Not good…'
The vine wasn't as large as some of the ones Sunny had seen back on the ancient ship, but it was still as thick as a man's arm, with curved black thorns protruding from its glistening surface.
The vine brought the sickeningly sweet smell with it.
Sunny hacked at it with the Cruel Sight, but barely managed to break the vine's skin. As a fine aerosol of aromatic juice shot into the air, the damned thing moved.
His eyes widened.
The vine easily shredded the leather boot of the Puppeteer's Shroud, as if the Awakened armor of the fifth Tier was made out of tissue paper. Before the sharp thorns could saw off his foot, however, Sunny cursed and brought the Cruel Sight down once more, this time augmenting the silver blade with both of his shadows.
The shortsword hacked through the vine, severing the stretch of it that was wrapped around Sunny's leg. The rest of it didn't like being cut one bit: surging forward, it aimed at his torso. Several more appeared from beneath the most at shot at Sunny, too.
However, now that nothing was holding him, he could finally use Shadow Step again. Before the vines reached his body, Sunny turned into a shadow. Safe and sound in their tranquil embrace of the darkness… for now, at least… he slid a few meters away and stared at the struggling abomination.
The creature was entangled by several thick vines, which moved across its body, leaving bloody trails on it. Sparks flew as the black thorns scraped fruitlessly across the adamantine surface of the wooden chest, though. It seemed to be much tougher that the rest of the creature's body.
The monstrosity gathered its limbs underneath it, then pushed with all its might, trying to stand up. An angry shriek escaped from its maw.
The vines were trying to hold it down, but either they were much weaker here, far away from the wreck, or the abomination was much stronger than Sunny had thought. It raised to its knees, then lashed out with its talons, ripping two of the vines apart.
Suddenly liberated, the monstrosity crawled from underneath the remaining vines, and then dashed toward the edge of the island on all fours.
Sunny hissed.
'Crap!'
Why couldn't it just lay still and die?!
He escaped the shadow and ran after the unreasonably swift abomination… but it was too late.
Just a few moments later, the bizarre creature reached the very edge of the island and jumped off of it without slowing even for a moment. The lid of the chest clicked close as it plummeted down.
"What the hell!"
Sunny reached the edge a few seconds later and froze as he looked down.
A grim expression appeared on his face.
***
Some distance below, a gargantuan heavenly chain escaped from the mouth of a stone structure similar to the one Sunny had seen on the other side of the island. This one was slightly different, though, mainly because both of the massive stone pillars had broken and collapsed a long time ago.
…The chain itself was different, too.
Sunny had never seen such a thing on the Chained Isles. It seemed… sick, somehow. Weakened. The chain was covered in rust, its iron links dim and lifeless, robbed of their usual sense of indestructible stability.
This one was rather long, stretching for good ten kilometers or so into the distance. Because the Shipwreck Island continued to descend, it was slightly angled upward. Sunny could see a relatively small isle on the other end of the chain, far into the distance.
…And everywhere in between, grotesque Chain Worms were crawling all other the weakened heavenly chain.
Not that Sunny saw them alive, he understood that he had underestimated just how disturbing these creatures were. With their long serpentine tails, human-like torsos, and long muzzles that brimmed with dagger-like fangs, the demons looked like misshapen maggots devouring the dying chain.
…Or maybe it was already dead, and they were simply feasting on its corpse.
Some were thin like the one Sunny had seen before, some engorged on the rusty iron and bloated beyond any reasonable measure, towering above the damaged chain like small hills of flesh. The scales on the latter ones looked like they were now made out of steel, and shined as they reflected the sunlight. Those who had not satiated their hunger yet were much thinner and flew around, resembling giant metal dragonflies.
'...Crap.'
The damned chest creature landed directly on the rusted heavenly chain, gathered its long limbs, and dashed away from the Shipwreck Island, swaying dangerously as it went. From time to time, it fell to all fours and launched itself into the air, jumping from one link to another.
It wasn't long before the bizarre abomination encountered a Chain Worm. The winged creature lunged at it… only to be kicked in the muzzle and have one of its wings ruthlessly torn apart.
