A ship of Nightwalkers arrived in the East Antarctica. The port was very lively. Once before the port was prepared to move civilians out of Antarctica. Ironically now it defied that purpose. Ever since Dream Gates appeared in Antarctica, they were a destination of everyone that wanted to leave the Earth, and make themselves a place in the Domains.
One group of them was leaving the ship. People were slowly leaking out through the gangplank. With them there was a family of Goverment officials. With them there was Rain, and Happy following her in the shadows.
His primary goal was to protect his sister, but considering that her parents, and siblings were there as well, Sunny couldn't really ignore their safety. What if her adoptive family got hurt? Could he accept the grief, and loss Rain would experience? Not an option.
So while Rain, and her family shivered in cold, his other incarnations were searching through Antarctica so he can track as many potential dangers as possible. And there were surprisingly many. Events of the last year turned Antarctica into a place of the most often battles between humanity, and Nightmare Creatures.
The previous Titans the Evacuation Army took heroic effort to stop, and slay, were quickly replaced by new ones, and from time to time a new danger was marching towards the siege capitals, swayed by the scent of human souls. That kind of danger can't be fully avoided. Gates are bound to pop out from time to time. In the worst case Happy can take entire family far away.
Not that Rain had to know that. He let her believe he won't protect her, and considers Rain only as a disciple.
Maybe it's good that Rain doesn't know much, because knowing how messed up it is could make Saints feel somber. Where to even start? Gates? Checked. Vessels of Skinwalker appearing out of nowhere in the human settlements? Checked. Great Beasts? Checked. Mordret? Checked.
Every place he knew was revisited. LO49 was standing where it was, but the changes in the geography of that place were odd, though he wasn't sure how.
"I have never thought the Antarctica can be so beautiful place. It's a shame that I won't be able to see much of it."
"Don't be fooled. The worst enemies are usually the most pretty ones. Those are the worst."
"Is it even possible?"
"Let me think… there's a demon, who was so divinely beautiful, that just looking at it could literally overload, and fry my brain. One beauty ripped a heart out of my chest. Oh, and there were two times when a beautiful woman tried to turn me into a mindless thrall."
"Sounds dreadful. How did you turned more or less alive?"
"First one just left her home, causing the entire kingdom to be crushed into meat paste. The second… I killed her with a wooden knife. Actually I did that twice. The third? She tried to take my mind so I put on a scary mask. It worked, and she went blank for long enough so I could kill her as well."
"This is…"
"Hmm?"
"... great, very coherent, and believable story! There's totally nothing wrong with it."
"You should at least get the point. If you'll find something really beautiful you should consider the idea it's also extremely deadly. Saints are great examples."
"What about Nightingale? He used to teach me bow for a while. He was handsome, even annoyingly handsome, and his character… I don't think anyone can be as noble as him."
"Aaaaaand he can kill you with a word. That nice guy is probably in some ways deadlier than I. I can't kill with a word."
"So… what is the easiest way you can kill me?"
"That would be… controlling my shadows with my will, and imagination, willing with my ability into solid form, probably arm, or tentacle to make it simpler, and piercing you with it. Not that you earned the right to die this way."
"So that would be killing me with a thought, or with imagination?"
"... yes?"
"This can't be happening… What the hell?"
"Look! I'm sorry, kid, but it's definitely you who asked."
"Will I ever be able to kill with that kind of ease?"
"It mostly depends on you, albeit I'm not so sure of the path. First you have to awaken, and then somehow, I don't really know how, unseal your aspect. Perhaps you should train killing. You could claim a few kills here."
"I don't think I want to hunt in Antarctica. It's like asking for troubles to come. And I can't assume you will protect me, especially for… excuse me, a cup of noodles."
"Great. At least you're that smart to not put yourself in danger. But don't underestimate that cup of noodles."
Speaking of the situation, the caravan was probably rather safe. There were not one, but two Masters leading the caravan, and several Awakened looking after vehicles. They would undoubtedly run into something, but rather not into something that they can't fight off. At least it was enough to take a risk, and try to reach the Dream Gate. You never know what you can run into.
Unless your senses can reach many kilometers far. Sunny could be seen lazing in the shadows, but his Avatar was running around scouting the path, and eliminating most of the things that they could potentially run into if they had some bad luck.
He didn't kill everything. He left some things that could potentially reach the caravan, and force Rain to draw an arrow, just enough so he can say with honesty he didn't decide just to leave Rain without any pressure. At the same time it was an exercise of using his shadow sense without just ignoring everything around.
