Kapitel 22: If you wish not to see my end, a crocodile to me give, my friend

Things with Jet were pretty much sorted out. He struck a minor deal. She will take him to her citadel. Little she knew that he's going to anchor his avatar there. His avatars can have separate anchors, which means that his main body can still have an anchor in the Tower of Longing while his avatar could appear in the Jet's citadel.

'This is seriously broken. I wonder what the hell Spell was thinking by giving me such an aspect.'

He already has some anchors in different regions of the Dream Realm. Sunny had in mind that he must engage in combat daily, and by traveling many regions he could select which hordes of Nightmare Creatures he wanted to engage with. Only by doing that he could grow as a Transcendent, and it was also the most effective way to accumulate more soul shards.

Jet didn't know much of that. The Blue-eyed Boulder easily implied that he can kill powerful creatures. That could let her recognize him as someone at very least capable of hunting. Not the same as revealing that he killed some people in the past, but he wasn't very eager to talk about killing people.

He also passed to her a few minor Memories like another water-making bottle, a variation of Essence Pearl, and Extraordinary Rock. He also gave her a charm with a transcendent version of [Bitter Cold] so she could benefit from protection against cold, when necessary. He really wanted to add something spicy into the mix, but after all it was still too early for that. To try to make an armor for Jet he needed her parameters, and above all suitable enchantments.

"So when were you going to tell me that the waking world is to be devoured?"

Sunny was talking in Aiko. After the end of day he often had a meeting with her to get some idea how things are going. This time he ended up explaining her that he knows the world is going to end... Nasty thing.

No one could take news about the world ending easily. Normal people wouldn't take easily the information about falling into serious dept. The world ending isn't any better. Not just because it's terrible. It's because there's hope. Hope is nasty thing.

"I wasn't. It wouldn't change anything if you knew. We're still going to relocated to the Dream Realm one day."

"It just... it hurts to hear. We already know that the waking world has to be evacuated, but this... this is a new level of madness. I miss Stev... he used to keep spirits up at such times."

"I didn't know him much, but I have a lot of gratitude for that guy. That might be actually something I can tell you. Ironically, if not for him, it's very probable that I wouldn't be standing here today. Stev changed the trajectory of my life tremendously."

He didn't tell anyone, but back in the Dark City he met Stev, a Memory dealer, the one that sold him the Mantle of the Underworld. Many things can be attributed to his ability to lie by telling truths, and Weaver's lineage, but even that would amount to nothing if there wasn't Stev that somehow went into possession of that Mantle, and was willing to sell it to him.

...

Week passed since he started turning soldiers into Awakened. The number of shards he dug out of the monsters was enough to awaken the essence of more than thirty mundanes, and that's if you consider he used mostly dormant shards. Meanwhile Kim, and Luster managed to gather even more veterans, while his apprentices dug out thousands more shards, from all the creatures he killed.

The work done scaled up. With the number of apprentices each needed to dig out shards of the twenty Nightmare Creatures, that would be more than a thousand shards.

The organization also has changed a lot. He couldn't let veterans do nothing, and only work on forming their own soul cores, so he turned it into a heavy physical training. A month wouldn't be enough to achieve much, but it was still worth noting that awakening perfects whatever there is to be perfected. Also that was an opportunity to feed them some knowledge that would be important once they enter the Dream Realm. While they have a lot of experience facing gates, and hard situations, Dream Realm would change everything.

The same soldiers could also be directed to the task of turning some meat of the hunted Nightmare creatures into vast amounts of food for both apprentices, and feeding people in the outskirts. Also they could take more apprentices, this time based on much more strict requirements: The candidates are required to memorize the graph depicting the simplest enchantment: Dismissing.

The veterans were tasked to put up some posters around. Because even poor people had some communicators, they could afford to take a photo. Because the news about an eccentric Master recruiting poor have spread across the outskirts, many could have a shallow understanding of the point, and a bit deeper of the benefits. After some naggi... consultation with Aiko, and Kim he came to realization it would be much more sensible to release some knowledge of his sorcery, just enough to be able to select people based on the ability to memorize the weave. Otherwise way too many people would qualify to be apprentices. Or rather too many would be unqualified. Even those he accepted weren't of good quality, because nothing could prepare them to be apprentices.

The worst part is he won't be able to equip Awakened well on time. After awakening veterans will be in serious need of possessing swords, tools, armors, and everything that could aid them in fight. It would be best if the tools, and weapons could assume the form of Memories, but it's not that simple.

Living without the Spell Sunny came to the awful realization that he cannot transfer Memories! It was one of the first experiments he performed with Aiko. He checked if they can transfer Memories to each other. Sadly they couldn't. It was related to the enchantment that connects the Memories to the soul of the wielder. Once the Memory is connected to a user it is connected to that user, and not any other so Sunny can't dismiss someone else's Memory. But can't he?