The chest creature tossed the maimed Chain Worm back toward the island, where its body was suddenly grabbed by a long root that lazily extended from the darkness of the Dark Side, then disappeared from view.
The abomination took in the terrible sight, giggled, then turned around, and continued running away.
Sunny hesitated.
His prize was getting away. But…
The small island he could see in the distance had to be the Twisted Rock — the isle directly bordering the Tear. There would be no more land to escape to if he went there.
And the only chain that connected Twisted Rock to the Chained Isles was currently being devoured by the demonic Worms. It didn't seem to be on the verge of collapse just yet, however… how would Sunny know? It's not like he had seen a heavenly chain break before.
Perhaps it was time to give up on his pursuit and turn back.
He lingered on the very edge of the island, sensing brown vines crawling closer and closer.
Risk it all or retreat and lose the chance to get his hands on the miraculous treasure forever? Nephis was about to become a devil in just a few days…
No matter what decision he was going to make, he had to make it right now.
In the end, Sunny had to silence his avarice and consider the situation objectively. Going after the bizarre abomination posed a huge risk… but it also promised a huge reward.
In the end, what made him decide was not greed, emotions, or even rational thought. It was his intuition.
For whatever reason, Sunny felt a strong aversion to the idea of turning back. It was as though Twisted Rock exerted an invisible pull on him, drawing him closer. He had never experienced something like this, at least not to this degree.
He knew that his intuition was not a simple thing. It was connected to the [Fated] Attribute and the special properties his eyes had inherited from Weaver. Somehow, Sunny was capable of perceiving the trembling of the strings of fate around him, from time to time.
Considering how strong his intuition was pushing him toward the Twisted Rock, something out there had to be of utmost importance to his fate, or at least have a connection to it.
'...Fine. Let's get those coins!'
With a grim expression, Sunny summoned the Dark Wing and dove into the empty abyss of the skies.
Sunny glided through the skies, tensely observing the underside of the Shipwreck Island through the eyes of his shadow. The chain ahead of him was teeming with a swarm of Fallen Demons, but behind him… he didn't even want to know what the thing hiding in the darkness was.
One thing became clear, though, and it was why none of the Chain Worms had tried to devour the iron giant that swayed in the wreckage of a broken heavenly chain… or rather, had succeeded in trying to bite a piece out of him. The dead colossus was like cheese in the mousetrap, attracting these vile creatures into the range at which the being that dwelled in the perpetual darkness could catch them.
Sunny was sure that many Chain Worms had attempted to feast on the iron giant, but ended up being the feast instead.
Currently, he was trying to avoid the same fate.
Luckily, the Dark Wing allowed him to glide diagonally away from the Shipwreck Island instead of plunging straight down, avoiding the attack range of the terrifying being. He reached the chain without attracting the attention of the bottom dweller, and instantly became a shadow, hiding on its underside.
Waiting for a few moments, Sunny studied the length of the heavenly tether in front of him.
'...Not too bad.'
A large section of the unusually long chain hung low, reaching the Sky Below. He would be able to ride most of it without being noticed by the Chain Worms. The last stretch of it, though… Sunny was going to have to use Shadow Step to jump from shadow to shadow if he wanted to avoid having to fight a swarm of the Fallen Demons.
The problem was that his reserves of shadow essence were already running low. Except for the short walk across the hull of the ancient ship, Sunny had no chance to really replenish it. In the meantime, he had used a lot to get to the wreck, fight the damnable chest abomination, and pursue it. Chances were, he would reach the Twisted Rock with no essence to spare whatsoever.
How was he even going to kill the vile chest, especially with one of his arms broken?
He hesitated for a bit, then rushed forward, swiftly reaching the section of the chain submerged into the Sky Below and continuing to fly through the darkness once there. To avoid tempting fate, Sunny remained on the underside of the gargantuan tether, where there were way fewer Worms crawling around.
He did, however, encounter several, and saw up close how they were tearing into the rusting iron of the chain as he silently flew past. The sight of it was simultaneously disturbing, fascinating… and strangely sad.
'All things must come to an end, I guess…'
Even as seemingly eternal as the miraculous heavenly chains.
