Chapter 78 74—From the Depths

Nephis stared back at the island of the Soul-Devouring Tree rising out of the black sea with a heavy heart. The enthrallment of the Awakened Terror no longer plagued her mind.

They were free.

'He saved us. He really saved us.'

The cold realization filled her with a wave of quiet regret.

'Why did I doubt him?' Changing Star asked herself, placing a hand over her heart. 'Why have I done nothing but doubt Sunny and question his words this entire time?'

It was true that his tall tales often sounded wildly exaggerated and unbelievable, yet she could never shake the nagging impression that they were somehow real.

That despite everything, Sunny always spoke the truth.

Turning her head, Nephis watched him sitting with the [Wind Staff] in hand—a Memory creating steady gusts of wind to propel their vessel across the mirror-like water, which he had asked Cassie to summon. The blind seer clung tightly to him, burying her tear-streaked face against his chest as she held him close, silently thanking him for rescuing them.

Beside them, Sunless's Echo, Myriad Shade, held a severely disfigured Sleeper bound tightly in chains as black as night. Nephis didn't recognize the man, yet he felt irritatingly familiar—like some wretched coward she had somehow failed to thoroughly roast.

An eerie silence hung over their makeshift vessel as it glided undisturbed across the abyssal waters in the dead of night. Their only companions were the biting cold wind and the rhythmic sloshing of waves against the hull.

Meeting her gaze now, Sunny gently stroked Cassie's back with one hand while looking up at Nephis with a serene expression.

There was no resentment in his eyes, nor did he offer any grand words. Yet in his quiet look, she could distinctly read the message written clearly across his face:

'Don't worry, I know you're a mess!'

Changing Star almost let out a laugh.

For a brief moment, she felt a sudden urge to take a step toward him. The night was freezing, and she needed warmth more than anyone.

However...

BOOM!

Before she could take that single step, a colossal black tentacle burst through the bottom of their vessel, shattering the hull with a deafening crash.

In an instant, everyone was violently thrown into the freezing depths of the dark sea.

***

"Ah..."

Sunny drew in a deep, desperate breath, filling his starved lungs with much-needed air.

The instant he broke the surface of the dark water with Cassie clutched tightly in his grasp, he commanded his shadow to wrap around him and swam for his life, paying no heed to anything else.

'Run! Run!'

His mind was in absolute chaos. Survival was the only thought echoing through his brain. Fortunately, the blind seer had already been clinging to him the exact moment that giant tentacle shattered their makeshift boat.

'Run! Run!'

His vision was blurred, the black water was freezing, and his lungs felt like they were burning. His leg muscles felt weak and sluggish, and the surrounding sea seemed to actively pull them backward, yet Sunny pushed forward, carrying Cassie away with him.

The [Flesh of Shadows] kept his body completely dry, with thin, wisp-like shadows coating his skin and stabilizing his core temperature against the cold.

As he powered forward with great arm strokes and kicked frantically with his legs, anxious thoughts drifted through his mind. Myriad Shade. Nephis.

Had the two of them survived the impact and escaped? The former, most likely; he could still sense their invisible bond lingering deep within his very soul. As for Changing Star, she always found a way to survive.

After all, she was the true protagonist of this world.

'Land!'

Finally, Sunny spotted a patch of dry ground on the horizon. In the distance, his pitch-black eyes scanned a structure surrounded by five broken pillars of varying heights. As they drew closer, he recognized it: the hand of a colossal ancient statue completely submerged beneath the dark sea, save for the palm, which broke the surface like a rocky islet.

Reaching the ledge, Sunny grabbed the edge with his right hand and hoisted himself up with his elbow. Remaining half-submerged in the freezing water, he hauled Cassie up with his other arm.

"Ah... ah..."

The blind seer collapsed onto her back, staring up at the starless sky as she gasped for air, slowly recovering her breath.

They barely had a second to rest before Sunny's sharp mind snapped back to the others.

'Nephis! Thene!'

Snapping his head up from where he had been catching his breath, he turned to Cassie.

