mundane human, he had braved the horrors of an impossible nightmare, sacrificing himself on the altar for a dead god, killing an Awakened Tyrant — not for survival, but for spite.
He swore to spite the world. But was he really doing that? Had he repaid fate for what it had done?
No! No! No! Never once had he truly committed to it, never once had he tried.
It was like the boy who cried wolf all over again, not that he knew what it was, but it was all the same.
He talked of something great. Something better.
But what had he done to achieve that?
Nothing.
Except for blaming the Spell of his blindness.
He wasn't trying anything, he was only making excuses push his goal away from him.
Did he have to remind himself again? About the barely survived encounter with the Carapace Scavenger?
Cassie and Nephis had killed one breathlessly, and it wasn't even injured.
'Face it Sunny, you're weak! There's nothing you can do but accept the mercy of Changing Star.'
Grumpingly, he took the soul shard in front of him, and crushed it. Feeling the essence of the Awakened Beast seep deep into his soul.
[Your Revelations grow stronger.]
The Spell whispered, its tone joyful, as if telling him to stop being so gloomy.
It was pissing him off, but was there anything he could do?
With the state he was now, he could only begrudgingly accept her mercy, and wait until the day he could repay his debts.
Author's Note:
So yeah this makes up for the chapter I scheduled next week, I'm not doing that. And uhh to ease the burden schedules have on my writing, I have decided that I'll release 3 chapters or more monthly (for example the next time I'm releasing will be 1/5 since this counts as April's quota)
Anyways, the only way to unlock early chapters is for this fic to reach 50 more kudos on ao3 (241 rn) and 5 reviews (I think there's 4) on webnovel and I'll release the stacked chapter (I currently have none so complete the task slowly I beg you).
If you guys somehow completed the task and I posted a chapter, and then proceeds to complete it again before the start of May, I'll release another chapter. Basically, early chapters will be released as soon as there's 50 more kudos and 5 more reviews.
That's all :D
Oh and the soul shard thing will be explained later, please do share your thoughts on the new fighting style in ch 10.
Join my server if you want to help beta read: https://discord.gg/CEnUVN9uJs