Sunny completed his admiration for the lifeless tree sitting there, its red leaves falling off decorating the area as the deep brown bark began to wither before his eyes - turning to an ashen gray mimicking the surrounding. Sunny smiled summoning Birdy and hopping on his back and continued in the direction of the Hollow Mountains
On his way they had come across a specific piece of land that had very large hole. An extremely large hole with many smaller tributaries around it
Landing close by sunny kept Birdy summoned and summoned his other shadows too
Treading with careful steps sunny made his way to the mouth of the great hole.
"how odd"
Sunny suddenly jumped when his words echoed back to him from the hole and the others around him.
"How deep is this...." - he spoke listening to the echo return. His mind was on edge because it was very likely this 'hole' was just another dreadful creature
And sunny knew better than most that the creatures capable of speech - even if it was just repetitions - were the worst to deal with.
And his assumptions would be somewhat right
Sunny was not able to complete his question or carry on that train of thought worrying about the depth of the fissure because whatever lurked below has decided it was a good time to respond.
Suddenly sunnys hears we're being assaulted by a plethora of sounds. There was the squeaking of his shadow, the sounds of running most likely caused by a swarm of nightmare creatures and the clanking of hard steel as if an armored horror were approaching.
And not so surprisingly all of the above were reality
Before sunny even had the opportunity to turn around and issue a command. Birdy has already taken flight and gently grabbed him with his massive claws and soaring quickly to great heights
Shifting himself around sunny managed to climb his way into the back of his sky stead and sat looking down where he had just now stood
Sunny watched as a torrent of black shot out of the hole and began spreading to the surrounding areas. His first thought was that he found a section if the black sea but looking closely sunny noticed that the 'water' was actually an entire colony of midnight black ants
It seemed as if there were an endless number of ants present in the hole, we they continued to flow out. Each ant not being inferior in size compared to a carapace scavenger. And mixed in the hoard were blood red ones extremely low in numbers
But the thing that made sunny almost shudder was the collosal ant that stood out amongst the crowd
As the ground began to shake and it seemed as if the black waters had come back. But that was not the case
The flowing organisms were tons and tons of ant like nightmare creatures. The smallest being sunnys and the largest rivaling Shellys titan form
Shifting his eyesight sunny peered into the soul of the abomination and shuddered slightly. Any one would much less a mere sleeper.
After all a corrupted tyrant was no easy foe
Which was the case for almost everyone below the Supreme rank. Sunny however was once a supreme.
Where others saw injury and death all he saw was...
"Shards, So many shards running into my arms"
Soon the flowing hoard stopped and their numbers stood at a whopping 2000.
It was clear that their structure was similar to mortal ants. The queen was the leader , she had royal guards which subby attributed to the 5 corrupted beasts present and naturally the worker ants which accounted for the roughly 2000 creatures
Smiling greedily sunny flew on birdy to one end of the swarm a majority of the following after them.
Summoning Shelly directly onto them sunnys ears were suddenly bombarded with the sounds of kills.
Sunny began to fly to another edge wat hung as Shelly slashed and hacked at the pests.
Towards the other side sunny flew past and suddenly a taciturn knight of darkness stood her blade cutting down anyont that came to close
Towards the edges of the hoard a transcendent saint stood dealing with the abominations at the fringes of the group.
Serpent a collosal titan shifted her form into another.
The mountain king.
Any of the fallen beasts and monsters killed by her became her thralls shortly after attacking their own adding to sunnys count and the army.
Sunny hopped of birdys head and willing masses of darkness flowed and 4 magnificent wings spread from his back. A neat trick he'd mastered when facing the cursed Heralds.
As birdys charged the tyrant, his not yet grown body pale in comparison to the corrupted tyrant. Sunny began letting loose a volley of arrows from the blood arrow. Each one hitting the mark allowing for more to be launched. Constantly Enemies fell and sunny gained memories and even echos.
Then. A green flame erupted.
Sunny began to panic his body on fire and so was his shadows and echos. And then his mind steadied.
The sickly green flame was spreading across the battle field. Constant announces of kills rang in sunnys mind as birdy roared in rage towards the ant queen.
The green flame did nothing to sunny or his echos and shadows but for the nightmare creatures. It seemed to snuff out their very soul. Even the tyrant was feeling the power of a cursed flame while sunny simply watched in awe.
Soon all sounds aside from birdy and the tyrant stopped. The Dead corpses all standing behind serpent who gathered them as the mountain king.
Birdy seemed to be getting annoyed at the resistance the ant was putting up and ascended into the air. Up in the sky obeying the clouds.
And the he descended.
Falling like a meteor birdys beak faced down as he dived. The tyrant seemed to sense the danger but it was to late.
Straight through the body. Blood and guts bursed out of its abdomen as the announcement was made.
Sunny looked in awe as he landed on the ground his wings disappearing back to his soul. All of his shadows gathered around as did birdy.