"Cassie, stay here."

"Huh?"

Before the blind seer could even turn her head to process his words, Sunny dove back into the water, resuming his frantic swim without a moment's hesitation.

***

"Mmh... glug... brbrbr!"

Nephis was drowning, dragged down into the crushing depths by a colossal, grotesque black tentacle that refused to let go.

The limb possessed the terrifying strength of a beast capable of shattering metal and earth, yet right now, its grip felt surprisingly loose and erratic. Perhaps because it was only snagging her by the narrow tip.

"Mmh! Mmh!"

Changing Star thrashed, trying fruitlessly to slash at the limb with the blade of her [Dream Blade], but every strike missed its mark. All the while, she was being inexorably dragged deeper into the black abyss.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Sunless's dark Echo desperately trying to protect her by hacking away at the tentacle. However, Thene also had to constantly dodge and weave to avoid being snared by the abyssal abomination's other thrashing limbs.

Nephis's mind began to cloud over. Her flames could not ignite underwater to sustain her, and her air supply was nearly exhausted.

"Mh..."

Her arms grew heavy, her eyelids drooping, and the biting cold of the sea faded into a dull, distant numbness. Changing Star was slipping away.

Until... a light—or rather, a shadow of hope—manifested right before her eyes.

Both Nephis and Thene whipped around, seeing Sunny plunging down into the depths to rescue them.

'Sunny,' she softly cried his name within the quiet sanctuary of her fading mind.

Everlasting Gloom surged forward, wrapping both arms securely around Nephis. At the same time, Myriad Shade abandoned her half-finished hacking attempt and rushed over to back him up.

With their combined strength, they finally tore Changing Star free from the tentacle's grasp, kicking hard and racing frantically toward the surface.

'Come on, almost there. Hold on just a little longer!'

Sunny told himself as he swam desperately toward the surface. The end of an unimaginably long dash and the exit from that colossal body of water was agonizingly close.

In his arms, Nephis was slowly regaining lucidity. Part of him bitterly cursed himself for not acquiring an underwater breathing Memory beforehand. He already knew why: deep down, he had completely ruled out the possibility of ever fighting, hunting, or being hunted beneath the waves.

Once again, he had been superficial and underestimated the situation.

'Fuck me!'

Sunny was almost there—barely a couple of seconds away from breaking the surface.

It was at that exact moment that he saw blood clouding the water before his eyes.

'...'

His eyes widened. He looked at Nephis, whose expression mirrored his own utter terror, but the blood wasn't hers.

It was his.

Turning his gaze, Sunny met the disfigured, skinless face of a young Sleeper with a single, glowing amber eye.

Jayden.

'How?'

It was the only rational thought he managed to process before his mind finally registered the searing agony of a jagged blade piercing straight through his heart.

It was a sharp obsidian twig from the Soul-Devouring Tree.

Everything that followed dissolved into a blur of fragmented, chaotic images.

Instinctively, Sunny commanded Serpent to detach from him and assume its Soul Beast form to carry Nephis to safety. Changing Star fought desperately against the current, trying to grab him so she wouldn't have to leave him behind. Thene rushed to his rescue, severing both of Jayden's arms with a single, blinding sweep of her blade. The ghoul-like Sleeper screamed at the top of his lungs underwater as thick blood poured copiously from his severed limbs.

A massive tentacle struck Jayden, flinging him away with monstrous, unrelenting force. He had practically zero chance of surviving that.

Then, Sunny saw only black. The wound driven straight through his chest was slowly extinguishing his life. Despite [Blood Weave] and [The Shadow], the trauma was too severe; he couldn't completely stem the hemorrhage.

A second tentacle lashed out, wrapping tightly around him and dragging him inexorably into the crushing abyss so the abomination could deliver the coup de grâce.

At that critical moment, Myriad Shade sprang into action. Dissolving into a fluid pool of black, she activated her [Shadow Support] ability, wrapping herself around Sunny's half-lifeless body.

A second later... something deemed absolutely impossible happened. Shadows surged forward, overwhelming the True Darkness.