The next day, Sunny took Serpent and Caster to explore deeper east. At the same time, Nephis took scavvy out beneath the cliff so nobody could see them.
Scavvy had evolved into a carapace demon now, nestling in Sunny's soul sea it was also affected by shadow cradle as it affected his entire soul and thus the things inside it.
So scavvy had evolved twice as fast.
His shadows couldn't reap those benefits outside his soul sea however.
Anyhow, scavvy was now as large as a house and could easily carry the entire cohort to the dark city, Sunny had big plans for him now.
After bringing him to a blind spot, Nephis took out the memory [frozen] given to her by Sunny and summoned the corpses of the two fallen creatures felled by Sunny last night.
The rest of the fallen who had died fighting each other were eaten up by the corrupted of the dark sea— but they had left the Awakened corpses behind.
As scavvy began his feast of the spire messenger and the bus sized kraken, Sunny noticed his runes changing.
Scavvy was slowly gaining shadow fragments.
The rate was absurdly slow compared to eating a memory, but it was also much cheaper.
Sunny suspected that scavvy was gaining 1/10th of the fragments he would have gotten by eating a corresponding memory of that creature.
All in all, the messenger and the kraken combined gave him a measly 1.2 shadow fragments.
But the good news was that he could just continuously devour awakened creatures en mass to grow stronger quickly.
The only limit was it's stomach's space.
If there was something that hurt Sunny a bit, it was the fact that unlike feind, scavvy didn't have a chance of gaining it's victim's powers.
Sunny and Caster quickly scouted ahead, it seemed that the crimson terror had decided not to gather another horde to send against them.
Whether it could not afford to, or whether it got bored of the struggling sleepers. Sunny could not tell for sure.
"No, not bored, Nightmare creatures never get bored. That vermin is planning something."
***
The next few days, the entire cohort was on the back of the gigantic Awakened demon that followed Sunny's commands universally.
It was a fascinating thing to witness, the echoes were an incredible piece of power to hold, especially the fact that they could grant a mere sleeper the raw strength of an Awakened.
That awakened power was even further refined as three shadows and three flames empowered that demon.
Usually, Nephis' flames could not augment those that weren't herself.
But after Sunny's bond with Nephis grew deep enough, he had been able to enhance her with his shadows, and she had been able to do the same to him.
And as his shadow, the same privilege was enjoyed by scavvy.
Aside from Nephis and Caster, and maybe Liam to a degree, the rest could not help but marvel at the power Sunny already commanded.
It was also confusing as to see him wield a carapace tribune instead of a carapace centurion suddenly, but for now no one voiced their curiosities. Most of them simply assumed that the monster was destroyed while he got a new echo.
Nephis at the very least had already understood how Sunny's aspect affected shadows and Caster...he had a growing suspicion.
Eventually, they arrived at a stop from where the next destination was the dreaded ashen barrow.
Sunny let the cohort settle down, then announced that he would go exploring to scout the area ahead.
Soon, after hours of galloping, scavvy brought Sunny to the Ashen barrow as he commanded it to.
Then, Sunny took a deep breathe and climbed down.
Today he was going to reclaim an old power of his...and see if he could have it and his own lineage at the same time.
[The Solace] had remained within Sunny's blood for months now, it had mixed into his blood and seeped into his soul.
Sunny's deeper connection to shadows as their heir had sped up the process too.
Was blood weave going to devour the shadow's lineage yet again? Or was it now going to consider it simply Sunny's blood and leave it be? Sunny wasn't too keen on figuring out...given the pain it would bring him.
But he had to know.
Before entering the Ashen barrow, the air around Sunny shimmered as several memories manifested around him.
The last word manifested around the Puppeteer's shroud. Encasing Sunny as a mantle with black fur trim.
Defiance manifested in his hands, still holding only two properties. The scarlet blade shimmered with golden glint as the memory demanded to be used.
Even though it was a tier 4 memory now, Sunny had not used it to gain the kraken's true darkness absorption.