The Spell somehow was able to overwrite the connection. After some nervous experiments Sunny discovered the way he could overwrite that connection too, but he has to do that manually. Usually he abstained from doing that unless it was about the Memories meant for Fire Keepers. His business partner is a carrier of the Spell. The Spell couldn't do the transfer for him, it's sad, but surely it would do that much for her.

So Aiko is crucial for the Brilliant Emporium to function properly. She was handing practically all the Memories that he didn't want for himself, and recently also some Memories he wants for himself.

The recent events introduced even more chaos to his life. Training weavers, increasing the number of Awakened, meeting with Jet, and on top of that he still was doing all the things he was doing earlier.

Everyday he had a visit from someone who wanted to see if his Memory could be upgraded, and Sunny had to consider how extensive the upgrade should be. There were crafts he had to practice. There were also two days a week devoted entirely to looking for his Soul Sea. Very boring, and almost fruitless, but giving him also a lot of time to rest from all those things his bodies were doing, including fighting, spending essence, and hastily throwing the bodies into Purple-eyed Boulder for many hours.

Many things he could delegate, but many also couldn't be delegated at all, and so he was working himself to the bone. No one could aid him in the process of devising his own Transcendent Battle Art.

Yes, Transcendent Battle Art. Some Saints had their own style, most of them, while some didn't possess anything like that. It wasn't anything mysterious. It's a battle art that utilizes all powers in the Saint's repertoire.

Pretty much it could be shown on Noctis as an example. His transformation ability used to transform him into a giant Wolf made of moonlight. Would it be okay if as such a wolf he was still fighting like a human? It would hardly be even possible. Knowing Noctis he could have found a way.

But that wouldn't be very effective. To fight well the way of fighting has to match the circumstances, and the means to avoid, and cause harm. Only by learning how to utilize the shape of paws, and the capacity of the muzzle to gnaw, Noctis could truly shine... despite actually shining even without that.

However, that would be enough only in case Noctis couldn't implement the rest of his powers or didn't prepare sorcery in advance or if he could ignore he has soul essence that can be channeled into wolf body parts. Sunny doesn't know what it is to be such a wolf, but Saints tended to show a great deal of unity between all elements.

For some time he wondered if there's some kind of set of rules that a Saint has to follow to create a Transcendent Battle Art. It was very easy to think that the way of controlling the essence has to match the transformation ability, and that's the universal rule behind making a transcendent battle art. He was in a position to observe some Saints, and observe how they managed to solve their problem. He could always use Shadow Step, and follow them from their shadows. By observation he could learn their mindset, way of controlling the essence, and even try to shadow them.

Having avatars came with an instantaneous flow of information between them, and the original, enabling Sunny to use Shadow Dance without delay, while the mind of a Saint was relatively sane, and straight. By copying the form of a Saint Sunny wouldn't put himself at risk of losing himself. Silent Stalker, one of Song's adoptive daughters, has a transformation ability that lets her transform herself into a big black panther.

Through some hours of observation he managed to recreate that form, and the specific way of moving based on using paws. Silent Stalker's style was both patient, and bloodthirsty, meant rather to find a single prey, and overwhelm it. There were many things he could easily relate to. Especially sneakiness, and hiding presence, controlling the darkness, great adaptability.

Despite glaring similarities there were also many things that didn't match his personality at all. Directness, no spite, no tricks, simply overwhelming the prey with decisiveness, and capacity to sow terror. Of course, there was a very specific, and perfected way to control the essence that had to match abilities, but the general truth of the battle art was much more elusive.

The truth behind Transcendent Battle Arts is there's no universal rule, or a weapon, or a power that Saint has to use. They all use what they have, and have found their ways to use it effectively. Principles in the end are meant to understand the way, and prepare to walk on it, not to make it just by knowing them. And what's the destination? The essence of combat is murder. And there are many ways to murder, and even more to avoid being murdered.

Just right now he was working on one of such murders.

...

Beyond Song's territory there were still many lands that couldn't be considered conquered. Most of the territories in the Domains were so dangerous that without the escort of Awakened wandering around could be anything, but sane. People who weren't at least Sleepers stood not much of a chance against Awakened Beasts. Awakened, and Masters were needed to clear the territories. However there's simply too little of them to achieve that.

Places claimed by Corrupted abominations or some kind of Titans were usually unreachable or had to be avoided, while Great Beasts... It's considered a pinnacle of what Saint can defeat if thing are stacked in favor.

The vast swamps were ruled by such creatures. The closest thing Sunny could compare them were crocodiles. In the waking world crocodiles were mostly extinct with some animals grown, and preserved in heavily controlled conditions for whatever reason, treated better than many humans just for their uniqueness.

