Shadow Slave

Sunny stared at the blind girl with surprise clearly written on his face. Allowing this surprise to seep into his voice, he asked:

"The vine creature? You want to kill that thing?"

Why would she want to attempt to do something that dangerous?

Cassie nodded.

"Yes."

He shook his head.

"That bastard sprawls through the entire island, its vines buried underground. It is Corrupted, which means that our weapons will barely be able to cut it. And, if that was not bad enough, the vines produce clouds of deadly poison. Are you sure that you want to attack it?"

The blind girl lingered for a few moments, then answered calmly:

"It is a Corrupted Monster, indeed. It is terrifying and lethal, yes. But I am sure that we can destroy it, with enough preparation. Everyone has weaknesses, after all. That creature is susceptible to fire, for example. There must be other things we might be able to exploit, too."

Sunny thought for a while, then shrugged.

"Fine. I will help your cohort fight the monstrosity on the Shipwreck Island. I will not promise that we will succeed, though."

Cassie sighed.

"Then we have a deal. My cohort and I will remain in the Desecrated Growth until our business here is done. I expect it to take a month, at least. Maybe more. After, we will return to the Sanctuary, recuperate, and proceed to the Shipwreck Island."

She paused for a moment, and then added:

"And then, I will help you challenge the Second Nightmare."

Sunny smiled.

don't die before

back to the roots of the

If we don't

***

way back to the Sanctuary,

which made him feel all sorts of complicated emotions.

resentment for the sake of mutual benefit. After all, Sunny could be

the ancient ship, this time to do battle with the vine monster that ruled over the island. Sunny knew very well how dangerous that thing was, so he had a lot of preparations to do

divine flame augmentation of the Cruel Sight, however, was going to come in

Or falling into the Sky Below, at least. That… he didn't even know what to think about that. However, Sunny was not going to let this vision affect his decisions. The last time he had tried to act on the knowledge received

was to keep it in his mind, but continue to act as if nothing had changed. At least he thought that this

and back from the Desecrated Grove, Sunny approached the Sanctuary of Noctis in the middle of the night. His shadow essence reserves were almost depleted, and his head buzzed from all

sound of water falling over the edge of the

it, for now.

was high in the sky, which meant that

had brought with it to the

was waiting for

couple of moments to make sure that no one was watching

stood in the shade of an ancient tree,

'The moment of truth…'

Coffer, took out one of the gold coins out of

the

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

appeared on

the runes, he

Shadow Fragments: [224/2000].

'It works!'

Sunny thought of going about using the coins in a slow and deliberate manner, throwing a dozen or so on the altar each time he had to

in his