At the beginning just perceiving the world without being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of sensation was an impossibility. But over time his mind developed an instinct of ignoring that inflow. That wasn't perfect, because that instinct could eventually lead to the inability of truly wield his transcendent power. What about when he's going to become a Sovereign? Each step on the road to divinity resulted in increased reach of his shadow sense. Now it's something like forty kilometres. What is it going to be later? Hundreds? Thousands?
Therefore he decided that ultimately he can't allow himself just to ignore things. While he killed some things in the vicinity of the caravan after the caravan passed he killed as many of them as possible. By that he meant sending all his forces to fight in Antarctica.
Saint, Serpent, Nightmare, Fiend, and Mimic were the main attacking force, while his own little army of Awakened soldiers followed behind.
Saint was slashing with her sword, Serpent took the form of some Fallen Tyrant with the ability to make Awakened minions, Nightmare was luring the targets to sleep, while Fiend… it was hard to tell. Since Sunny forbid him from eating just everything the little big dude has been feeling dejected. The very idea of being selective in his food choices could as well go against his sense of self. But nonetheless his task was to feed the creatures to Mimic while still alive
Soon after crafting the Mimic Sunny discovered that it possesses the unique ability, something he didn't suspect, thought he should. Noctis told him why he had a chest that can eat people alive. Who would have guessed that was exactly the purpose? Not him anyway. Noctis forgot to mention that his coins were crafted not by him directly, but by his monstrous chest. Every Corrupted devoured by it amounts to at least one coin.
The coins themselves have little use to him for now, but they're still somewhat precious, especially if you consider crafting them of Dormant creatures they still can empower the cores. Also he has a few theories worth exploring. And who knows? Maybe one day he will learn something he can do with the coins? Therefore it makes sense to have a stock. Sunny suspects that Mimic thriving on them was the way how it has become Fallen, and the origin of these, the Rank of the Mimic, might be at the same time the reason why the coins from the original Mimic granted fragments only to Awakened.
He can't test out that theory as there's really no Masters that haven't saturated their core already. Saturating core is way easier than conquering Second Nightmare, while his Shadows are peculiar in nature. Unlike him and like most Awakened they can still obtain partial Fragments, and they get them from strange sources.
In a way he was thinking about some loophole, a cheap nice trick that will allow him to get Shadow Fragments, spare him from slaying thousands of Corrupted. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but his adventures taught him already that his aspect, while making his growth several times harder, still allowed many shortcuts. That included the fruits of Soul Tree, killing an unborn creature standing several Ranks above, putting coins on the altar illuminated by moonlight, fighting against a horde for his dear life, killing a shadow creature, and crushing a flower crafted in a dream by a long gone jade beauty.
There has to be something. He just will have to find it without the usual reliance on fate.
Meanwhile he could always improve on what he already possessed. For example the Fiend. This big bastard has changed during last few months. Before his body was made of black shining plates. Now it was closer to a draconic mix of whitish orange for easy, and flowing darkness for the rest of the body. Plates assumed the shape of scales.
At first he was reluctant towards such the idea, but over time he realized that due to [Complete Steel Body] this big wretch reached the limit of what he can achieve by devouring metals. Therefore it only makes sense that Sunny should switch his diet towards different elements.
To make that happen he made him eat Sevirax's skeleton, and some other things with the affinity to fire. His [Internal Heat] evolved into something much more refined. Initially he acquired it from eating Sun Prince's steel body. However the real source of the affinity to fire was Sevirax who infused that steel with his own fire, and the skeleton resulted in very apparent improvement. For the unfortunate lack of Spell's description he decided to call it [Draconic Flame].
The second direction he decided to take could be as well the source of regrets. He fed him… his own flesh. Little by little he cut from himself little bits of his flesh so the Fiend could consume them. While he was used to being hurt, while he had seven bodies to spend, and while his Saint physique in conjunction with proper diet allowed him to recover rather quickly from those loses, and even while there was Mimic to help him recover, he still suffered a lot. Nonetheless there was an effect. If one bit of his flesh could grant [Shadow Step] to this Shadow, then what should happen if he ate more, and this time it was transcendent flesh?
First answer, stomach pain. While very potent material Sunny's body is a potent poison, and here it is where his sweet revenge bites back. Basically every time Fiend ate it resulted in another stomach pain.
Sunny would almost pity him, but to that ugly gremlin's despair the result was very rewarding. The Fiend has obtained the ability to interact with shadows. He could either cover himself in an armor of shadows, and – part that surprised him quite a bit – deliver direct attacks to the shadows. It was probably a derivative of [Shadow Manifestation], one that made him mildly envious. The Fiend was now much deadlier than before adding another valuable asset to his forces.
Also no more turning Soul Serpent into the form of Kurt if he wanted to create a Hollow. That opened new possibilities. In some perspective he could even try making himself another Echo.
