Walking forward, we passed between the giant heads and entered the empty space in front of the cyclopean gates.
However suddenly Sunny stopped to look at the seven heads. I decided to take a look too.
The face of the Lord was noble and dignified, the face of the Priestess — beautiful and gentle. The Slayer was arrogant and cold, her lips twisted in a crooked grin. The Stranger wore a helmet, darkness nesting in the crack of its visor.
When we took a step forward, something changed..
A cold wind suddenly howled, throwing bits of coral into the air.
Those pieces of did not fall down. Instead, more and more of the crimson shards flew up, slowly forming into seven twisted silhouettes.
I already had my memories imbued into my arms. Sunny's echo slowly rose from the shadows into existence as well, standing beside us.
A few seconds later, seven golems of crimson coral stood in front of us and Saint, blocking the path to the star sigil.
The armored figure of the Knight. The slender figure of the Slayer. The graceful figure of the Priestess…
Vile, corrupted facsimiles of the seven heroes slowly moved, raising their weapons to point at us. Their movements were crude and inhuman, but radiated a sense of terrible, profane power.
Sunny immediately dashed forward, however suddenly the Stranger appeared in front of him as though out of nowhere and put his round shield in the path of the austere tachi. Hitting it felt like hitting a mountain.
I immediately sprung forward behind Sunny to touch the shield with my palm. I immediately activated corrosion as my palm touched the shield, however Stranger did not allow me to be in contact with it more as he pushed his shield away from me.
At that moment Sunny was struck with a hammer to his temple, he blocked it with his weapon but was thrown backwards.
Dashing backwards to Sunny, I calculated the situation we were in. Which was not good..
Seven tall figures approaching us with steady, inevitable malice. Each of the golems was powerful enough to rip an entire cohort of Sleepers to pieces.
***
Back across the whirlpool of black water, the Dreamer Army was still furiously resisting the horde of Nightmare Creatures. By now, all of the monsters had left the coral bridge and descended upon the Sleepers, consumed by the mad desire for human flesh.
There was no distinction between the first and the second line now. All those still alive were engulfed by the bloody chaos of the slaughter, desperately trying to survive in the midst of absolute chaos.
Changing Star was at the center of the terrible bloodshed, shining like a radiant sun. She was not alone, Shashi was with her. Indifferent to everything, Nephis moved like a furious deity, eviscerating one abomination after another. All around her, burning corpses littered the ground, their cursed blood boiling and evaporating into the air. Not only was her presence relieving the pressure from the rest of the Sleepers, but they also found strength in it.
The ground beneath Shashi was littered with her own blood, she had not been using her aspect for almost a month and had gathered a huge amount of blood to utilize her aspect to the fullest.
The bridge was slowly covered by a river of blood that was shooting out projectiles at the monsters. The blood red whip tore through the abominations, several at once.
She moved around Changing Star, her whip had extended endlessly as she was swinging it around Changing Star to protect her, allowing Nephis to go all out on offense and not worry on defense. Several blood balls however over the battlefield, launching themselves to stick themselves into injuries of other people to heal them.
The reason to why she could such high amount of blood was because of the relic she had received from her Aspect Legacy.
[Drop of Ichor.] She was now one of the Beast Lineage holders.
Once she had consumed this ichor, she had received the attribute: [Abundance.] This attribute allowed her to store blood inside of her own body without facing its consequences. Even if her body had reached its limit on blood containment, her body still could contain more of it. During the throne war, she had not fought. Levi had been gathering blood for her, be it nightmare creatures, humans or himself. She had drank a lot of blood and she was going to use every drop of it today.
That said her mind hurt. There were too much of her own blood in the battlefield. Too many particles to manipulate and too many creatures to attack at once. Her mind felt like it was going to explode. But she still endured.
'I wonder where you are..'
***
Currently, Sunny was facing against three golems at the same time. The Knight, The Slayer, and the Priestess were trying to surround him. They moved with terrifying speed and possessed enough power to obliterate a Sleeper with laughable ease.
Luckily, Sunny was not just any Sleeper. The shadow was wrapped around his body, making him faster and stronger. With its help, he was barely able to hold on and remain alive.
…For now.
Some distance away from him, Saint and I facing off against the Stranger, the Builder, and the Hunter. These three were even more ferocious than Sunny's own opponents, giving both me and the Saint a lot of trouble.
Good thing that the Lord had yet to join the fight. The seventh golem stood motionlessly some distance away, as though uninterested in the fight.