Simply because he had not used it to kill the horrifying abomination and also because he had other plans for the two powers he was going to take from the forgotten shore.
Finally, a flying shortsword manifested next to sunny's right shoulder, flying above it.
The shortsword had no guard for it's hilt, and had a light blue hilt with a pearlescent white double edged blade.
The shortsword had an enchantment which allowed it to fly around at high speeds and kill creatures without the need of direct handling.
It still needed to be mentally controlled and wasn't completely independent however.
Readying himself, Sunny entered the barrow and stealthily made his way to the accursed tree.
Hiding behind a small protrusion, he expanded his shadow sense at every direction.
He found....no enemies.
None except for the abominable tree of course, and that tree...it was different.
It had evolved, just as Sunny expected.
The tree...if it had been massive before, it was truly humongous now. Its canopy faded into the sky itself and even it's low branches swung at several dozen meters high.
And the fruits, there were hundreds of them as usual. But their quality had improved much more.
"Ascended...they are ascended grade fruits. This monster...it evolved in rank not class." Sunny's lips trembled as he took in the view.
Deep inside the tree, he knew there would be the vile theieving bird's great spawn too. He couldn't see it yet, but it had to.
Before Sunny could even come out of his hiding spot and initiate his attack, he heard a mind numbing voice in his head.
[Yeild! Serve! Obey!]
The soul devourer was trying to mind control Sunny. However, he held strong. Sunny's [the last word] memory had a mind defence enchantment within it, or atleast something similar. That much he had figured out, but even still, the affect of the soul devourer's power was astronomically lower than what he had expected.
He had assumed that he would have to launch his newest memory at the tree in hopes of destroying the great egg and running away.
But now he knew he could do a lot more.
Sending his Ascended memory of the 4th tier, Executioner's Judgement, flying at the tree after wrapping it in a shadow, Sunny commanded Serpent and Scavvy to come out as he wrapped himself in two of his remaining shadows.
The show was on.
The crimson tree didn't have a way of attacking physically, it only relief upon its mental attack to win it's fights.
And whatever enthralled creature it had held right now, for some reason they weren't around.
Maybe it just didn't have anything enthralled for the moment. If so, then this was jackpot for Sunny.
However, it had changed after evolving. Now that it was a fallen creature, it saw reason in spawning it's own minions.
Before, it's minions would have been of the dormant rank in the forgotten shore, now however it was a different story.
And so, as Sunny and his Shadows approached the terror, a dozen golems made out of wood manifested. Then ghastly pale blue whisps flew into each of them from the tree's trunk.
Suddenly, their eyes ignited in a disturbing and eerie light blue flame.
In the next moment, a dozen beings with the strength of an awakened descended upon Sunny and his two shadows.
Each of the wooden dolls were about as powerful as a demon, but had none of the devastating skill and experience of a true demon.
Sunny's head was ringing with the painful memory when he had killed an innocent human for survival, the guilt gnawed at him everytime his gaze fell on his ascended armour.
Two of the dolls surrounded scavvy and attacked him while three more still descended upon Serpent.
And a total of seven awakened dolls found themselves surrounding Sunny.
As the chaos insued, the ascended memory flew into the branches of the soul devourer and proceeded upwards.
Sunny wouldn't have a hard time dodging and fighting these rash and vulgar mannequins if it wasn't for the fact that he was busy controlling his flying sword at the same time.
Granted, it didn't take much of his mind's effort to do so, and yet it still did have an effect.
And also, was it just him? Or was he remembering the day at the raid too much today? He had worn his ascended armour before too, yet he hadn't been so guilt tripped as today.
Eventually after cutting through some layers of the branches, the sword had arrived at around the elevation where Sunny assumed the great egg's nest would be.
He unwrapped the shadow around the sword and used it to see.
Soon, he found the giant nestling spawn of the vile theieving bird.
The nest was spherical in shape, with a round hole at the center of it. Usually, such a nest would be made out of grass and twigs, but this one was constructed from the branches of the great tree, each at least as thick as a man's arm. These branches were twisted and interwoven together in a chaotic pattern, creating gapless, onyx-black walls.
