As soon as the monsters came back to the carcass, with a few stragglers lagging behind, the two sleepers made their move.
They began descending the titanic statue, a task which proved perilous almost immediately. The coral-encrusted surface was slick and jagged, riddled with uneven grooves that offered treacherous footing.
Fortunately, Teacher Julius was relentless in his teachings and insisted that they learn all forms of traversal, including rock climbing. By choosing the least hazardous paths and testing the safest footholds - they managed the descent. So although the climb was difficult it was by no means impossible.
More so for Sunny, who had the aid of his shadow augmenting him. Yoru on the other hand, almost suffered a fatal fall several times. More than once, his foot slipped on wet coral, sending his heart lurching into his throat as he scrambled to catch himself.
Once they reached the bottom, Sunny quickly sent his shadow forward and led the way. As they moved, they clung onto spears that Yoru had previously granted and familiarised themselves with the labyrinth's muddy terrain. After several tense minutes, they both managed to walk at a cautious but steady pace.
'Ah damn it all.' Yoru thought to himself regretfully.
Leaving the relative safety of the statue behind was one thing. Doing so willingly was another.
Yoru understood, rationally, that survival on the Forgotten Shore demanded resolve. Still, knowing what needed to be done and acting on it were entirely different matters!
And yet - despite the unease gnawing at him - he couldn't deny the excitement that lingered somewhere within him.
Journeying through the maze of a death zone surrounded by uninmaginable horrors was oddly thrilling. The entire scenario lacked mundanity in every sense of the word. It was so vastly different from the life he knew, that the sheer otherness of it all was enough to stir the embers of his adventurous spirit.
Although, indulging in that spirit would surely get him killed one day...
'Now is not the best time to contemplate my death.'
With a quiet exhale, Yoru diverted his entire focus to staying alive and navigating the labyrinth - the latter task being left in Sunny and his shadow's hands.
Upon entering the labyrinth Yoru felt deeply disturbed. The shade provided by the maze wasn't comforting but instead oppressive. It was as if the outside world had been completely drowned out and nothing beyond the cage of coral existed at all. Some passages were deceptively narrow whilst others opened up into broad chambers giving the impression that the maze was a living breathing thing.
Even further into the maze Yoru began to notice an absurd amount of bones littering the floor and a few embedded into the sides of the coral, jutting out of the surrounding walls. He shivered, imagining how many creatures had perished within the coral maze, leaving behind such ghastly remains.
After a few more minutes of walking, Yoru had a peculiar thought.
'How did Sunny get the Azure Blade...?'
He was certain that sunny had received the memory before meeting Cassie and Nephis. And yet...
They hadn't encountered any nightmare creatures.
Did things change?
"Hey Sunny, we should be on gua-"
The ground trembled violently, cutting him off.
In the next moment, a massive pincer shot out of the ground and tore through the air, threatening to cut Sunny's body in half with one crushing strike.
Sunny fell on his back narrowly avoiding the attack and lay sprawled out, the pincer towering over his face.
'Crap!'
Yoru had made a crucial mistake. Of course it was impossible to remember every single detail from the novel but forgetting how Sunny received his first weapon memory was a massive oversight on his part.
Looking at the mundane spear in his hands he couldn't help but feel like a mouse in the face of an apex predator.
Seeing a nightmare creature in the flesh was nothing like reading it. He could feel the hairs of his body stand so high that he feared he wouldn't have a hair left.
A wave of fear tore through his body and disabled him completely, mercilessly destroying all functions without remorse.
It was as if his very soul had been crippled by simply witnessing the monstrous thing.
The unburrowed scavenger had a towering figure, with cracks engraved in its decrepit exoskeleton and fetid azure blood seeping from them. One of its pincers was missing entirely, leaving behind a torn stump and similarly, it was missing a few legs too. The creature was in a pathetic state but that made it no less terrifying. To call it a threat would be an understatement.
'Move, you idiot!'.
His mind screamed but his body refused to obey.
'Sunny took this down on his own. Without a memory. surely my fears are getting the better of me. It cant be that str-'
The cage around Yoru's mind closed in tighter as he felt a pain in his leg and watched the world around him rise while a chitinous mud covered claw mauled at the air above him.
Sunny had watched Yoru's panicked state of paralysis and kicked his legs out from underneath him before the idiot got himself killed.
