25 [25]Lineage
Nephis didn't want to respond immediately. She was tired from using her Aspect, so she focused on getting back to the tree with Sunny.
When they made it back to Cassie, she figured out where he was through a roundabout Marco polo, and when she found him, she tackled into his arms.
Sunny could tell that she was just relieved that he was alive somehow, and he didn't want to hurt her more, so he allowed her to cry in his arms. Nephis came and patted her back. Cassie snapped out of it when she did, and jumped back a little.
"I. . . Sorry, about that, Sunny."
"Ah, you can't see it, but I'm smiling from ear to ear, Cas. It's like having a cute little sister. It brings back memories."
Images of Rain, both of when she was little, and what she looked like when he met her again flashed through his head. He could've sworn Cassie's smile now matched perfectly with what Rain looked like when she smiled at him.
He turned away. leaving Cassie and Nephis with confused expression on their faces. Then, Sunny walked to the base of the Soul Devourer and summoned a Memory.
[Memory: Drop of Ichor.]
[Memory Rank: unknown]
[Memory Type: unknown]
[Memory Description: The loathsome Thieving Bird was hated both by the gods and -unknown-. However, it only cared about shiny things. Enamored by Weaver's beautiful eyes, it stole one of them on a dark, starless night. Impatient, the vile creature looked at its bounty while still in flight. However, when it saw the reflection of -unknown- forever frozen in the depths of Weaver's pupil, it went mad and screamed, dropping the eye on the mortal realm below. All that was left in its greedy beak was one drop of pure, golden ichor.]
They had only spent a day here and Sunny was already starting to feel listless and hungry. Not only that, he was augmenting his armor constantly and already knew exactly what the tree was, so he was far less susceptible to the tree's brainwashing than he had been in the past, but he was slowly becoming comfortable here, just like the girls. . .
He had a lot to do. He was going to start by consuming the Memory. He had already convinced Nephis earlier by explaining what the tree was. Nephis had been shocked, scared and angry, but as expected, she had forgotten by now.
Sunny took a deep breath, with Nephis staring between him and the strange golden orb alternatively. He clicked yes when the spell prompted to consume the Ichor. Then, Sunny fell into the worst agony he had ever felt before. It was so much worse than the last time he consumed one of these darned things.
***
It only took Sunny a few seconds to realize what was going on. Inside Sunny, Shadow's lineage was fighting Weaver's lineage. What's worse, Weaver's lineage was about equal to Shadow's lineage, thanks to Shadow's lineage having settled in Sunny's body already.
This meant that instead of Weaver's lineage just eating Shadow's lineage, they were at a sort of stand still, constantly clashing inside Sunny's body, in an unending war between two Divine traces.
Sunny was confused, hurt, and dying for minutes. His skin and flesh broke apart in many places, shocking Nephis as she watched. Blood started to pour through every hole in his body. His body constantly spasmed and twitched. It was evident he was going to die.
Nephis was not just going to stand there and watch. She remembered when Sunny pushed her down into the ashen sands last night, only to be drug into the dark sea moments later.
'It's just pain. I want to save him!"
She dropped to her knees next to Sunny, who was silently screaming, and let her healing flames ignite and pour into him.
Sunny could not tell how long he was enduring the unspeakable torment before something warm rushed through his body. Then, something strange happened.
The warm and gentle feeling pulled the agonizing parts of his body towards his soul core, and the two restless pains that were consuming him could not seem to stop the warm feeling from trapping them.
In fact, they did not even try. The two pains were smashed together, and mixed with the warm feeling, and all of them collided and kneaded like dough in his chest. Before Sunny could register what was happening, the agony washed over his whole body again.
This time, the feeling felt uniform again. Sunny's body was being properly rebuilt, instead of just wantonly destroyed.
Sunny blacked out from the pain.
***
When Sunny came to, it was already nightfall again. Somehow, Neph and Cassie had managed to get Sunny up onto one of the Soul Devourer's branches. On top of that, Nephis had made no effort to start to build a boat, and he knew that he had wasted too much time.
Sunny knew that something strange had happened to himself. After making sure that he and the sleeping girls weren't in any danger through his extended Shadow Sense, Sunny froze.
How. . . How far could he extend his sense? Sunny could not even tell. Sunny dove into his Soul Sea and immediately checked the runes.
[Name: Sunless]
[True Name: Lost From Light]
[Rank: Dormant]
[Memories:Silver Bell, Azure Blade, Puppeteer's Shroud, Venomous Slasher]
[Echoes:Carapace Scavenger, Spawn of the Vile Thieving Bird]
[Shadows: Soul Serpent]
[Shadow Cores:1/7]
[Shadow Fragments:204/1000]
[Attributes: Fated, Ember of Divinity, Prince of Shadows, Shadow Vein Weave, Rewoven, Enthralled]
[Ember of Divinity: Deep within your soul, an ember of divinity shines, almost ready to erupt into a radiant flame.]
[Shadow Vein Weave: Rather than blood, the purest of shadows flow through your veins. They've been imbued with odd tenacity.]
[Aspect:Shadow Slave]
[Aspect Rank: Divine]
[Innate ability: Shadow Bond]
[Aspect ability: Shadow Control]
[Aspect Legacy: 2/7]
[Flaw: Clear Conscience]
[Master: Nephis]
[True Name: Changing Star]
[Rank: Dormant]
[Memories: Dream Blade, Evertwine, Starlight Legion Armor, Midnight Shard]
[Echoes: ]
[Soul Cores: 1/7]
[Essence Fragments:608/1000]
[Attributes:Dreamspawn, Nephilim, Flame of Divinity, The Fire, Enthralled]
[Aspect: Lightbringer]
[Aspect Rank: Divine]
[Innate Ability: Halfbreed]
[Aspect Ability: Soul Flame]
[Flaw: Pristine Soul]
***
Sunny carefully checked his attributes and felt a headache coming on. Shadow Vein Weave? What does it mean that shadows flow through his veins? Nephis has her first core over halfway filled? She fell under the damned tree's spell, he saw. He had too, albeit to a much lesser extent.
Sunny checked to see if he could peer under ther weaves of Memories, and found a strange sight. Indeed, just like with Blood Weave, Sunny could see the weaves of light underneath the surface of Memories, but unlike with Blood weave, Sunny, could not, in fact , tell what color they were.
He wasn't sure what the significance was, but peering into Memories and echoes now revealed a grey nexus of lights indicating the sorcery of Weaving done by the Spell.
It was as though Sunny was watching the weaves through an ancient colorless camera, like humans did at the dawn of their video capturing technology.
Sighing, he made sure that Gloomy was augmenting his armor, and then Sunny decided to cut his finger with the Azure Blade.
When he did, Sunny thought he saw blood spilling onto the tree branch from his finger, but in fact, the "blood" seemed to disappate in the night before it could even fall onto the tree branch. the weirdest thing was that Sunny felt his essence drain a miniscule amount, and then he saw shadows rise from the underside of his finger and seemingly rush into it, as if sucked by a vortex.
A moment later, there was a small black line of "coagulated blood" where he had cut himself. The shadows from the surroundings seemed to form a scab where he had "bled" and his skin was already slowly healing itself.
Sunny experimented with several things and waited for the night to pass, occasionally hurting himself to ward off the Soul Devourer's attempts to subdue his mind and resting himself for the coming morning. Once the girls wake up, before they could eat any fruits and lose themselves further, Sunny had to get them off of this island.
