Sunny slipped into the castle and made his way stealthily through the wing where the handmaids had made their primary headquarters.
The passages of the Bright Castle were narrow and dim, which was, from Sunny's perspective, an ideal set of conditions. He moved through the shadows with patience, keeping his distance from Seishan's quarters until he had a clear read on his approach.
Her ability to sense blood was a complication he did not fully understand, even in his past life he had not known the details of her aspect. However, he knew enough about Seishan to suspect she was careful enough to sense him the closer he got. He moved accordingly.
Two guards stood outside her door.
Sunny looked at them for a moment from the alcove across the corridor. Then he stepped out, crossed the distance before the closer one had fully processed the movement, and relieved her of her weapon. The guard went still. Her partner did the same.
"Knock on the door," said Sunny pleasantly, "and tell her she has a visitor."
The guard knocked. The door opened and Sunny walked in. Seishan looked at him across her chamber with a cautious expression. Her interior guards had their hands at their weapons. She did not yet signal them to use them.
"That," she said, after a moment, "was not a conventional introduction."
"I'll apologize for the approach," said Sunny, "if you'll hear me out."
She looked at him for a moment longer. Then she indicated for him to continue.
He said what he had come to say. That Nephis was going to win the duel, he stated it as fact rather than opinion. That the change in leadership would produce chaos, and that chaos could be shortened considerably if the people saw Seishan step forward in support rather than splinter into her own faction. That the current administration's relationship with the status quo of the Forgotten Shore was, to put it charitably, comfortable in ways that were not in anyone's individual interest except those doing the administrating.
"Why," said Seishan, "would I help you. I am one of those doing the administrating."
"Because you want to leave the Forgotten Shore," said Sunny. "And Nephis will make that possible. The current arrangement will not."
She did not answer immediately.
"You speak as though you know what I want," she said.
"You are from the Clan of Song," he replied.
The room was very quiet. Seishan looked at him with the expression of someone deep in thought. Then, without turning her head, she said something quiet to the two interior guards. They left.
"Go on," she said.
"I know that the Song Clan is one of the two most prominent families managing what happens in the world from behind the curtain," said Sunny, with the specific casualness of someone placing a card on the table. "I know that your mother is one of two who hold a monopoly on true power. My personal feelings toward the great clans aside, I suspect you'd like to see her again."
She looked at him with an expression that had moved past aloofness and into genuine attention.
"What is it specifically that you want from me," she said slowly.
"Two favors. The first," said Sunny, "is to support Nephis."
"And the second?" she asked.
The duel had started below him. Sunny watched from the upper gallery overlooking the courtyard, one shoulder against the stone, eyes moving between Nephis and Gunlaug.
Gunlaug was formidable. He was large and experienced, armored in the golden echo that had earned its reputation. He carried himself with the absolute certainty of someone who had not lost a direct engagement in long enough that the possibility had become theoretical. Sunny had partly forgotten that on this Forgotten Shore, only the strong could will their way to power.
But none of it mattered.
Nephis was already a monster, able to augment both herself and her sword with divine flame. She gave him no openings, took no unnecessary risks, and after a short time drove her sword, alight with fire and empowered by the [Dawn Shard], through the golden echo.
Gunlaug went down.
The courtyard held one breath of silence and then released it into chaos, with Nephis crumpling under the strain of her core receiving so much saturation at once. Cassie rushed to her side. Sunny saw none of this, for he was already moving.
He dropped from the gallery to the lower level, sent Gloomy wrap around him, let his shadow sense spread through the castle, and closed his eyes. Harus's aspect became ineffective.
Harus was a hand-to-hand specialist. Sunny called the [Dreadful Burden] not into any of its blade forms but into the gauntlets of the [Mantle of the Underworld], combining the armor with the weapon's deadly enchantments, and met Harus in the dark with his eyes closed, painting the space around him in shadow-sense.
It was a good fight. Sunny only had his [Bound] advantages. Neither Saint nor Serpent were available to assist. The former, he estimated, would finish evolving within a couple of days. The latter was busy elsewhere.
Somewhere above them, Sunny was aware of Serpent moving through the upper reaches of the castle, now an Ascended Monster, its onyx scales, vast length, and lightless black eyes making for a deadly and terrifying sight. He had sent it toward the galleries before the duel concluded.
Castor had been in position above the courtyard close to a clear angle on Nephis's vulnerable aftermath. He had, by all appearances, been exactly where a concerned ally would position himself. He moved through the upper reaches of the castle to gain the angle he needed to finish what he had come to the Forgotten Shore to do.
He met Serpent instead.
Happy had wrapped itself around Serpent's considerable presence. Castor stopped in his tracks. He had no idea how a Nightmare Creature had found its way into the upper reaches of the castle, but could tell that he was unlikely to win against it. He retreated, and made his way back down to keep appearances by helping with the chaos below.
Sunny finished with Harus.
He allowed himself a moment of quiet satisfaction and went to find the other two commanders.
He did not need to go far.