At the same time, a wooden talwar swung at Sunny's neck.
He ducked and drove defiance into the doll's own neck...or whatever it had resembling a neck.
A normal strike would not have killed or even seriously damaged the doll, and yet defiance was anything but a normal weapon.
It's ability to deal damage to the incorporeal was in effect, and somehow struck the wisp of soul like substance the tree had infused into the wooden doll.
Soon the doll fell on the ground, unmoving. The spell resounded in Sunny's mind, informing him of killing an Awakened monster.
"Wait, why is it a monster? It's strength is much greater than- Oh it's because the soul devourer is enhancing their strength. Just like it strengthened the awakened demon we fought before in the original timeline."
Sunny came to the realisation just as Executioner's Judgement locked onto it's target.
Pulling the sword a few feet back, Sunny commanded it to thrust into the egg with all its power.
[You have killed a great devil: Spawn of the vile thieving bird.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[You have recieved a memory.]
'Yeah...just like you killed a normal human, who had done nothing against you to deserve that... Damnation get out of my head!'
Just as blood weave entered Sunny's soul in the form of a drop of ichor waiting to be consumed,
Sunny sent two more dolls to the shadow realm with a fist each to their torsos after a horizontal wide slash at their chests, his fists didn't have the power to strike at the incorporeal but they did weaken their will enough to let the slash from defiance kill them, right behind them another doll perked up as Sunny felt the sixty four fragments enter his soul.
He feinted high with his longsword and then ducked falling on his hand to perform a Passata soto and stabbed the doll right in its heart.
Then he got up.
Relaxing his posture and rolling his shoulders backward just to take in the moment as he exhaled in satisfaction,
Sunny closed his eyes for a moment to enjoy the rush of energy in the form of 64 shadow fragments. Granted it was quite small now in comparison to the rest of his fragments already accumulated, but it was exhilarating nonetheless.
As he opened his eyes, three wooden golems were approaching him from all sides, Sunny commanded his flying sword to start cutting off all the fruits it could find, using his shadow as a source to see where it was going.
At the same time, he sidestepped to come in between the doll infront of him and one of the ones coming from behind him diagonally.
Then he spun to hit the one behind him with a zwerchhau cut, instantly beheading it.
Then he took a couple of steps backward diagonally to put the doll that was infront of him, in between him and the doll behind them both.
Then, he took on them one by one. Exchanging a few hits with the first doll using a series of different snap cuts and then after a successful parry to an opening, he launched a pulling cut at it's chest. Killing it.
Rinse and repeat on the second one, and his share of enemies were dead.
However, his shadows didn't really have any means of helping themselves against the wooden dolls, so Sunny dashed to helping Scavvy and then Serpent.
Both were battered more or less, but they had survived the time it took him to get to them. Scavvy by using his incredible defences and Serpent by using his nimble body to dance around the dolls.
His mind kept racing back to the moment of his raid the entire time, it even made Sunny bash his head on his palm a couple of times to snap back to reality.
And now that all was said and done, Sunny was left with nothing but a bunch of delicious fruits lying on the ground, each capable of giving him a shadow fragment, and each one of the ascended quality too.
Sunny had collected almost all the fruits the tree had in this time too, instead of taking three people over a month to not even finish it, Sunny had already obtained all of them, almost four hundred of those fruits now lay on the ground.
But an incredibly annoying and painful voice kept nagging at him, he had to get out fast.
The soul devourer was trying to enthrall him, and somehow his armour was countering that by guilt tripping Sunny continuously, it was some sort of insidious enchantment. He was sure of it.
After absorbing the enchanted fruits with frozen, Sunny quickly escaped from the Ashen barrow.
The last words to fall on his mind were:
[You will pay for your transgression...]
***
Sunny made his way to a small safe place between his cohort and the Ashen barrow.
