Хавханд

Sunny rolled over his shoulder and jumped to his feet, the blade of the Cruel Sight slicing through a vine that was flying through the air to ensnare him. Blood was streaming down his back, and poison was entering his lungs.

What's worse, a concentrated dose of it must have been infused into his bloodstream by the black thorns. Sunny suddenly felt feverish and weak, and a sense of cold paralysis was spreading through the left side of his body, which took the most damage.

He was still able to move, and Blood Weave was already working to contain and devour the toxin. But before it prevailed, Sunny was in a dire situation.

Gritting his teeth, he dashed to the side, hoping to escape the sunlight and use Shadow Step to reach the abominable creature in the center of the cargo hold. Before he could dive into the saving darkness of the shadows, however, a massive vine crashed into the floorboards, shattering them and barring his way.

Sunny froze for a fraction of a second, realizing that there was nowhere to escape. Dozens of vines were already moving in his direction, glistening in the sunlight as clouds of murky mist escaped from the pores on their surface. Even though the root section of the vines was not very mobile, the sheer amount of them made it almost impossible to survive the onslaught.

What's worse, the vines were contracting, pulling more and more of their length into the cargo hold.

He cursed.

...At least the pressure on the Fire Keepers should have diminished.

Sunny, however... Sunny was one moment away from being killed.

He was not going to be able to reach the monster without the help of the shadows, but bathed in the merciless sunlight, he also had no chance of diving into their embrace.

All he could do was use his own.

Commanding one of the shadows to unwrap itself from his body, Sunny sent it toward the ghastly corpse and staggered as the strength and resilience provided by it disappeared. The second shadow slid from the Cruel Sight and attached itself to his feet, meant to serve as a threshold through which he was going to step.

Now, all he had to do was to survive the short second it was going to take the first shadow to reach its goal.

…That was easier said than done.

Straining the flexibility of his body to its limit, Sunny felt his joints groan and his tendons tremble on the verge of tearing apart. Twisting at an almost impossible angle, he dodged one of the vines, placed his hand on the spongy carpet of the brown moss, and performed a bizarre spin, narrowly sliding between two more.

If not for the torturous training he had put himself through to accommodate the inhuman demands of Shadow Dance, this would have been impossible.

Feeling the skin of his palm burn, as though submerged in stomach acid, he retrieved his hand from the brown moss and immediately jumped backward to save himself from being entangled in the slithering vines. He was swift enough to avoid being caught, but not swift enough to escape unscathed.

The black thorns tore into his right side, and more blood flowed down his body, while more poison entered his bloodstream.

"Argh!"

Sunny ducked, dashed desperately to the side, then rolled and threw himself upward from an impossible position, feeling his ligaments rip. Dodging the swarm of vines was like being a fly surrounded by a contracting mass of spiderwebs.

Luckily, he only had to survive in their lethal, moving maze for a second.

Before the vines could turn into an impenetrable barrier all around him, Sunny dove into his shadow and emerged right in front of the vile mass of brown moss… and the remains of the human encased within it.

The Cruel Sight flashed with pure light, and in one fluid motion, he thrust its incandescent blade into the chest of the monster.

'Got you!'

And then…

Nothing happened.

The corpse didn't react to receiving a mortal wound at all. Its ghastly face remained unmoving, its eyes full of terrifying emptiness, its body a harrowing mess of torn flesh and slithering brown vines.

The mass of moss continued to contract and expand, and the vines themselves continued to pursue the invader. Even the divine flame seemed to have no effect on the Corrupted Monster.

Sunny paled.

'Crap…'

He twisted the Cruel Sight, hoping that it would have some effect, but all was in vain. The Corrupted Monster simply refused to die, for whatever reason, and the ancient remains that were its source appeared to be immune to flame, even if the vines themselves were susceptible to it.

The information Cassie shared with him came from Master Roan, who had fought the vines once. But he had never entered the wreck, so of course, the dashing griffin rider couldn't have known that the creature itself did not share the weaknesses of its sprawling thorned limbs.

'Damn! Now what?!'

The vines were already upon him…

Before they could ensnare Sunny, though, two ruby eyes ignited in his shadow, and a graceful figure of the demonic knight lunged forward out of it. The blade of her stonelike sword flashed through the air, easily severing several vines, and then her shield crashed into the slithering vernicose wall, pushing it away and making the whole cargo hold shudder.

Now that Saint was Ascended, and augmented by one of his shadows, her strength was truly frightening. The taciturn demon spun in the mass of vines, cutting them down like a demented gardener. For a moment, none of them could reach her.

Sunny wrapped the second shadow around himself and retrieved the Cruel Sight, thinking feverishly.

'What the hell… how do I kill this thing?!'

He could try to place the Broken Oath near it and retreat… but no, that wouldn't work. Unlike the Mordant Mimic, who had been paralyzed by the Crushing, the being trapped in the cargo hold of the ancient ship could simply move the charm away with one of its vines, or crush it.

And if Sunny tried to prevent it from doing so, he would succumb to the soul damage first. Even with the help of the Mantle of the Underworld, he would still be just an Awakened… a Corrupted Monster's soul was much, much more vast and resilient.

Leaving Saint to fend for herself was also not an option, since even with her newfound might, she had no chance of surviving in a battle against this powerful creature alone. Not all Corrupted Monsters were created equal, and the two of them had the misfortune of stumbling on an especially dreadful one.

So… what else was there?!

Sunny couldn't damage the abhorrent abomination itself… but he could damage the vines. That would buy him some time to come up with a solution, at least…

Jumping back, he sliced at the root of a thick vine growing out of the ancient human's forearm, severing it. As a side effect of this attack, the corpse seemed to retrieve some control of its hand, which slowly rose and stretched toward Sunny.

'Damn!'

Suddenly feeling a sickening, cold sensation in his heart, he hurried to create as much distance between himself and the corpse as he could.

However, the abomination didn't seem to be launching an attack. Its hand strained to rise, held down by the mass of vines growing from it. Struggling against this terrible burden, it twitched and moved slightly, then froze. One of its fingers trembled.

The creature… seemed to be pointing at something.

And for the first time, the expression in its empty eyes changed, betraying that there was still a hint of consciousness trapped in this mangled body.

Those terrible eyes were not burning with bloodlust, hunger, or wrath. Instead, they were full of harrowing agony and… pleading.