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.

die before that, you

blind girl turned back to the roots

we don't die before

***

Sanctuary, Sunny had a

made him feel all sorts of complicated emotions. The manner of their relationship, at least, was set clear — it was purely an alliance of convenience,

his resentment for the sake of mutual benefit. After all, Sunny could be a very pragmatic person when he

the perspective of returning to the wreck of 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 if he wanted to

augmentation of the Cruel Sight, however, was going

ominous prediction that Cassie had made about both of them dying sometime in winter. 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

act as if nothing had changed. At least he thought that this was the

mentally exhausted from the long journey to 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

familiar sound of water falling over the

for now. First things

that he was

to find the source of the miraculous coins the dead Chain Worm had brought with it to the Iron Hand Island started this whole ordeal, and

was waiting for

couple of moments to make sure that no one was watching him, he then crossed the stone path leading to the small

in the shade of an ancient tree, and an obsidian knife lay on its

'The moment of truth…'

summoned the Covetous Coffer, took out one of the gold coins out of it, and

the moonlight, and then

[Your shadow grows stronger.]

big smile appeared on

runes, he

Shadow Fragments: [224/2000].

'It works!'

throwing a dozen or so on the altar each time he had to return to

in his sight, he decided