They had been attacked by small groups of nightmare creatures after they fought the second horde, but never something as grand again. There were many different independent Nightmare creatures like the ones he had already encountered and even some scavengers that despite being under the influence of the crimson terror, were more or less just acting on their own.
As such, he needed a place where he could consume his treasure without the fear of being attacked.
Summoning Serpent and Scavvy, he coated scavvy with one and Serpent with two shadows.
He also summoned some of the fruits he had obtained and turned to face his shadows.
"Protect me while I consume the drop of ichor, and eat these fruits in the meantime. I will feed you more later."
Sunny knew that consuming all nearly four hundred fruits would take too long as it filled an average sleeper's stomach with just one, and that was when the fruits were of the awakened rank. He had therefore planned to have his shadows eat them in secret one by one alongside him.
Even if that didn't give him the fragments, if they were the ones to get them, it would be much much better anyways.
Unfortunately for him, his wishes didn't come true as when scavvy took a fruit and ate it, it gave Sunny two fragments.
Biting his lower lip, Sunny summoned the drop of ichor... And read it's description.
Memory: [Drop of Ichor].
Memory Rank: unknown
Memory Type: unknown
Memory Description: [The loathsome Thieving Bird was hated both by the gods and "unknown". However, it only cared about shiny things. Enamored by Weaver's beautiful eyes, it stole one of them on a dark, starless night. Impatient, the vile creature looked at its bounty while still in flight. However, when it saw the reflection of "unknown" forever frozen in the depths of Weaver's pupil, it went mad and screamed, dropping the eye on the mortal realm below. All that was left in its greedy beak was one drop of pure, golden ichor.]
Sunny summoned the strange and yet oh so familiar Memory. Instantly, golden sparks of light appeared in the air in front of him, coalescing into a spherical drop of radiant, golden liquid.
'Time for the truth to...'
Before he finished his thought, the Spell spoke again. Its voice sounded a bit strange. It was almost… excited?
[You have acquired a drop of ichor. Do you wish to consume it?]
Sighing inwardly, Sunny thought.
"Sigh, yes. I want to consume it, you don't have to be so excited about my suffering."
[As you wish, prince.]
"What the hell? Why'd you call me prince? Was that because of my true name? But no..the spell didn't use my true name the last two times I drank a drop of ichor...it didn't? Right?"
Sunny took a breathe in.
"Yeah, I'm sure it didn't. Why did it do that now? Actually." Sunny's eyebrows furrowed.
"What does my true name even imply-"
Before he could ponder upon it, the process was in effect.
The golden sphere separated into two streams of beautiful, radiant liquid. The streams flowed through the air, approaching Sunny's face. He felt a gentle touch caress his cheeks.
Then, the golden liquid reached his eyes and flowed through them, entering his soul through the pupils.
Soon, it was gone.
Sunny was frozen, knowing what was to come.
A second passed, then another.
He raised his trembling hands to his face, finally feeling the dreadful feeling.
In the next moment, Sunny opened his mouth and let out a terrible, wailing shriek as unimaginable, blinding pain tore through his entire being.
It felt as though every muscle, every fiber, every molecule of his body was being torn apart and reassembled, only to be torn apart again. His eyes, especially, felt as though there were two white-hot metal rods inserted in them, making all the other pain pale in comparison. Or maybe they had become searing spheres of molten metal themselves…
And yet, Sunny persevered in the end, not willing to scream in the middle of the crimson shore.
…Then, after what felt like an eternity, there it was. The pain subsided, lessened, and finally vanished. Sunny was left lying on the floor of crimson coral, utterly drained and depleted.
In the silence that was broken only by the hoarse sound of his ragged breathing, the Spell's voice whispered:
[You have acquired a new attribute.]
Then, all hell broke lose again.
As the lineage of Shadow flowed through his veins, Blood Weave suddenly surged to invade it. It was acting of its own volition, and felt full of ominous, dark intent.
…And hunger.
'Damnation!'
He was prepared for indescribable pain, but the pain never came. Instead, he could feel the cold energy being hungrily and ruthlessly devoured by the Blood Weave, like it had been starving for thousands of years.
