A few steps ahead, Nephis slowed, glancing back at him.
"Keep up."
Then she lunged forward, a blur of silver and pale fire.
Sunny cursed and plunged into the shadows cast by the towering coral walls, forcing his legs to move faster. But no matter how hard he pushed himself, the distance between them widened.
She was fast. Too fast.
For a brief moment, an old memory surfaced—walking behind Nephis on the bridge to the Academy, her back always just ahead. Was this how it would always be? A chase with no end? With him behind her forever?
The scavengers ahead finally noticed them. Hulking, chitin-clad monsters turned, their jagged mandibles dripping with thick saliva. Their eyes burned with hunger.
Nephis didn't slow.
Her sword dragged behind her, its tip carving a line through the mud. The scavengers shrieked and lunged. Four massive pincers lashed forward, aiming to rip her apart—
And then she dropped.
At the last possible moment, she twisted her body and let inertia carry her, skidding low across the ground. The pincers clashed in the empty air above her head. The sheer momentum sent her sliding beneath the scavengers.
A bit slower, and she would have been impaled by one of the scavengers' legs.
'Crazy! She's crazy!'
By the time Changing Star got back to her feet, one of the scavengers had already turned around. However, Sunny couldn't see what was going on as his sight was blocked by the bulky carapace creatures. He only heard the sound of chitin striking against steel.
There was no time to worry about that anyway, since he had his own problems to solve.
Silently cursing, he ran up a narrow protrusion on the coral wall and jumped, aiming to pierce the weak point at the scavenger's back from above. His shadow was already wrapped around the Azure Blade.
But at the last moment, the scavenger suddenly moved, slightly turning its torso to the right. The blade missed the concave spot where the armor plates connected and instead hit one of them square in the center, sliding helplessly across adamantine chitin.
The scavenger moved just slightly to the side. A perfect, unconscious adjustment. The blade that should have slid into the soft spot between its plates instead met the hard center of its carapace. Metal scraped helplessly across adamantine chitin.
'Crap!'
What's worse, he landed right on top of the scavenger, practically hugging it from behind. In the next moment, the scavenger shook its carapace, throwing the irritating human off.
He barely had time to register it before he was flung off, sent hurtling through the air. He crashed into the coral wall, the impact hammering the breath from his lungs. The world blurred. His body crumpled into the mud.
By some instinct, Sunny rolled to the side. Something tore past him and hit the wall, sending pieces of crimson coral flying through the air. Then, he was lifted into the air and thrown backward.
But by that time, however, he had already come to his senses.
Twisting his body, Sunny managed to land on his feet and take a few steps back without falling. In the next second, his sword was in front of him, held in both hands just like Nephis had taught him.
The scavenger was already charging, eyes burning with monstrous hunger.
'Repetition. Experience…'
The shadow surrounding the blade seeped into his arm, then spread further, wrapping him in a cold embrace. Strength surged through his limbs. His breath steadied. Sunny instantly felt stronger, faster, more resilient.
But was it enough? No. To survive, he would definitely also need some luck.
One step forward. The scavenger's pincers slashed—one from the right, one from the left. No time to dodge.
So instead, Sunny rushed forward.
The pincers clashed in the empty air behind him.
Instinct or not, it was the only logical step. After all, the attack range of his sword was much shorter than that of the scavenger. He could only fight back by getting close.
Before the beast had time to react, Sunny did what he had recently done thousands of times. His muscles moved even before his mind gave the command.
A sharp motion—pull and push, full-body movement.
It struck the base of the scavenger's front leg. Chitin cracked. Blue blood sprayed through the air as the limb was severed entirely.
For a moment, the monster staggered.
Then its other front leg slid in the mud.
Sunny had less than a second to be amazed.
'I actually did it?'
But there was no time to be distracted. Due to the loss of its front leg, the scavenger lost balance for a moment, careening forward and down. However, he had seven other legs. This wasn't going to last long.
Coincidentally, though, at this exact moment, his other front leg slid in the mud, bringing the monster even further down.
Taking a step forward, he thrust the Azure Blade up, pushing it into the scavenger's mouth. A severed mandible fell to the ground as the monster impaled itself on the sword with its own weight.
The massive body of the Nightmare Creature convulsed before falling still.
Sunny let out a slow breath. His chest ached, his head throbbed. When he touched the back of his skull, his fingers came away wet with blood.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[Your shadow grows stronger.]
[You have…]
With no time to listen to the Spell, Sunny tugged on the sword to dislodge it from the monster's head and hurried to help Nephis.
However, it was too late.
The second scavenger lay still, its limbs twitching. A deep wound at the base of its spine had ended it.
Nephis stood nearby, breathing hard. A fresh wound bled down her shoulder.
And…
Sunny froze.
Something was wrong. The air around her felt strange. The way she held herself—her rigid posture, the slight curl of her arm across her chest—
"D-Don't… don't come any closer."
Her voice was small. Unsteady.
Sunny's attention, though, was instantly drawn to something else.
It seemed that at some point during the fight, the tall girl's makeshift seaweed top came apart, leaving her naked above the waist. She was covering her chest with one arm. Behind the arm, squished, the supple fullness of her…
Sunny flinched as though someone had stung him and hurriedly turned around. (why?)
His face was burning. Without thinking about it, he even made his shadow look away.
An awful silence settled between them.
"…Are you alright?" His voice sounded rough.
A pause. Then, quietly—
"Yes."
"…Good. Uh. Good. I'll—uh—go fetch Cassie."
"…Alright."
He walked away. Then walked faster. Then nearly ran.
'Her fault. It's her fault! She should've communicated that clearer!'
(Wish girls made mistakes like this near me too)
But no matter how hard he tried, the image refused to leave his mind.
By the time he returned, Nephis had tied her seaweed top back in place, composed as ever. If not for the way she looked at him—
No. Forget it.
She checked his head wound, then sighed.
"Just a bleeder. If you feel dizzy, nauseous, or get a strong headache, tell me."
He nodded. No symptoms. No problem.
Nephis looked down at his clothes and sighed.
"…Memory?"
Sunny blinked. Right. The Spell had said something else earlier. What was it—?
He called the runes.
[Memories: Silver Bell, Puppeteer's Shroud, Azure Blade.]
Nothing new.
Then he noticed it. A fresh cluster of runes nearby.
[Echoes: Carapace Scavenger.]
Sunny exhaled.
An Echo.