Nephis woke up a couple of days later, having slept through multiple days and nights. Each day that went by in her sleep, Sunny got more and more worried about her. In the end, everything turned out to be fine. They escaped from the ashen barrow and the dark octopus.
Seeing Sunny with a strange smile plastered widely on his face, Nephis asked. "What are you looking at?"
Sunny raised his hand, pointing at the magnificent castle resting atop a large island behind her.
Nephis looked back. Looking at the white castle, radiating light like the only thing untouched by corruption, lit up her eyes with a strange light.
The castle shone with the light of hope. However, the light in her eyes was more mysterious than hope. It carried countless deeper emotions.
She smiled. "We should go now."
Somehow she managed to take all the excitement out from her voice — which was still clearly present in her posture.
Sunny was baffled at just how well she could hide her feelings.
Sunny hoisted Cassie on her back and climbed down from the massive statue.
Nephis wanted to take Cassie off of his back. However, Sunny felt that Nephis needed every bit of relief she could get after what happened to her that night. Escaping from that monster had to be taxing on her, after all.
The group climbed the steep hill leading to the top of the island, the wall getting harder to scale as they got farther. At one point the slope had been so steep that it was basically a cliff.
When they climbed all the way up — admiring the beauty of the massive, dark stone wall in front of him — Sunny felt a weird sensation on his leg.
It was almost like… pain? Like something was biting his leg. However, the feeling was as faint as a whisper in the wind, almost impossible to notice without paying close attention.
Sunny felt shocked.
After all this time, had he finally encountered a dormant creature? He almost chuckled. Had he gotten strong enough to not be bothered by dormant nightmare creatures anymore?
He looked down to see a rock with sets of maws, arrayed with pearly white teeth nibbing on his leg.
This time, Sunny couldn't hold it in.
It was a rock, an actual rock.
Just how funny was that?
He shook his leg strongly, throwing the rock right off the trousers of his trusty memory.
However, the rock didn't stop or run away. It opened its maw and gave a mighty roar.
Sunny's mouth was left hanging.
Nephis and Cassie looked over, too.
"What was that sound?" Cassie asked with panic in her voice.
Sunny shook his head. "Don't worry. It's just a rock."
The girls blinked and spoke in unison. "A rock?"
Sunny nodded. "Yeah, a rock. Like the ones you find on the side of the road. I think this one is a dormant nightmare creature, though."
"Sunny, I know we have seen our share of strange things — you two have, at least. But… how am I supposed to believe that the roar I heard just now was made by a rock? Is it a big rock? A small rock? What am I supposed to imagine?" Cassie asked.
Sunny looked down at the rock — which rolled over to him and continued sinking its teeth into his armor. "It's a relatively small rock, or I guess it's average."
He raised his hand, midnight shard already summoned, bringing it down on the stone, which was so adamantly keen on getting a taste of him.
The sweet voice of the spell resounded in his ears.
[You have slain an Awakened Monster, Rolling Stones.]
[You have received an Echo, Fortitude Boulder.]
Sunny blinked.
He shook his head, pinched his hand, and blinked again. Trying to make sure he was not in a dream.
'Was that thing really an Awakened Monster?' he thought.
The image of a tall and mighty carapace centurion flashed in his mind; the two were supposed to be the same rank and class. However, the comparison just wasn't there. Even if he and Neph had already gotten used to taking down centurions with relative ease, it wasn't a comparison.
That thing just couldn't be an Awakened Monster.
But it was.
Strange… almost like some higher force, like an author, had decided that they would need two awakened soul shards for the next chapters of the story.
"Hey Neph," he said. Nephis turned her head, looking at him.
"What?"
"I just got an echo," Sunny said proudly.
"Really? What type of echo?"
"A boulder… a fortitude boulder? Whatever that means."
***
The group moved closer to the dark wall, its grandeur getting more and more apparent at closer distance. The wall had been built from tiles of granite stacked on top of each other like a block puzzle, resisting the assault of time for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. That only the spell knew.
Luckily, the gaps between the granite tiles were wide enough for them to lodge their weapons nicely and climb without worry to their safety. If something like climbing a massive, eternal wall could be considered safe, that is.
Sunny had realized that, to him, stuff like this didn't even possess a bit of danger. It didn't anymore. It hadn't since the day his clan was destined to fall.
Pushing himself up on the edge, he rolled on the damp stone, finally letting out sigh of relief. Climbing the wall while carrying Cassie had taken a lot from him, even with the help of his shadow and shadow — one which was a literal shadow, and the other which was a tattoo on his body.
Looking over the edge, he could see a city in ruins. Collapsed buildings scattered all across. Various monsters roamed on the abandoned paths, looking for prey. Occasionally, they would fight among themselves, the result always being nothing short of catastrophic.
In the center of the city rose a massive hill, looking over the settlement long forgotten by time. On the hill stood a magnificent castle, with walls as radiant as the sun itself, prideful in its uncorrupted nature.
It was not as radiant as Changing Star's flame, though.
Nothing ever was.