Before he knew it, Sunny was scrambling to grip anything he could on the headless knight. The stone was worn smooth by time and storm, but shallow grooves and cracks remained, just enough for his fingers to latch onto.
The wind assaulted him from every direction, howling like a living thing. Heavy rain lashed against his back, each drop stinging like a thrown pebble.
The storm raged for hours.
Sunny crouched low at the center of the platform, enduring its fury. More than once, towering waves crashed against the statue's neck, sending water surging across the stone and threatening to tear him away. Each time, his fingers dug deeper into the grooves, clinging stubbornly, refusing to be washed into the abyss.
He held on like a parasite... a cockroach.
By the time morning came and the storm finally dissipated, every muscle in his body burned.
Sunny slowly rose to his feet.
Below, the scavengers were already returning to the massive carcass, as if nothing had happened. His gaze drifted past them, toward the distant hill where he had seen the fire.
"Guess I should check it out," he muttered.
His body hurt, but that wasn't going to stop his escape.
If there were survivors, his chances of staying alive would increase dramatically. And more importantly... it might keep him from losing his mind.
He had once spent weeks without human contact.
That had been enough to teach him how fragile the mind could become in isolation.
Shaking the memory away, Sunny began climbing down the statue, sending Gloomy ahead to scout.
The moment his feet touched the muddy ground, he set off.
There was no time to waste if he wanted to reach the distant landmass before nightfall.
He chose one of the winding paths that seemed to lead toward the hill and entered the cool shade of the crimson labyrinth.
Gloomy moved ahead smoothly, encountering no immediate threats. Occasionally, the shadow would climb higher along the coral walls, scouting intersections and guiding Sunny along the most efficient routes.
Even so, he was forced to backtrack more than once, running into dead ends or misleading turns.
Despite the smooth progress, Sunny remained vigilant.
Moonveil had once told him about a hunt that had nearly cost her life—she had relaxed for only a few seconds, and an abomination had seized the opportunity to wound her grievously. The injury had been severe enough that even their mother had intervened.
Sunny wasn't about to make the same mistake.
The labyrinth stretched endlessly. He had been walking for quite some time now, yet everything looked identical in every direction. The only indication of progress was the massive knight statue growing smaller behind him.
Eventually, boredom began creeping in.
To pass the time, Sunny studied the labyrinth more carefully. The crimson coral wasn't natural—at least not entirely. Its structure was too deliberate in places. Beneath the mud, he noticed something else.
Bones.
A disturbing amount of unrecognizable bones buried in the sludge beneath his boots.
He forced himself not to dwell on that.
Then he froze.
The mud ahead looked ordinary.
But his shadow sense whispered otherwise.
It was subtle... so subtle most would miss it. Tiny air pockets beneath the mud were filled with shadow, but not in a natural way.
A soft sigh escaped his lips.
He stared at the patch of ground a few meters ahead.
Then he moved.
Sunny burst forward, summoning his Memory mid-stride. Gloomy wrapped around him, strengthening his body as he lunged toward the mud, intending to ambush whatever lay beneath it.
But plans rarely survived contact with reality.
A massive pincer exploded from the mud, snapping toward his head.
As I thought.
Sunny sidestepped smoothly, retreating a step as the creature revealed itself.
A Carapace Scavenger emerged from the sludge.
It looked nearly identical to the others, carapace that protected its body, segmented legs, human-like torso—but one detail stood out.
It was missing a pincer.
Sunny's eyes narrowed.
'So that's why you weren't fighting over the carcass.'
It was weak.
Unable to compete with the others, it had chosen to hide and ambush instead.
Unfortunately for it—
It had chosen the wrong prey.
Sunny surged forward without hesitation.
The remaining pincer snapped toward him, but with a quick shift of weight, he slipped past its reach and closed the distance.
The beast retreated, trying to regain space.
Sunny almost laughed.
For a beast, it was clever. It understood that at mid-range, its reach gave it the advantage.
But Sunny didn't allow it to control the fight.
He pressed in relentlessly.
His blade pierced through a gap in its armor, sliding deep between plates of its carapace.
The scavenger shrieked.
Sunny drove the weapon deeper until he felt it strike something vital.
The creature convulsed—then went still.
The Spell whispered.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[...Your shadow grows stronger.]
[You have received a Memory.]
A smile spread across Sunny's face.
A Memory.
But it was the second message that caught his attention.
He opened his runes.
⸻
Name: Sunless
True Name: Lost from Light
Rank: Dreamer
Shadow Core: Dormant
Shadow Fragments: [170/1000]
Aspect: Shadow Unchained
Aspect Rank: Divine
⸻
His Shadow Fragments had increased.
Before entering the Dream World, he had once attempted to destroy a soul shard, hoping to saturate his core manually.
It had done nothing.
Now he understood why.
He could only strengthen himself by killing.
Sunny scratched the back of his head.
"This might get... complicated."
Sunny then took a quick look at the memory he had received.
[Memory: Azure Blade.]
'A weapon?' Sunny quickly brushed the memory aside, he already have the Crymyche was used to using, why would he get familiar with another? That would take time, time that he did not have at the moment.
He harvested the meat and claimed the soul shard, then continued forward, sending Gloomy ahead.
He kept both soul shards secured, but if they slowed him during an escape, he wouldn't hesitate to discard them.
Survival came first.
The labyrinth remained quiet. No further ambushes.
His progress was smooth.
Until Gloomy noticed something ahead.
Two figures.
Two girls.
One with white hair.
The other blonde.
Sunny's eyes widened.