But those weren't crocodiles. First of all they were incredibly large, comparable in size to Azure Serpent. Second, they were red, making it look bloody. Third, the tail, was like a mace. Its end was literally spiked. The skin was on the tanker side of things. In contrary to Sybils, and Winter Beast, this one had really thick hide, and could even jump, retractable claws ready to be showed at the least expected situations. Rather no weak points. At least on the physical side of things. Not much dependent on sight, preferred warm, and humid places. Terrific mobility. Different shape of jaws. The longer he was thinking about it the less sure he's observing crocs.

'How do I fight it?'

Sunny was disguising himself as a crow, trying to observe movement of the crow so no bloody crocodile could see they're being stalked by the little bird.

He considered his options. Some were very ridiculous like tricking one into devouring a version of the water producing Memory, and... suffocation. Breathing is the essence of life so cutting off the air could be a way to die.

The plan referred to a story about a dragon that got killed... by drinking too much water from a river, and then falling into it, and dying. Not that it would happen.

Unfortunately even Ascended humans are a bit unlikely to die just by the lack of air. Also the Memory he would throw in there could be dissolved by digestive acids. The semi-aquatic creature could very likely stand it better even if the water was very cold.

It would be better if he could deal some kind of soul damage or mind damage. The circumstances made it not reliable option. After all currently he lacked means needed to hurt soul or mind damage. What's worse, there were many such creatures around. Somewhere there could be a croc of a higher Class, and even Rank. If he met it... He studied the behavior of the crocodiles, and he didn't see such intelligence in them, which makes it much more likely there's no Tyrant among them.

To kill one creature it would be better to isolate it, and then face it while it's alone. But that's a very wishful way of thinking.

'Maybe I should pass on that?'

Even if he killed one such creature he would be lacking time to extract benefits. Facing retaliation from numerous crocs is a terrible idea, worth considering him a madman.

On the other hand he's not here just to extract benefits, and maybe he's actually taking things in a wrong way. He was used to facing much stronger enemies so he always thought about how to kill them despite the outrageous disparity of strengths, toughness, etc. But is the gap so terrible? To be honest, not at all. If Sunny used his bone sword, and empowered it with the power of his shadow helpers, it could hurt the crocs enough.

Above all the risk was reasonable as Nephis would call that. Not because he had so good chance against the enemy - despite he had -, but because it was coming in line with his goals. If he can't defeat a Great Beast, what are his chances against the Sovereigns? Terribly low. That has to change. He has to change again.

Three of the shadows detached from the crow, and turned into avatars. One summoned the Shadow Lantern, and summoned a giant sphere of shadows.

At this point all crocodiles nearby already saw them. He has to act fast. Avatars transformed himself into three big black panthers, a bit bigger than the Night Stalker, and started its assault on one crocodile who happened to be alone, and on land. In the past the results of clashes between cats, and crocodiles depended on the environment. Next to water crocodiles often had an advantage. On land a tiger could take a crocodile down.

The first tried to bite into its tail. The second went to pin the crocodile down. The third took the risk and went after his face. In the moment of shock the enemy couldn't retaliate fast. The maws of the panther closed on his tail delivering a terrible wound, while the weight of the second panther amplified by the Feather of Truth pressed down on its back.

The crocodile wanted to growl, but something started scratching on his face. That was the third panther. Sunny adjusted the shape of its claws to be better suited for slashing. His target was the only vulnerability the crocodiles were known for, eyes. Relatively soft tissue was probably the only place he could slash through relatively easily.

The whole scene resembled rather a three guys picking on one victim, taking it to the ground, and kicking him while it was lying hopelessly. There was no fairness or honor in this scene. Just ruthless bloodthirst.

Soon Sunny could see it still wasn't enough. The crocodile eventually came to its senses, and understood it had to run away for his siblings to give him a rescue. Even among Nightmare Creatures there was a significant sense of kinship, probably stronger than the one that characterized humans. It quickly chose the direction where the body of the swamp was, gathered his strength in his still unharmed legs, and performed a high jump into the air.

The power of the jump shook off the three panthers, as they couldn't continue to hold onto it, while the crocodile was making its jump. They fell to the ground or rather somehow managed to land on their paws. The force and the size was still too much for them. The crocodile freed itself from the clutches of three powerful black panthers. It had only to land back in the swamp and it would be already safe. On the other hand the rest of the crocodiles were getting close, and were soon to attack them as a pack.

Sunny, who watched everything smirked from far away, his smile could be compared to a devil itself like he was experiencing some kind of love for evil.

'Yeah. Beasts are still easy to trick.'

The target didn't know it won't land in the swamp.