Effie and Kai had Tessai contained, and with him calmed, brought the castle's main force under control. Across the courtyard, Seishan and her handmaidens were lending their support to the forces sympathetic to Nephis, clearly conveying the message of where her allegiance now lay.
The two remaining commanders watched her. Then they watched Effie, Kai, and Tessai. Then they saw Harus. Then they looked at each other.
One of them set down his weapon. The other followed a moment later.
The chaos settled. Nephis stood at the center of the castle and let her grey eyes move across what she now commanded. The Forgotten Shore's leadership changed hands in a far more peaceful and swift manner than it had before.
The next two days moved quickly. Supplies were organized. Sleepers who had been waiting in the encampment for something were given hope. The inhabitants of the Bright Castle's old order proved mostly practical about the transition.
On the morning of the third day, they assembled.
Nephis stood at the front of it, the Sleeper army of the Forgotten Shore, pointed at the Crimson Spire like a drawn bow. Next to her were Sunny, Cassie, Kai, Effie, and Castor. Behind them, the commanders of the old order arranged along the flanks.
The Spire waited on the horizon.
They began to march.
The march to the Crimson Spire took two days.
He had done the march in a previous life under considerably worse conditions. Worse organization, less commanders, less understanding of what the Crimson Spire held. This version was better in every metric and still managed to induce in him some restlessness and anxiety.
How many Sleepers would live to see next week? Surely it was more than last time, but Sunny knew they were leading some to the end of their nightmares.
He let his mind drift to other issues.
The shadow fragment counter stood at seventy below the demon core threshold. He had cleared the Dark City more thoroughly than even he thought he would. The hunting in the nights in the Dark Sea had been disgustingly efficient.
The Spire fight would close the gap forming the demon core as he became awakened. The battles in the coming day, the golems guarding the Spire entrance, and then the Crimson Terror itself, a Corrupted Terror that was in the process of becoming a Titan.
He was the one holding the memory key and the one who would unlock the Spire.
Seishan had produced the warhammer when Nephis asked. Four seconds of its presence among the other shard memories had been enough, the collection had recognized itself as complete and produced the key. Seishan had taken her hammer back.
His mind wandered to the [Thief's Pocket] and soul shards. A hundred and seven transcendent fragments, accumulated through systematic hunting. He planned to give a quarter to Jet, which was not negotiable. The rest toward Cassie's advancement or her memory weaving.
She had formed her monster core when she returned in the safety of the cathedral. The difference it produced was not subtle, even accounting for the hand.
A throwing knife Nephis had given her had changed the approach of her offense the blade's enchantment made it easier to find its mark. Along with the precision that [Precise Art Form] gave she rarely missed.
She was not what she had been after getting her sight back. But she was not nothing. Sunny had watched her spar with Kai two evenings prior and had decided, that anyone or anything who wrote her off on the basis of the missing hand was going to be surprised by their mistake.
The looming Spire arrived on the horizon and shortly the army reached it.
The approach to the Spire was not quiet. Effie had the vanguard, her spear and shield providing a perfect combination the be the tip of the fight. The old commanders' strength was an added boon making the army more deadly and receiving less casualties.
Above, Kai worked. He flew slightly above the army raining arrows down as support. With the focused attention of someone managing several simultaneous problems, having dight of the whole army. The Cursed Heralds were the largest of those problems. The winged, raven-lion hybrids posed a major threat to them from the air.
Nephis was on her Pegasus moving in controlled bursts around the battlefield wherever she was needed. Her assault guaranteeing that anything that tried to organize against the army immediately complicated.
Sunny observed none of this directly. He was already at the base of the Spire.
Seven coral golems stood between him and the door. They were not individually impressive. Each one was roughly twice Sunny's height, moved with particular slowness. Seven of them was a different conversation than one of them.
Sunny stood at the entrance and looked at them annoyed. He had a significant fight waiting above and had no intention of spending more than he had to on the one in front of him.
Sunny sighed and engaged them wrapping his shadows around himself.
He stepped into the gap between the nearest two angling to redirect the first golem's reaching strike across the body of the second. The odachi came up in the same motion, in one exchange dealing damage to two enemies.
He kept the engagements narrow, using the odachi's reach to stay outside their range. He was careful not to use any of his essence.
The fight took longer than a more aggressive approach would have. But it also cost considerably less. He had fought through them with methodical patience.
Sunny summoned the key memory and the Spire opened.
He and Cassie went inside.
"The metamorphosis," said Cassie, as they climbed.
"I know."
"Earlier than last time means-"
"Less complete. More powerful." he flashed her a smile as they climbed. "I really do appreciate you, Cas."
The Crimson Terror's metamorphosis toward Titan class was a process. A gradual transformation that slowed the creature's responses and weakened its current-form capabilities in exchange for the emergence of something considerably more formidable at the end of it.
They were reaching the Spire earlier in that process than Nephis had reached it in the previous timeline. Which meant the creature at the top was not the relatively slowed, mid-transformation version that Nephis had faced. It was the Crimson Terror closer to its combat peak, only slightly hindered by the metamorphosis.