...Soon, he caught up with the chest creature and followed it from the shadows. The bizarre monstrosity was still running as fast as it could, jumping from link to link and using its long gangly limbs to keep balance. From time to time, it got into a short and vicious fight with one of the Chain Worms and either left them severely wounded, or promptly escaped with a ghastly wound or two of its own. By now, its grating giggles grew somewhat miserable, as well as menacingly angry.
Sunny observed its fighting habits, thinking about how to deal with it best.
At the same time, he was meticulously calculating the amount of shadow essence he would have to spend to cross the last section of the way to the Twisted Rock, trying to find a way to keep his reserves as high as possible.
…His calculations, thought, had turned out to be for naught.
When both Sunny and the chest monstrosity were about halfway to the small island, a dreadful sound reached their ears.
It was the rattling of the chain.
Sunny froze for a moment, then glanced toward the goal of this journey.
'Oh, no…'
The Twisted Rock had entered its ascent phase, and was now rising quickly into the sky.
***
'Curse it all!'
Sunny remembered thinking that he was in luck today, and couldn't help but growl… mentally, of course, since he had no vocal cords currently.
Where the hell was this supposed luck?!
The fact that the Twisted Rock was ascending meant two things for him.
One was that he would have to act fast and try to kill the chest creature before the Crushing became too terrible, or somehow obliterate the damned thing while being weighed down by it.
The second was that the position of the heavenly chain was swiftly shifting, making it so that the stretch of it submerged into the Sky Below was becoming shorter and shorter.
This meant that he would have to spend much more essence to reach the island without attracting the attention of the swarm of Chain Worms. And he didn't have a lot of essence to spare, to begin with…
'Damn it!'
As the angle of the chain increased and the bizarre monstrosity swayed, then fell on all fours and rushed forward even faster, Sunny tried to deal with the resentment growing in his heart and followed it.
'...Was my intuition wrong?'
Things didn't seem too good for him right now.
Soon, the two of them emerged from the darkness of the Sky Below and saw the sunlight again. The chest creature seemed indifferent to it, but to Sunny, it was an ill omen.
Out here in the sunlit expanse of the Sky Above, the heavenly chain was not covered in an uninterrupted layer of shadows anymore. That meant that he couldn't move through it unobstructed. Instead, Sunny had to either step from one shadow to another, if they were close enough, or send his own forward and make use of it to jump over long stretches of brightly lit parts of the heavenly tether.
'Damn it...'
Knowing that there was no other choice now, Sunny burned through his essence in order to not fall behind the rushing monstrosity.
Soon, his reserves grew dangerously low. It was still enough to reach the Twisted Rock… probably… but once there, he would have to fight while both of his cores were nearly empty.
That meant no bursts of speed, strength, and resilience that he had already gotten used to.
No access to active enchantment like the [Dark Mirror].
No more using Shadow Step to escape dangerous situations, at least for a while.
…And added to all that, one of his arms was broken and completely useless.
Oh, and there was also the Crushing.
If Sunny had teeth in his shadow form — or a mouth, for that matter — he would have gritted them right now. Full of dark emotions, he thought:
'...Doesn't matter. I'm getting these coins even if it kills me!'
Soon, the vile creature drew close to the Twisted Rock. It crouched near the vertical stone wall of the floating island, giggled, and then suddenly shot upward, jumping no less than twenty meters high. Its talons pierced the weathered stone, and the abomination nimbly climbed up, soon disappearing from view.
Far below, on the rusted surface of the damaged heavenly chain, a hunched human figure suddenly appeared from the deep shadows.
Sunny felt the chain sway as the island rose higher and higher, then looked up with a dark expression.
In this direction, Twisted Rock was the last piece of land before the empty expanse of the Tear. It also only had one iron tether connecting it to the rest of the Chained Isles, so now that the bizarre monstrosity was up there, it had nowhere else to run.
With a pained grimace, Sunny summoned the Moonlight Shard, cut one of the straps off his pack, then tied it around his neck to create a makeshift sling for his broken arm. He was going to have to set the bones and make a proper splint later, but for now, this was going to have to do.
With his arm secured and cradled against his chest, Sunny waited a few seconds for the sharp pain to subside, then activated the Dark Wing and used the Prowling Thorn to fly up the overhanging slope of the stone island.
