Just as always, Juno "woke up" in his Soul Sea. For the last thirty-four days, this was exactly how his mornings would go. He would stand atop the grey waters and look at the Soul Devouring Tree. He would also be lying atop its branches, lazing like an enthralled with Cassie and Nephis. Sunny had disappeared recently, so it was just the three of them instead. Before Sunny had disappeared, Juno also made sure to tell them of his Echo, but Juno didnt know if any of them really heard him or were present enough to process that information.
Back in his mind in the Soul Sea, he sat cross-legged and meditated, focusing on all three of his minds. In the last month, Juno had made leaps and bounds in his Split Mind technique, and this was the result. He could intricately feel and manipulate his body in reality, do the same for the body in the Soul Sea, and have another consciousness on top of all that.
A truly split mind. Even Mordred would be envious!
Juno lay slumped against the tree in the real world, breathing slowly and chewing on a fruit. Obviously, he would be chewing on those fruits; after all, they gave out free Soul Fragments! He would be a fool not to eat them.
Those fruits, with Dusky's amazing and constant hunting, had brought Juno up to a massive number of Soul Fragments.
[Soul Fragments: 844/2000]
Seemingly, the tree did not like that fact. Granted, it didn't seem to like anything, but still.
In his Soul Sea, Juno stood on the waters and looked at the massive ethereal shape of the tree. It was the most black and vile thing he had ever seen. Its presence was slightly crushing, and the branches blotted out Juno's beautiful sky.
It was actually quite interesting, the difference between this tree and the flowers. Awakened Beasts, and it took Juno about five minutes to activate the soul battle. Awakened Terror, and it took Juno only two bites to activate the soul battle. Seemingly, [Indomitable Humanity] scaled with the opponent's power, so that was great.
Besides that, the tree had seemingly gotten ready and finally attacked Juno to start the day off.
A pressure rolled in from all directions, heavy and dull. The grey water shivered. A lump of something vast and white forced its way up from the depths, resolving into a crude imitation of a trunk: a thick column of tangled roots and veins mashed together, shuddering, bits crumbling off and dissolving back into the sea.
It didn't look at him. It barely seemed aware that there was an "opponent." It just knew, in the inarticulate way of old monsters, that something resisted here, and that more pressure might fix it.
Juno watched it sway toward him, slow and sloppy.
"Still nothing in there, huh," he muttered. "Just hunger with roots."
That was the weakness.
Not a specific hole in its defenses, not some clever pattern he could exploit. Just the simple fact that the piece of the Tree he could reach was stupid. It had no concept of "new environment," no model for "what if this fight has rules I don't understand." It pushed because that's what it knew how to do. When that failed, it just pushed harder. For all those claims that Terrors had human-like intelligence, they clearly couldn't adapt to bizarre environments. They were a lot like toddlers, honestly.
Juno stepped forward and met the mental shove with familiarity.
The pressure hit him, and rolled through him and into the sea, causing it to stir further. That was the biggest benefit of fighting the tree: Juno being able to control his Attribute and Soul Sea better. He had learned a lot of new tricks, and now, with his Dormant Ability, he could give himself weapons too.
Sadly, Dormant weapons wouldn't do much to an Awakened Terror, so he didn't play with them too much.
Doubly sad, he couldn't use his Memories on beings he was in battle with, so he just had to try and kill the tree with only his soul. A thing that, currently, he couldn't do.
After a while, even the Tree seemed to lose interest. The weight lessened, the crude trunk shuddered, and the fragment began to sink back into the depths, dissolving as it went.
Juno let it go.
He hadn't found a dramatic weak point. No secret core, no magic off switch. What he'd gained instead was more boring and, to him, more valuable.
He knew exactly how much of its force reached him.
He knew exactly how slow it became once dragged onto his Sea.
And he knew that, as long as it kept trying this way, it would never be able to actually break him before he could do something about it in the real world.
"Continue to practice," he told the empty horizon. "I shall."
Juno sat back down in the grey water and switched his main view to the body in reality. Sunny had finally seemed to think it was time to escape, and Juno couldn't be happier.
…
Juno stood right in front of the shaft Sunny had carved, cool to the touch, with a nice sunset shining upon it.
The tunnel dropped into darkness, slanting down toward the demon's corpse and then, eventually, the ashen shore. Wind from below carried the tang of rust and old blood. Above, the Soul Tree hummed softly, roots pulsing with stolen lives. It would be quite nice to find out the number, but that was impossible.
Sunny was already halfway in, shoulders tense, Midnight Shard strapped to his back. Nephis waited just behind Juno, blank‑eyed but obedient for now, Cassie leaning lightly against her side.
"Come on," Sunny hissed, voice low. "The Sea's going to wake up. We don't have time."
Juno didn't move.
He watched Sunny for a heartbeat, then shifted sideways just enough to block the shaft with his body. The golden rope at his chest creaked as he did, the sound oddly loud in the cramped space.
"Actually," Juno said, "we do have time. For one very important thing."
Sunny glared at him. "Juno. Not now."
Juno smiled pleasantly. "Especially now. You seem to want me to do something, but I am not too willing. Thus, I'd be doing myself a disservice if I didn't take advantage."
Nephis blinked slowly, as though only half following the words. Cassie's head lolled, a faint frown creasing her brow.
Sunny's eye twitched. "We already did this. Two favors."
Juno tilted his head. "Two favors for the sword, not this. I want another two."
Sunny opened his mouth, closed it, then glanced back toward the trunk, expression tightening. Juno didn't have to look; he could feel the Tree's annoyance as a faint uptick in pressure at the edge of his Soul Sea.
"You're insane," Sunny said. "You know that?"
"Undoubtedly," Juno replied. "But I'm also being fair. I will sweeten the deal, since you seem oddly reluctant… I've been thinking about how you fight, and I suggest you incorporate your shadow sense into it. You can do a similar thing to what I do! And you," Juno turned to Nephis, who was acting like she was higher than the clouds, "why not try Shaping?"
Sunny closed his eyes, jaw clenched.
"Fine," he said at last, the word dragged out as it hurt. "Two more. Same rules. Four total. Happy?"
"Ecstatic," Juno said.
Sunny gave him a look that said he would be trying to both renegotiate that deal and hear more about the shadow sense idea.
By the time his boots hit the ashen ground of the Barrow, his grin had faded back into the proper, dazed half‑smile of an enthralled.
"Lead the way," he told Sunny lightly, adjusting the rope across his shoulders. "After you, oh fearless Sunless."
Sunny just shook his head and started hauling the demon‑bone boat toward the edge of the world.
Or more technically, toward their salvation