On a different front there was a terrifying steed embodying the most terrifying aspects of imagination, Nightmare. While his growth didn't result in assuming any new qualities there was a significant jump in quality. Active hunting, and repetitive trapping his targets in his [Dream Curse] brings steady growth.
Saint… He didn't know what to do with her. She's strong, fearsome, elegant, but that's it. Great, fearsome soldier, one being the most human-like Shadows serving under him. Sadly there's nothing much he can do for her, because he has little idea how she can grow. He always depended on feeding her with Memories. But it seems that was a feature of the Spell, and he's banished from the Spell. The best shot he can give is to find her a being of true darkness for her to fight. If there's something he can tell about Saint, it's that the instances of ascending the Class were related to true darkness twice. However there's actually no such creatures wandering around. True darkness is specific to Hollow Mountains. Encountering it somewhere else is rather an anomaly.
Soldiers, now several hundreds, were still mostly tasked with extracting the shards. Of course, they weren't standing idle. Some obtained their armors from the market. Some ordered armors, and tasked the apprentices to make them into just-memories or armors. Some decided to use not-enchanted armory. Not a perfect choice, but still a viable option, considering that Sunny could transport them with armors via Mimic thanks to its enchantments. From time to time Sunny could modify their armors, or even craft new ones, though he avoided taking too much work of that kind too often.
Their combat experience has grown alongside with the amount of shards absorbed by them. Their feelings? Mostly felt pressure. They spent their lives as mundanes, thinking that just becoming an Awakened could make them special. It worked this way, but at the same time they were surrounded by many powerhouses so they were not that much different from ordinary human. A terrifying creatures were fighting in their stead against terrifying creatures they didn't have much hope to stand against. And while their Master unleashed the least power, he was probably the most terrifying of them all, inducing their hearts with a sense of distant terror. Awakened janitors, some of them laughed. Not useless, but not that meaningful either, and very replaceable by Sunless' standards.
'They should be grateful. The things I had to do to become Awakened compared to this are simply ridiculous.'
On top of everything there was an avatar, Crazy, in his Shadow Shell, playing the role of the herald of death. Perhaps it was a product of his spite. Maybe he was an overprotective brother. It might be even a matter of habit. It could be everything at the same time, because why not? Fact remains that somewhere along the way he had to admit he started to really enjoy killing, he was getting aligned with the idea of murder on much deeper level than just accepting it's necessary for him to live.
Crazy was on the run with his bone sword, running in search of whatever stronger enemy he could slay with his bone sword. The sword was also now much more controllable, and several times deadlier. One slash could apply several effects varying from straight up freezing to a mind attack that could slow down targets' thoughts, and even soul to some extent.
It was one of the potential weapons he was considering against the Sovereigns. A Transcendent weapon couldn't do too well against a Supreme Beast. Well, not in this particular version, but if only supplied them with supreme shards they might do actual damage.
He still remembered that on the path to godhood one should learn to depend more on his own power instead of borrowing it. But in this particular case it's definitely a crappy idea. One day he's going to face the Sovereigns, and slay them. Doing so just with his Aspect abilities, and proficiency, is definitely an ill-found idea. Especially if he has no such power to express against the Sovereigns. Therefore the power must be indeed borrowed, either by belonging to one of his Shadows after raising them to Supreme, or by crafting a weapon of such grade, or even by incorporating external powers into himself.
During last few months alongside trying to build his own power, and getting accustomed to it, which was always the obvious direction, he was busy exploring more ways to inflict harm, and borrow power, especially for the purpose of increasing his. Did that get him far? Not really. Definitely closer, but not by much.
Power is a burden, but not every, and most of the time being a Saint treats him wonderfully. All these Nightmare Creatures could stand against him in hundreds, and still lose. For someone used to fighting against impossible odds it was like being spoiled. If he faced Goliath once again, it would end up being crushed into pulp like that time when it crushed Sunny once before. Doesn't that make him the thing he once feared? Sunny could hope he won't become arrogant to the point of ignoring the dangers. The temptation could as easily get him killed instead.
Suddenly something in his several points of view decided to move. A horde Beasts probably finally noticed the caravan, and since on the mental level their existence was malicious towards everything that is living, and not corrupted, the rest was already clear.
In the vehicle Happy that was watching after his sister decided to move.
"Pss"
"Hmm?"
"Get ready. It's your great day."
"Sorry. Today's not my birthday."
"Not as heartbreaking as birthdays, but mildly great. Caravan is about to get attacked."
"Please, remind me. What's great about it?"
"First, it's not as somber as birthdays, of course. Second, if first wasn't good enough, depending on your aim, you can show your progress to your parents."