The dragonfly cloak only allowed him to levitate if there was a surface beneath it to support the enchantment. If there wasn't, he was only able to slowly glide down instead of falling without any control. So, to travel up, he had to either push off of something or pull himself toward something. The Prowling Thorn made that process easier.
Due to the burden of the early stages of the Crushing, Sunny had to exert more strength than usual to propel himself upward. After using the heavy kunai to do so several times, he finally crested the edge of the Twisted Rock and soared a few meters above it.
The Twisted Rock… was a dreadful and miserable place.
The island was rather small, and all of its surface was nothing but an uneven expanse of dark stone. That stone, however, looked really strange. It was as if once, a long time ago, it had been melted by unimaginable heat and then abruptly solidified again, creating strange shapes and swirls.
…Here and there, blackened bones protruded from the molten stone, telling the tale of countless humans and beasts who had drowned in that scorching inferno. The sight of them was eerie and disturbing, like something torn from the actual hell.
Thrown down by the Crushing, Sunny landed heavily on the dark stone and swayed, then supported himself with the shaft of the Cruel Sight.
His graceless arrival made enough noise to attract the attention of the chest fiend, who was crouched a dozen or so meters away.
The creature froze, then turned around and faced him.
Sunny scowled.
…A mangled corpse of a Chain Worm was hanging from beneath the half-closed lid of the chest. As the creature turned, the tail and claws of the dead Fallen Demon scraped across the molten stone.
The bizarre abomination stared at Sunny for a few moments, then opened its maw and swallowed the remainder of the Chain Worm whole. Despite the fact that the demon was at least five times bigger than the chest that served the fiend as the head, it somehow disappeared inside without leaving a trace. The creature licked the blood off its sharp teeth and giggled.
This time, its laugh sounded rather hateful.
A cold smile appeared on Sunny's lips.
"Right back at you, bastard."
***
As the fiend rose to its feet, towering above Sunny menacingly at full three meters of height, the Cruel Sight shifted and turned into a somber shortsword. Its silver blade gleamed, seemingly absorbing the bright sunlight.
The heavenly chain rattled below, and as its rusted links scraped against each other, the Twisted Rock continued to ascend.
The smile disappeared from Sunny's face.
Staring at the gluttonous abomination, he couldn't help but feel a bit of fear. The thing was tall, fast, and incredibly strong… much stronger than he was, especially now that his reserves of shadow essence were almost completely drained. Despite the fact that it was heavily wounded, both by his sword and by the claws of the Chain Worms, it still appeared agile, vigorous, and full of murderous spite.
However, this fight was not going to be as suicidal as it might have seemed. There were three main reasons why Sunny felt confident in his chances of defeating the bizarre abomination.
The first one was hanging on a thread tied around his neck. It was a beautiful amulet in the form of a crimson flower… the Blood Blossom.
The fiend was bleeding heavily from the deep cut on its thigh, which had been left there by the sharp blade of the Cruel Sight, and from a multitude of ugly wounds delivered to the gaunt body of the monstrosity by the Chain Worms it had fought while traversing the heavenly chain.
The more black blood flowed from those wounds, the more the morbid charm Memory enhanced both the Puppeteer's Shroud and the Cruel Sight, as well as any other Memory Sunny would want to use.
The second reason was rather simple, and it was the fundamental difference between the two of them. The abomination might have been stronger and faster than Sunny, but it lacked his combat skill and insight. As long as the gap in power was not absolutely overwhelming, a polished technique could turn the tide of any battle. More than that, fighting things that were bigger and more powerful than him was more or less Sunny's specialty by now.
However, the third reason was the most important, and the one he hoped to exploit the most.
Yes, the fiend was stronger than Sunny… but it was also much, much larger and heavier than him. That meant that it was going to be affected by the Crushing much more. No matter how bad it was going to get for Sunny, it was going to be many times worse for the towering abomination.
Out here on the Chained Isles, being small and lithe was sometimes a great advantage.
Feeling the burden of the Crushing pressing down on him more and more, Sunny raised his sword and aimed it at the bizarre fiend.
'...Let's see which one of us is going to break first.'