Caster had been lucky enough to enter the Dream Realm near the city and arrive at the castle much earlier than the three of them. By the time Sunny, Nephis and Cassie had found their way to the human settlement, he was already in good standing there.
Despite the fact that there were a lot of opportunities for a talented Legacy to rise through the ranks of Gunlaug’s army, he had nevertheless decided to remain independent and eventually joined the Changing Star’s cohort, drastically raising their combat strength and reputation.
Looking back, that was when all of Sunny’s problems had really started.
“That’s right, it was all his fault, not mine. Yeah, definitely!”
Grinding his teeth, Sunny kicked the heavy chest and cursed under his breath. Then, acting as if nothing had happened, he smiled brightly and left the hidden chamber once again.
Down below, things were getting interesting. Attracted by the smell of blood, several monsters tried to enter the ruined cathedral to feast on the fresh corpses. However, the Black Knight was as full of wrath as ever. Just as Sunny climbed onto the support beams, he was finishing off a large creature that looked like a praying mantis made of human skin.
Initially, Sunny planned to take a look at the material possessions left behind by the five unfortunate thugs, but the sight of the ferocious battle made him change his mind. He would have to do it later.
Besides, his shadow had already looked through the bloody remains and came to the conclusion that there was nothing really valuable among the dismembered corpses.
Not wasting any more time, Sunny escaped through the roof of the cathedral and retraced his steps to the place where he had fought the Blood Fiend.
The body of the hunting party’s leader was still there. Of course, his Memories had long disappeared, leaving the bearded man dressed only in rags. The heavy battle-axe was gone, too.
Sunny sighed.
“That’s why killing people is not worth it.”
His shadow covered its face with a hand and shook its head dejectedly, trying to express that his wording was nothing short of unfortunate. Sunny frowned.
“What? It’s not!”
And for him, it was doubly so.
When one Awakened killed another, they received a considerable portion of the enemy’s soul essence without having to shatter their soul shard. Sunny, however, was not an ordinary Awakened. His Aspect was based on consuming shadow fragments instead.
That meant that even if his enemy had absorbed hundreds of souls shards in the past, Sunny would only receive the number of shadow fragments matching their rank and class, just like he would after slaying a Nightmare Creature. Since all Sleepers were mere dormant beasts, in this case, the number was… one.
“Just one fragment away from four hundred,” Sunny said, a bit disheartened.
All that work for nothing…
Some small, rational piece of his mind was actually relieved that killing humans was not very lucrative. Otherwise, in his state… no, he wouldn’t. Surely.
“Ah? Wouldn’t what?”
Sunny blinked a couple of times, waiting for his inner voice to answer. However, it was strangely silent. Shrugging, he bent down and searched the dead man’s body, hoping to find something of value.
Looking at the fabric, he noticed crude shapes drawn on it with ink. Some shapes looked strangely familiar.
“Is that… a map?”
Indeed, it was a primitive map. The shapes he recognized were the various landmarks located in the neighboring parts of the cursed city. Sunny knew many of them by heart, and had even explored a few in the past.
“A treasure map?”
Suddenly, the strange timing of the hunting party’s arrival and their lack of experience made perfect sense. They weren’t actually hunters. Instead, they were a bunch of fools who had been swindled by some smart person back at the castle into buying a fake treasure map.
At least that was the most likely possibility.
However…
“But what if it’s real?”
Sunny blinked, looking at the map with a mix of distaste and avarice. He couldn’t decide whether he should try and follow it or throw it away.
…Luckily, his thought process was interrupted by a thunderous crash.
One of the buildings not far from where he was standing suddenly collapsed, filling the street with a cloud of dust and flying debris. A massive shape flew through the air and heavily crashed against another wall, causing an avalanche of stones to fall down.
The creature tried to stand up, but then twitched and grew still, spilling rivers of fetid blood all over the pavement. It was unmistakably dead.
Sunny quickly hid the map in his armor and dove into the shadows, trying to understand what was happening. Somewhere near, furious roars and the sound of steel clashing against steel could be heard, growing closer with each second.
Strangely, there were no human voices.
“A battle between Nightmare Creatures?”
Such things were not rare in the cursed city, but to Sunny’s knowledge, there were very few things capable of challenging the current masters of this street and the adjacent square.
These creatures were not the most powerful among the inhabitants of the city, but due to their unique characteristics, Sunny tried to avoid them like the plague. He saw several monsters much more powerful than anything he would be willing to take on ending up sliced and diced into tiny pieces on that square.
However, none of them was able to give the protectors of the square as much trouble as they were having right now, at least judging by the desperate sounds of the battle.
Intrigued, Sunny decided to take a look.
Hidden in the shadows, he climbed up the tall wall of an ancient building and soon arrived on its roof. Watching his footing, Sunny walked forward until he reached the opposite edge of the building.
From there, he could see the wide square in all its dark glory.
In the middle of the square, a moving statue was fighting against several hulking monsters.