I surged forward in a straight line and slammed into the Stranger's shield at full speed. The impact rang out with a sharp, metallic thud. My fingers immediately curled over the edge of the shield, securing a tight grip. I poured corrosion into the surface, but the material resisted.
Before the corrosion could gain traction, the Hunter launched their spear in a precise arc. The weapon whistled through the air, targeting my exposed side at rib level.
Saint stepped into its path. Her shield rose at a slight angle, catching the incoming spear along its flat face. The impact deflected the tip upward and off-course, sending the spear grazing off the surface. The Hunter's balance was thrown off by the force mismatch — it stepped wrong and dropped to one knee, bracing itself with its free hand.
I pivoted immediately and shot forward, lowering my stance to reach the Hunter's exposed knee joint. I extended my hand to grab and crush the joint at close range.
Before contact, the Builder's hammer came swinging in from my right side. The head of the weapon, large and block-shaped, moved at high velocity and at a low horizontal trajectory.
I shifted, turning my torso and raising both forearms. The hammer struck across both arms with concussive force. The kinetic transfer sent a jolt through the bones and muscle tissue, throwing off my center of gravity. I was launched backward by several meters, my feet lifting from the ground as my body skidded across the surface of the chamber in a wide arc before coming to a halt.
I regained my footing and reset my stance immediately, ready to re-engage.
The Lord was standing alone, seemingly indifferent to the battle that was happening in front of him.
A moment later, Sunny feinted an attack and jumped back at the last moment, disengaging from the three menacing coral golems instead.
"Don't die!" Sunny screamed as he rushed forward.
The taciturn demon froze for a fraction of a second beside me, as though hesitating. But in the end, she did not.
I brought both fists down in a swift arc, targeting the exposed shaft of the embedded spear. The wood split cleanly under the blow, the remaining half lodged inside Saint's chest while the Hunter still clutched the other.
Saint turned sharply. Her shield hand lashed out, grabbing the remaining portion of the spear. With a controlled twist of her hips, she pivoted and hurled the towering coral golem back. The Hunter flew several meters before crashing into the ground, its limbs scattering in disarray.
'Great!'
And then, she suddenly dashed to the side.
Before the terrible creatures could understand what was happening, she closed the distance and descended upon the three abominations attacking Sunny. Even though her attack was swift unexpected, they managed to react to it at the last moment. The obsidian steel of her dark sword was met by weapons made of crimson coral.
It gave Sunny the second he needed to get past them, nevertheless.
Dodging the hand of the Priestess, he appeared behind the three golems and ran toward the distant figure of the Lord.
'Run bastard! Run!'
The Saint challenged six golems all-together, tying the down with a ferocious onslaught of attacks. She paid dearly to buy him time, however. Just a second later, another attack got past her defense, leaving a deep crack on the black armor. And then another, and another…
Ruby dust flowed down like blood.
I was behind her, sometimes hopping in to action to act as a defense for Saint, or trying to get a hit of corrosion in. Panic was taking hold quickly, but even that was ambiguous in this moment.
We needed to hold out until Sunny came..
***
Sunny succeeded!
Immediately the six golems were weaker. I was about to activate my augmentation and slaughter all of them. However a sudden breeze made me shiver.
An endless wall of darkness crashed into the Crimson Spire and swallowed it, painting the whole world black.
A cold feeling forced itself into my system..
'The fuck??'
In front of me, Saint was barely holding on to life. Her armor was broken and painted red by the crimson dust that flowed from a dozen terrible wounds. The visor of the helmet was shattered, together with the side of her face. One of her ruby eyes was missing, replaced by a jagged black hole.
A vicious blow of the Knight's sword got past the Shadow's defense and bit into her shield arm, severing it at the elbow.
Saint staggered and awkwardly lashed out with her sword. Then, she took a step back and fell heavily to one knee.
The menacing figures of the golems towered above her, approaching to deliver the final blow. The war hammer of the Builder rose, ready to fall down like a herald of destruction. The spear of the Hunter flew forward like a hungry predator.
The Shadow slightly tilted her head and faced her death. Her eerily beautiful alabaster face was calm and indifferent. The weapons of the profane constructs reflected in her one remaining eye, growing larger and larger as they drew closer.
…But in the end, all they managed to pierce was emptiness.
The wounded Saint dissipated into shadows, summoned back into the nurturing black flames of Sunny's core at the last second.
Suddenly the stranger staggered backwards as if a violent wave crashed into him. His shield shattered in an instant and he fell to his back only for his head to be crushed by a heavy stomp.
[You have slain an awakened..]
