21 [21]Plan of Attack/ Spawn of the Vile Thieving Bird

Sunny laid out a plan of attack on the carapace demon. First, Sunny told Nephis and Cassie that their best plan was to try to get the creature of the dark sea to attack the carapace demon. Sunny figured it would not get the demon killed.

Secondly, Sunny figured that they would need to climb the tree to make it to where the carapace demon couldn't get them. This was where Sunny's shadow came in. Sunny remembered how the carapace demon had taken the time to attack it before realizing that it was invulnerable to physical damage.

When they slept that night, Cassie dreamed of the weakness on the carapace demon's chest, and Sunny incorporated a "backup strategy" to kill the demon if the sea monsters didn't kill it.

Sunny just had to distract the creature long enough for the group to make it to a branch of the tree the demon couldn't get them. It was going to be a hard task to pull off, but it would be fine.

Over the next few days, Sunny and Nephis killed several of the centipede monsters in the labyrinth, and took their venom organs to create the corrosive oil that the centipedes use.

Sunny made some clay pots, two for each kind of oil, and they secured them tightly to the scavenger echo. It was going to be a little more risky to not rely on the echo to play distraction, but Sunny could call Soul Serpent if he really needed a physical helper to distract the demon longer. 

Sunny didn't tell the girls, but he had made sure that they would operate their plan on the same day that they first arrived at the base of the Soul Devourer. Why? Sunny remembered the carapace centurion that he saw pay tribute on the day that they came.

Sunny was going to take advantage of the time that the centurion creature would pay tribute to the demon to buy time to climb the tree from the other side. 

***

Time passed quickly for the three of them, and soon the day of the attack on the metal carapace demon came.

Sunny was about to start the distraction plan, when he suddenly stopped Nephis and Cassie.

"Hold on. Follow me, there's a carapace centurion heading towards the barrow from behind us."

Nephis spoke up.

"What's it doing? I thought nothing came here?"

They were hurredly moving to a safer place in the labyrinth even as they talked.

"I'm not sure. I'll stick my shadow to it, but this might actually be good for us. The demon might get distracted."

Sunny could have sworn that Nephis had given him a strange expression, but that couldn't be. There was no way that he accidentally made himself into the weirdly calm one of the group.

Sunny would have laughed a little, but he was preoccupied by guiding the girls around the coral labyrinth to the shortest path to the branch from the other side. Cassie had he staff out to cover their and the echo's tracks with its wind blowing function.

When they finally made it out onto the ashy sands, Sunny gave them the go to break out into a sprint. Sunny looked through the eyes of the shadows of the carapace demon and the carapace centurion and found the centurion slowly walking toward the demon.

Somehow, Gloomy had stuck to its shadow without being noticed. Sunny was very happy that things were working out in his favor, and he tripped on the way to the damned tree.

'Damnation, do I have to fuck up every time ?'

It seemed that he had been careless. Picking himself up and taking off again had only taken Sunny a second, but it was a precious thing in their circumstances. Cassie was blowing wind behind their tracks, so they just has to keep pace.

'300 feet.'

'200 feet.'

When the group was a hundred feet from the tree, the demon had finally collected the shards from the centurion and was about to turn around. That's when Gloomy jumped out from the shadow of the centurion. He flipped of the demon and scurried away hurredly from where it was located.

Sunny smiled. The demon had quickly seen through Sunny's schemes in his last life, but Sunny knew that it would work now.it followed the shadow all the way into the labyrinth, because Gloomy was careful not to let itself get hit. Similarly,  the centurion followed the demon.

Sunny made it to the tree and unbundled the oil pots in a hurry. Nephis was already climbing to the tree, and Cassie was blowing away their last traces. Sunny dismissed the echo,  and caught Cassie in his arms.

Finally, the demon landed a hit on Gloomy. As expected, it didn't have any effect. The demon quickly realized something was off, and rushed back to the tree.

. . . It was too late though. Sunny and the girls had made it to a branch and removed the evidence before the demon made it to the tree, as fast as it was.

Sunny had even kept his echo, Carapace Scavenger!

***

The carapace demon eventually gave up looking for traces of people. It went back to look for Gloomy for a while, but it had already sneakily found its way back to Sunny, so the carapace demon eventually had no choice but to return to the tree and "trade" in the transcendant crystals it got from the centurion for a fruit from the Soul Devourer.

After that, it laid down next to the tree and started to sleep. Sunny started to rest too.

The girls were tense, considering the terrifying neighbor. Nephis was looking far more battle ready than frightened,  but they had climbed up the tree in early morning, so she eventually slept, with Cassie next to her on the branch.

Sunny sent Gloomy up the tree, and with his eyes closed, Sunny mapped out the best way to climb up to the unborn spawn of the vile thieving bird. When Nephis and Cassie were asleep, Sunny got up from his pretend nap and quickly began to climb the branches.

Sunny made it up to the Great nightmare creature in only about three hours. When he got to the nest, it was early evening. Sunny knew that he would be needed soon, so he paid barely any attention to the egg.

It was killed quickly.

[You have slain a Great Devil, Vile Thieving Bird's Spawn.]

[Your shadow grows stronger. . . ]

[You have received a Memory.]

[You have received an Echo.]

Sunny was dumbstruck. An echo? What the hell? He quickly dove down into his Soul Sea and looked up the runes.

[Drop of Ichor]

There was the same memory from before he regressed.

Sunny looked at his new Echo's runes.

[Spawn of the Vile Thieving Bird.]

[Rank: Supreme.]

[Class:Devil]

[Attributes: Starved, Weak]

[Starved: This echo was made from a creature starved for thousands of years. It will sap the Soul Essence of whatever touches it. The effect is so potent that a dormant soul may perish from the energy loss.]

[Weak: Even a mundane human could punch this echo and destroy it forever.]

Sunny stared at the runes, and then summoned the echo from the Soul Sea. He placed his hand on the dark grey, frail egg that appeared. It was as large as Sunny, and wide enough that it could fit him inside.

The actual egg of this creature had been tough enough that he couldn't pierce it without his shadow augmenting the Midnight Shard. Sunny had done it with the excess strength and a skillful stab from the augmented Azure Blade,  but it was by no means easy. So why couldn't the actual egg be his meat shield wall?

Sunny was frustrated. He tried to turn it into a Shadow. The prompt he got from the Spell was:

[You have insufficient Shadow Fragments.]

[Fragments required:204/2000]

Sunny looked at the runes, repressed a curse to the Spell, and began climbing down the Soul Devourer.