Sunny smiled. And petted the bloody birdy with his hand. Small on the growing bird.
He turned to serpent. In this unfamiliar form.
"harvest the shards and leave their corpses".
It took a few hours. Much easier with the corpses themselves ripping out their cores and giving it to Saint and the shocking screech. As well as the new ant echos.
13 fallen monsters.
8 fallen beasts.
All going to join the harvesting crew.
Once everything was done sunny didn't want to wait around. And so he took flight
...
After a while of flying and swapping to sit on body's back sunny eventually made it to the hollow mountains.
He looked at the cave entrance that he needed to enter and stopped.
Movement disturbing him.
Summoning his wings sunny took flight off birdy.
"go kill what ever is in there and return"
And so. Birdy did
Sunny waited a few moments and heard birdys squaks and the screeches of something he could not disern in there. But he relaxed when he heard the announcements.
[you have slain a corrupted beast: frost scorpion]
[you have slain a corrupted beast: frost scorpion]
[you have received a memory]
[you have slain a corrupted beast: frost scorpion]
And about 15 frost scorpions died before birdy came out. Knawing on one as it popped it's body.
Seeing the go ahead from his shadow sunny entered the cave and looked around. Corpses lying around.
Summoning the ants sunny made them harvest the shards and bring then to him. All entering his storage memory.
His eyes became smaller as his eyebrows scrunched.
"this place was empty the last time..."
He though of reasons. And sighed eventually.
"whatever creatures corpse was here last time probably fought there guys chased them away and died of the wounds."
Sunny looked at himself and seeing there was nothing around him aside from he soulless echos and birdy being on gaird at the entrance enjoying the scorpion meat. Sunny decided it was time for a change.
Dismissing all his memories sunny was bare. His smooth skin stained with filth and blood. His long black hair disheveled. His nails seemed to be longer too.
"I look like a nightmare creature..."
Sunny cringed at his appearance that was being seen through the rim of a shield. It was a memory he got from one of the ants. Ascended.
Summoning a dagger. Sunny gave his nails a make over getting rid of the gunk underneath and the length they had grown to.
Next he used the endless spring and washed his hair. Blood and first flowing of as he kneaded it out. Soon the hair was slick to his body. Reaching 2 fingers below his shoulders sunnys hair had grown quite long.
After washing his body sunny felt refreshed.
A feeling he had last enjoyed at the academy.
Browsing through his list of memories sunny was deciding his attire for the days ahead. He had the mantle of the underworld and could easily summon it in its Armour form since he had long since attained the soul bound aspect. But he'd prefer if no one knew about that yet.
His eyes fell on a particular memory. It's was black in color, naturally, the Armour covered his body in thick metal and underneath was the body suit similar to the ones he used in Antarctica.
It didn't limit his movement of make much noise. Though the main thing sunny liked about it was that its enchantments made it extremely resistant to all attacks. Well. As resistant an ascended memory could be
That included all attacks. Mind, soul, physical. Sonic
It's other enchantments were no joke either. Redistributing impact around the Armour would make attacks weaker. And as typical memories become stronger with the infusion of essence. This one amplified it and became even stronger.
But above all it looked amazing. The armour and helmet both Matte black. The boots fitting quite well as did the body and arms. The neck part reaching up just below his ears without the helmet. Which would look amazing with weavers mask.
Next sunny looked at he memory he got from the scorpian just now.
A pair of gauntlets. Each a eerie purple that wasn't dark and didn't clash with his armour. The gauntlets fitted up to his enbows where a spike stood out like the tails of te dead beasts. The claws of the armour were similar to those of the devourers of the depths.
On his wrists. Directly opposite his veins on the top a bump was there. It was the only enchantment of the gauntlets.
Frost spikes. Seemingly endless spikes could be launched from the gauntlets and emmited a cold aura.
Aside from his sunny continued looking.
There was a new blade that caught his eye. It too was purple in color another memory gained from the ants.
It's only enchantments was that it was extremely strong and could induce poison. Sunny could do both of that on his own but hey. It looked good.
There were other memories there but sunny was not going to bother with those. His main focus was growing his best equipment. Charms and tools could wait.
Taking out all his transcendent soul shards sunny began his. Modifications.
Sitting in the cave for many days. He weaved and weaved constantly.
After a long time he stood.
Sunny looked at the corpse of the intruder that bidry killed. A corrupted devil who had been looted of his soul cores too.
All of his equipment had been upgraded to a degree that was unnatural. No Sleeper ever could hold an arsenal like his.
Sunny twisted his body and cracked his knuckles. Satisfying pops erupting. Soon he looked at birdy.
"it's time we leave here"
He had traveled and got the dawn shard. As well as killed that spire messenger and got soon to be Effies shield back.
He grew more powerful and had enough shards to compete a minor clan.
It was time to return.