In the next moment, a wall of darkness swallowed the empty space in front of the Crimson Spire, bringing with it pelting rain and hurricane winds.
The storm was now upon them.
The five remaining golems lingered for a few seconds, staring into the raging expanse of the terrifying tempest. They were submerged into its darkness, with only a rare flash of lightning illuminating the world. The wall of rain was so thick that it was almost impossible to see anything through it.
A moment later, though, one of them suddenly shuddered, and then crumbled to the ground, its head flying off into the darkness. The flash of the blade that had decapitated it was so swift and unexpected that none of them had time to react.
It also came from the wrong direction.
The golems spun and raised their weapons… but instead of an enemy, all they saw was a heavy kunai appearing from the wall of darkness and hitting one of them in the neck. And then suddenly one of them was reduced to dust in a span of mere seconds.
Now there was three left, or were there..?
The two golems grouped together to protect the priestess from the sides. But they were only protecting a pile of dust.. which was already being spread around by the wind.
The figure of the Slayer suddenly fell to her knees. A moment later, her head slowly slid from her neck and tumbled down, revealing a perfect, smooth cut.
Then it was time for the Builder to go as his head was crushed by a vicious swing of an arm.
"Hurry! The water is rising!"
Finally, Sunny's hand touched the cold surface of the ancient stone. Wiping the rainwater off his pale face, Sunny stared at the radiant shapes of the seven stars.
"This better work…" Sunny groaned.
Summoning the first of the Oath Keys, he lingered for a moment, and then carefully inserted it into the black chasm of the keyhole as I watched.
Separated from him by the vast expanse of the swelling sea of darkness, the surviving Sleepers desperately fought the advancing horde of monsters. The black water had already reached their waists, making it hard to move. The army was trying to retreat up the slope of the crimson coral, but the pursuing sea was much faster than them.
Changing Star was still slaying one monster after another, her radiance only growing brighter in the tenebrous hell of the furious storm. Raindrops were evaporating as they touched her brilliant skin, its incandescence making even arching bolts of lightning seem pale and bleak.
Shashi was literally standing on water as she had densed her blood enough to be separated from water. Her whip rippled around the watery battlefield and several blood projectiles shot from the depths of the water.
…Suddenly, an almost imperceptible ripple ran across the surface of the black water. A gust of cold wind blew over the Forgotten Shore, sending a shiver running through the hearts of countless creatures.
Moving on to the next star, Sunny summoned the second key and put it into the lock. Nothing terrible happened, so he struggled through the water to reach the third one.
I immediately lifted him up to my shoulders and walked to the third faster than he could have done. He was about to tell me to put him down but he reluctantly accepted his situation.
As he put the fifth key into the keyhole, the tentacles were already alarmingly close. Sunny kicked my face with his boots.
"Hurry bastard! Hurry!"
Not wanting to deal with his shit anymore I grabbed his nape of armor and launched him toward the last one.
Just a few moments before the mass of twisting tentacles descended on him, he found the last shining star and drove the seventh key into its center.
Suddenly, the world shuddered.
The whole Forgotten Shore trembled.
Out on the battlefield, the surviving humans froze for a second, startled by the sudden change that rippled through the world.
The furious onslaught of the wind died down. The torrential flood of rain stopped. The continuous, deafening roar of the thunderstrikes grew quiet.
The terrible storm seemed to have ended as suddenly as it had appeared, dissipating into nothingness like a fragile mirage.
Even the Nightmare Creatures attacking them stumbled and paused for a moment, staring at the sky.
…And then, the dark veil of clouds was broken by a blindingly bright ray of sunlight.
As soon as it happened, the restless black water stopped rising, and then flowed in reverse.
The cursed sea was retreating.
And then, the gargantuan gates opened. The giant slabs of ancient stone moved for the first time in thousands of years…
…The problem was, the gates opened outward, slamming into Sunny and me, dragging us through the mass of black water with terrible speed.
After a while, we was thrown onto the slope of a tall coral mound. I immediately climbed up to my feet with a few coughs. What I saw was.. startling.
The dark sea was being sucked into the Spire.
The black water was flowing in reverse, rushing into the enormous doorway. The twisting tentacles and the harrowing creature they belonged to were carried away by that current, disappearing into that blackness, too.
Just a few moments later, the lever of the dark sea began to fall.
The storm died down, and the impenetrable veil of clouds was torn apart, allowing sunlight to illuminate the world once again.
And in a few minutes…
The cursed sea was no more.
"Did we do it..?" Sunny asked in a shocked tone.