They reached the top.
The Crimson Terror was larger than he had expected. It occupied most of the Spire's summit chamber, a vast coral mast, built from the same material as the labyrinth but animated. A hundred faces pressed into its surface like things that had tried to escape the stone and had gotten most of the way out before the stone decided to keep them. Every face was wrong its mouths open, eyes sealed, or eyes open, mouths sealed, or other configurations.
They were all in agony.
The minions were smaller and faster and positioned around the chamber's edges with the loose territorial arrangement of things that knew their place relative to the thing at the center.
Cassie's hand found the throwing knife.
Sunny called his shadows and summoned the [Dreadful Burden] as an odachi.
Gloomy wrapped around him and Happy followed, the two of them layering over his presence with the combined effect of both aspects at once, and Sunny felt the result of it. The difference between moving in shadow and moving in light was stark. Everything sharpened, everything faster, the shadows around him responding to his increased affinity. His connection and enhancement felt stronger than his previous life up to even being a master, a result of his [The Shadow] attribute.
Below, the Sleeper army poured through the Spire's gateway. Effie coordinated the flow at the threshold, directing the press of bodies through the shimmering passage in groups, the commanders managing their factions along the flanks.
The nightmare creatures that had survived the approach pressed at the rear of the column and found Tessai's people waiting for them with the grim practicality of those who had been told to hold until everyone was through.
The gateway held. People stepped through it in their dozens and were gone from the Forgotten Shore, returned to the waking world.
Nephis stood at the threshold watching the flow, her grey eyes moving across the numbers.
"Go," said Effie, looking at her. "We have this."
"I'm going to find Sunny and Cassie," said Nephis.
Castor materialized from the direction of the gate with the bearing of someone who had been waiting for this particular development. Nephis noticed him without him noticing her noticing (bruh).
She then ran up the first two flights of stairs. She did not go up the third opting to take a detour on that level.
She led him further into the Spire sufficiently isolated that no one from the gateway would have a sightline into it.
Castor followed for eleven steps before he understood that she had chosen this particular place deliberately.
He drew his jian.
Nephis had already turned.
"Do you really think you can beat me," she asked. "I doubt you could defeat Gunlaug."
"Well, I guess I won't know if I don't try," replied Castor, disappearing from view as he activated his aspect.
Sunny was in the heat of battle. The odachi's reach kept him at the edge of exchanges he had no interest in being inside of.
He attacked the faces. The odachi's strikes landed on the structural weak points when the creature's attention was occupied with locating him and discovering that his movement had already placed him somewhere else.
The shadow aspect had been built for this. In his pervious life he was able to fully use and appreciate the Shadow Dance element of the Shadow god's fighting style. However, Sunny sometimes lamented not being as much of an assassin as the concept of shadows would suggest.
Here he was forced to fight in the second way the Shadow God's lineage had been designed to fight. Present and then absent. Here and then somewhere else. Hitting from positions the creature had just finished determining he wasn't in.
It was working. For a time, it was working very well.
The Prowling Thorn extended his reach into the airspace above the combat, the dagger moving on its invisible string through gaps giving him aerial mobility.
He was winning it. For a sustained, significant period, he was winning it clearly. Being able to deal damage to the Terror without receiving damage due to its slowed assault from metamorphosis.
Across the chamber, Cassie fought the minions. She primarily struck with the throwing knife, using her sword to stall for its return.
The knife had found the Terror once, a single throw in the first moments of the fight, embedding briefly in the creature's surface before Cassie pulled it back. It was enough for the [Pack Animal] enchantment in the [Akhlut's Hide] to recognize the strike and begin building its stack. Sunny felt the empowerment arrive like a second wind that had been waiting at the edge of the room.
Serpent moved between them. The ascended shadow was reading the room, moving to where the pressure was highest, adding its considerable weight to whichever engagement most needed it in the moment.
Sunny was under the Terror using the shadows to empower himself. He feinted a pivot and then moved to strike, but the Terror had seen through the ruse. Coral lashing out.
He felt the impact. Heard the ringing. Saw the chamber blur.
The wall. He had hit the wall.
The [Mantle of the Underworld]'s enchantments mitigated as much as they could mitigate, and then the rest of the pain and damage arrived. Blood in his mouth. Blood from his nose. The floor of the chamber, which he was now significantly closer to than he had been.
He tried to get to his knees.
Cassie's voice reached him from somewhere across the chamber, she had started a word and stopped it, which meant something had interrupted her.
He perceived this without being able to do anything about it.
Serpent was occupied, he felt the Shadow in a different part of the chamber, pressed by the minions that had redoubled their attention on Serpent.
The Terror turned toward him with all hundred faces, every one of them oriented toward where he was.
He was still trying to reach his knees.
It moved towards him and he realized that he would not be able to get up in time. He heard Cassie desperately shout something to him and the [Shadow Bond] stirred slightly, then dissipated seeing as the command would not be able to be completed. Responding to the command that presumably order Sunny to survive.
But his strength would take at least thirty seconds to return.
Thirty seconds he did not have.