"Pull yourself together you cocky bastard!"
Sunny yelled in both frustration and urgency.
The scene was grievous. Two young sleepers lay on their backs in the mud, facing off against a monstrous being that could crush them effortlessly, with nothing to their names except oversized toothpicks, chairs and jerky.
The pain from Sunny's kick jolted Yoru back into himself, briefly pushing back against the intense fear he had felt just moments ago.
The scavenger raised its remaining pincer and legs, slamming them into the ground with brutal force. Mud, bone fragments, and debris sprayed into the air illustrating its tremendous power.
Luckily, both Yoru and Sunny had rolled to the side, hopping back onto their feet using the momentum of their dodge in one fluid motion, narrowly avoiding the harrowing deathblows.
"Nice save my squire!"
Now was obviously a terrible time for jokes, but Yoru was afraid that if he didn't, the fear would come back and wane him again.
...Sunny wanted to spit on him, but due to their circumstances that fantasy would have to wait for the damned beast to fall. He gripped the spear in his hand tightly and glared at the beast vindictively.
He didnt want to die yet.
Yoru did the same. both of them stood up staring the beast in its small malicious eyes, practically seeing the hunger and rage within them.
Before the two had time to acknowledge the agility of the creatures bulky build, a pincer flew towards Yoru.
He ducked instinctively, slipping in the mud and barely avoiding the strike. Within the same breath, he thrusted the spear upward at the monsters lower abdomen, but the power behind it was futile against its chitinous armour. He kicked at the creature's remaining legs, disrupting its balance causing it to slightly buckle, then hurled the spear at its face. The thing simply bit down on the spear causing it to shatter, reducing his efforts to nothing.
Yoru, for the life of him tried to remember how Sunny defeated this thing.
But it was no use, it had been so long ago he had read those chapters... and now it was no longer just a story, this was his life and it was soon to end if he didn't do something.
However, the creature didn't notice the treacherous shadow bringing down his spear into the cracked slits of its back.
The scavenger let out a guttural scream, Sunny recoiled and Yoru stood in fear, both empty handed facing the horror. The thing may have been in pain but in no way was it weakened... not in the slightest, the rage that writhed in the beasts beady eyes now seemed to consume everything around them.
'What... what do I do...'
Yoru found himself succumbing to an emotion that quickly became familiar to him in this new world... powerlessness.
'I will not die here!'
He summoned two spears throwing one past the beast landing in front of Sunny, Yoru steadied his legs and calmed his breathing.
Well as much as one could in his situation.
The miracle and the shadow looked at each other, almost in wordless agreement.
'It must die here.'
Yoru hurled spear after spear at the beasts face, summoning them seconds later. Although his attempts seemed pointless against the oversized crab's armour, its perception had drifted far from Sunny.
Before Yoru could blink, the scavenger was in front of him leaving splintered spears in its wake, Yoru tried to dodge out of its grasp but the dreadful beast moved too quick to avoid.
The scavenger caught him by the base of his arm and shoulder. He felt himself being lifted into the air by strength that felt like law, the pressure like a vice on his arm was more than unbearable. He screamed and struggled but all that responded were his bones splintering and his flesh being torn and ripped by the ever going pressure.
He looked at the beast with tears and spite and in return it brought his arm to its maw.
It began to eat him alive.
With the last residue of his vengeful will he plunged his spear into the beasts eye with his free hand.
The spearhead had managed to pierce the eye but not even fully breach the brain. Without the proper footing, there was no strength behind the thrust of the spear.
Yoru was too weak.
As his consciousness began to fade and tears could no longer fall from his face, all that could be heard was a sickening crunch.
Sunny stood a few feat beneath him, his own spear buried deep within the Scavenger's other eye. With gritted teeth Sunny twisted and turned the spear, hoping to deal as much damage to the creatures brain as possible.
There was a moment of silence, and all the participants of the primal struggle were still.
Yoru's back hit the floor and with darkened vision he saw the the hulking monster crash to the ground.
The world became darker and darker and with each passing second he could perceive less.
In the final moments before blood loss claimed him, Yoru heard a voice.
It was not Sunny's, or even the indifferent chime of the Spell.
It was his own voice, resounding from somewhere deep within.
And it said:
[Bear your Tragedy]