Sunny moved closer to Cassie. Her condition was quite peculiar. Of course, the cause of it was clear to him. It was a vision. Sunny had been thinking about a plan to defeat the Carapace Demon. He had been struggling, but if Cassie got a vision about it, he would be able to come up with something.
"Cassie… what is it? A vision?" Sunny asked calmly.
"A vision? Yeah, a vision! It's a vision! About the Carapace Demon." Cassie said in between her deep breaths.
Sunny's eyelids perked up. "Really? Mind telling us?"
Cassie nodded slowly. "I don't mind." She said in a slightly excited tone. Reciting the vision of the magnificent tree facing a storm in great detail, she left nothing out. The lightning, the fire, and the massive mass of bones, flesh, and seaweed.
Sunny was left surprised by the vision. Cassie had had a dream that seemed targeted to their current problem. It revealed the demon's weakness and what Sunny could use to defeat it. It even gave her an inkling of its personality.
Paying attention to the vision in full detail, Nephis looked over at Sunny, wearing a slight smile on her face. "So, how's your plan coming along?" She asked in a tone that could be considered, totally out of her character, a little… cheeky?
Sunny returned her the same smile, talking in the same tone. "Pretty well, I had an idea of what to do before. But Cassie's vision gave me another idea." He stopped to let his voice settle in the air before adding. "Hey, Neph! You still have that oil from the centipedes, right?"
***
A massive being covered in a hard carapace was climbing a hill of ash. It was two meters tall in height and had two massive pincers for arms, looking vaguely humanoid. Naturally, it was Sunny's echo, moving towards the ashen barrow. If one looked closely, one could notice that there was more than one shadow. One of a beast, and one of the short, frail man's.
Climbing the steep hill, it looked proud and valiant. When it finally reached the barrow, it started clicking its pincers, as if calling for something. As if to answer its call, a demon much larger than the beast rose from the ashen sand, looking like a walking steel bunker, light of the setting sun reflecting on its metallic shell.
The demon had two pincers and two scythes, each of which could crush the echo's armor and tear the flesh within in one hit. The echo looked intimidated, but it still kept following the plan Sunny had transmitted. The echo was not intelligent, but Sunny was. And it was forced to follow his commands.
Seeing the invader that came to its territory with the kind and benevolent tree without a tribute, the Demon rushed at the scavenger, swinging its scythes to cut it in half. However, the echo had no reason to face the enemy stronger than itself. It clicked its pincers for the last time and ran.
At the same time, Sunny was holding a crude longbow crafted from bone, with black seaweed strung in between its limbs. His task was to shoot three bone arrows. Sunny strung one of the arrows that had a fragile sack strapped to it on the bowstring. Sunny lined up his sight and the arrow, stretching the seaweed string back and letting go.
The arrow flew through the air, cutting through the air like a whip. When it landed at its destination, next to the Carapace Demon, the sack attached to it cracked, weird organic oil seeping from the gaps.
"Nice shot…" Nephis said in a whisper, carrying a bit of excitement in her low tone.
However, Sunny did not respond, focusing on the task. He strung the other arrow that had a sack attached to it on the bow, shooting it at the same spot. The arrow flew and landed next to the previous one. The shot was not perfect, but it was close enough. When the second sack landed, it cracked as well, a different type of organic liquid spilling from it.
Sunny looked towards Nephis and handed her the third arrow. He looked up and glanced directly at her eyes, and then nodded slowly. Nephis nodded back, holding her arm over the arrowhead and lighting it on fire. Nephis grimaced in pain, closing her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Sunny saw white flame dancing in her gray irises.
He took the third arrow and shot it. The arrow flew through the air like a fireball, landing on the bright red leaf litter covered in corrosive oil. When the arrow lit with Neph's soul flame landed, it caught the ground on fire.
Sunny's smile curled up slightly as he saw white fire spread all around the island. It worked. The oil inside the sacks came from a species of centipede nightmare creature that lived inside the crimson labyrinth. The centipede monsters had two glands that would create a highly corrosive and flammable oil.
The oil was strong enough to even eat through plates of Neph's starlight legion armor. Luckily for Sunny, it had left the black seaweed alone. Saving him from a lot of embarrassment.
However, this time he had made use of its other property. Its flammability.
The oil kick-started the spread of the white flame, spreading it, burning more and more leaves. When the Carapace Demon noticed its benefactor tree getting attacked, it left the intruder alone, rushing over to help put out the fire.
The fire could not burn down the Demon, let alone the tree, but it did not need to. The soul flame only needed to burn long enough to let Sunny and Nephis reach and climb the tree's branches.
Nephis started running towards the crimson tree with Cassie on her back. Augmented by the full power of her [Soul Flame], she was incredibly fast. Sunny took the extra sacks filled with oil they had not used yet and augmented himself with dormant shadow essence. Dismissing his echo that did not have a use anymore, he called back his shadow, which he used to keep an eye out for the echo, and commanded it to wrap itself around him.
With his shadow and essence, he was incredibly fast. But he could not be faster than Nephis, who was a demon and augmented by her full power. Looking in front of him, he could see a blur moving strikingly fast towards the tree.
Seeing this, Sunny gave it his all, speeding up to his maximum. When he reached the tree, Nephis had already climbed on top of it with Cassie and had dropped her golden rope memory.
The demon was still trying to put out the fire which had spread from the ground to the tree, burning the leaves and its branches, but when it was about to become too big to put out, it all vanished.
Sunny, who was climbing the golden rope, gave Nephis a confused glance, asking immediately. "Neph! What happened?!"
Nephis waited for Sunny to climb next to her on the branch and dismissed the memory. She glanced at him and said in a confused tone. "I don't know. Something just… ate my fire. It even canceled my flaw."
Cassie lowered her staff, which she had used to redirect the radiant fire away from them, and said. "Maybe the tree put it out somehow?"
"…It is possible," Nephis said quietly, looking at the demon who was searching for its now-gone enemy.
Sunny nodded slowly, not having a theory himself.
"What is the demon doing?" He asked Nephis, who was still paying close attention to it.
"It's looking for the echo in what looks like… confusion? This thing is really more intelligent than the others." She said, not taking her eyes off of it.
"W-What do we do now?" Cassie said, trembling while gripping the large branch of the tree tightly.
"Now… we wait for the sea." He answered.
Sunny glanced at the sun setting on the horizon. Seeing the sunset from a place like this, he could only have one thought: 'Beautiful.' It was truly a sight, if only he could experience this without all the deadly monsters. It would be great.
When the sun shone its final light, giving way for the dark sea to surge, the Carapace Demon roared ferociously. It was almost as if it was scaring the previous invader. Little did it know that it only called for a larger battle. One it would lose.
"Ready?!" He asked Nephis.
"Ready as ever…" She responded, summoning her blade and armor and jumping down from the branch. Sunny got ready to follow her, but before he could jump down, Cassie called out to him.
"W-Wait!"
"What is it, Cass?"
"Make sure to win, alright?!"
Sides of Sunny's cheeks perked up a little. "Sure!"