But somehow, after just a moment of it's feast, blood weave stopped. Perhaps it was because the blood of Shadow had now belonged to Sunny completely and it was no longer Shadow's Blood no, it was simply Sunny's.
As such, blood weave had devoured whatever it could still consider to be Shadow's lineage and left the rest of his master's blood alone.
As he witnessed, the two lineages clashed with each other for a solid minute more, wrestling for their own places in Sunny's existence and then settled into their own stable positions.
Sunny now had both [Blood Weave] and [The Solace] flowing through him. He felt his connection to the shadows weaken a bit, as if the lineage of Shadow was partially devoured.
But he also felt it regrowing through his own body, as Sunny would grow more powerful, his lineage itself would be able to express itself better.
Atleast that's what Sunny hypothesised.
At any case, his eyes had now changed with blood weave and now he could see it.
He could see the weaves of the memories.
He could see the souls of humans and Nightmare creatures.
He could see what no human was ever supposed to lay his eyes on.
He was once again, a weaver.
He would now be able to learn about all the enchantments his brilliant memories held, but before that he had to get back to base or the dark sea would take him.
Sunny got on scavvy and sent it on a gallop.
Come next morning, he would take the cohort to the dark city in one ride. The strength of an Awakened demon was enough to traverse that much distance in one day's worth of daytime afterall. Especially with Sunny and Nephis boosting him.
***
Out there in the distance, four fallen tyrants were gathering their massive hordes.
A corrupted demon was making its way to the ending fight of a corrupted tyrant and a primitive echo like construct powered by seven Transcendent soul shards.
Even as it was ending, their fight would last several more days. Such was the scale of their clash.
As the demon moved, it's eyes took up almost the entirety of the senses of an ancient fallen terror which existed in the shape of a giant tree.
Far far away from the east, a gigantic almost unimaginably colossal corpse of meat and bones was moving on its own. It's life had been reaped and it's shadow had been sent to the shadow realm to be slain by the once supreme or above member of the nine.
And yet the corpse held on, moving with nothing more than sheer remnant will of it's past owner. But then, something horrifying began to happen to it, the phenomenon was utterly mundane in nature and yet the size of the corpse and the speed of the reaction made it more harrowing than most abominations to ever walk the forgotten shore.
At the entrance of hollow mountains, a titan remained standing tall. It's soul uncontrolled by any greater creature. The only duty this nightmare creature felt compel to perform...
...was to guard the brilliant crown hanging from its neck like a pendant. The duty it's mother had given it in exchange for complete freedom.
That and living with its wife. And devouring any humans who came along its way.
In the central regions of the forgotten shore, the terrifying awakened worms who used to fight the carapace army were dancing and singing in a bizarre and horrendous sound.
They were celebrating the birth of a new tyrant amongst them.
It was finally time for their return to power. Or so they thought.
In the deeper regions of the west direction, a five feet tall rakshasa was feasting on the corpse of an awakened tyrant. Four demonesses sat around it, admiring it's fierce power.
Even deeper still, in a ruined beautiful purple palace that seemed to enchant the heart...
...sat a lady on a broken throne. Her eyes were covered by a black blindfold.
Tears were dripping down her cheeks.
And as they did, they burned into the ground.
By now, there was a giant gaping hole going all the way down to the bedrock below.
Across the kingdom she once ruled, corrupted abominations were scattered amongst awakened and fallen hordes.
Her once beautiful utopia had been reduced to ashes and dirt now and a desire to burn it all away lingered in her heart.
If only she could die.
And perhaps most importantly...
Inside a tall crimson spire, a corrupted terror was awaiting it's forces to unite.
It's thousand eyes seemed to laugh in a hoarse stifled tone.
It's long awaited day was finally coming. It was finally going to be the sole ruler of this accursed place.
Beneath the spire on the ground floor, seven harrowing copies of its friends from a lifetime away were standing guard.
Ready to face anything that dared to come and disturb their queen mother.