Back inside the Bone Ridge, they were sitting around the fire.
The delicious smell of roasting meat filled the air, making Sunny's stomach produce embarrassing sounds, Caspian laught a bit because of that.
However, it wasn't time to eat yet. He was in the middle of telling the rest about what he had seen.
—
"... after the centurion kneeled, another carapace creature came from the top of the Ashen Barrow. Only this one was not one of those we had seen before. It was easily twice the size of the centurion, six or seven meters tall. I can't even imagine how much it weighs. It looked like a moving house."
Nephis frowned, clearly not happy to know that there was such a behemoth barring their way.
"What's more, its carapace is not made of chitin. Instead, it looks like some strange metal alloy. I don't think we'll be able to cut through it. I also didn't notice any gaps in that monstrosity's armor, not even around the joints."
Cassie gulped, turning her head to her friends, Moonlight Deliverer and Changing Star, however, they remained silent for a moment, looking at eachother, like talking with their eyes.
Alice sighed and looked down, while Caspian finally clicked his tongue, displeased that they won't be able to kill it his way.
Sunny sighed too.
"In addition, that thing has four arms instead of the usual two, a pair with pincers and a pair with scythes. They're even bigger than the centurion's. Its carapace is littered with spikes, and it has long horns on its head. It also looks… uh… more human-like. It almost got a face, albeit an extremely ugly one. And its eyes… well, I think that it is more sentient than anything we had faced before."
Nephis was thoughtful. After a while, she said:
"It is probably an awakened demon."
Nightmare Creatures with one soul core were called "beasts", the ones with two cores were called "monsters". Three cores belonged to a class of creatures known as "demons", with "devils" right above them with four cores.
Sunny and Caspian gave her a nod, indicating that they were in agreement with her conclusion.
"Or maybe a devil. In any case, I think we should avoid that scary bastard at all cost."
Caspian remembered something, he felt like a stupid for not seeing it before.
"I think we might actually have enough cutting power to make it bleed"
Sunny looked at him, clearly scared of the idea of fighting it.
"How?"
Caspian smiled and summoned the blood pond and the river blade.
"Well, i have tested things before, and look how this blade works."
Caspian poured water he had stolen the other day from the Endless Spring into the blade, filling an invisible blade mold full of water, when it became full, it started to move at great speeds inside itself, making the water sharp.
"This is how it works, but turns out, that if you use blood instead of water, for a while before it turns back into water, the blade would be of the rank of the blood i used."
Sunny started to say excuses.
"So what? For that to be effective we would need at least blood from an..."
"I have Saint's blood."
Caspian cutted Sunny's speech, everyone, including Alice and the blind Cassie, looked at him in disbelief, even Nephis made her most normal reaction to date.
"Let just say that my patrons are very generous..."
—
"So, that gives us a good chance, i only need to cut it, and hold onto the wound like a leech for enough time to kill it from the insides..."
Nephis looked at him, their gazes met, and Caspian smiled, thinking the same as her.
"We really are doing this right? Damnation, why our two leaders must have a death wish..."
Alice patted Sunny's back.
"Don't worry sunny, my army is also really strong, i have an Ascended grim reaper, we can do this."
Sunny looked at her with his mouth wide open and everyone, except maybe nephis, could see that he was screaming to his insides something like.
"DAMNATION!!"
—
After a while, Sunny chuckled and shook his head in disbelief.
"You two really are crazy. That's… that's an awakened demon we're talking about, remember? Have you forgotten that we're just Sleepers? Who is going to tells us that your sword will even work?"
Then he frowned and scratched his head.
"W—wait a second. I feel like we already had this conversation before. Doesn't it feel familiar?"
Cassie glanced at the group and politely cleared her throat.
"Actually, you had said pretty much the exact same thing right before we decided to attack that first carapace centurion."
Sunny beamed.
"Yes! Exactly! And how did that end up? I almost got killed!"
Nephis shrugged indifferently.
"You survived, didn't you?"
He froze with his mouth open, too flabbergasted by the sheer audacity of her remark to answer immediately. Caspian and Alice also dropped their mouths by it. A few seconds later, Sunny was finally able to speak again.
"That's not the point!"
Cassie gently touched her friend on the shoulder and whispered.
"Neph! That's not a very nice thing to say."
Changing Star's face flushed a little.
—
Glancing aside, she hesitated and said:
"What I meant to say is… uh… we've won in the end, didn't we? It was a risk we had to take, and it paid off. We've grown stronger since then and we now have a better team formation."
Sunny had a feeling that the fight against the Carapace Demon was already inevitable, but couldn't bring himself to stop protesting, solely out of principle.
"But that thing… it's huge! It's so tall you won't even be able to poke it with your sword! What are we going to do, ask the bastard politely to lower itself to our level?"
"If you can't reach the head, break the legs first Sunny" Caspian added with a joyful smile.
"She at least looks like she is serious about this, but you look like you want to fight it purely because of the vibes! How could we even break its legs if they are as big as tree trunks!"
Sunny replied, no salvation left in his voice.
—
He looked at his mad companions in the eyes and said:
"Back when we agreed to fight the carapace centurion, we did so because there was no other choice. We were literally stuck on a rock with it. What about now? Don't we have a choice to avoid the Ashen Barrow? Your cheat progression compass isn't able to show us an alternative path?"
They stared at him for a while and then simply said:
"That's the only way west."
"If the Stargaze says it's the right way, then i will follow it, maybe the centurion have an Attribute about fear and is really much more weaker than we thought."
But Caspian thought about that too, the first part, the second was obviously something he said to try to cheer things up, not even him believed such a possibility, maybe the Stargaze dosen't exactly show the safer path, but the best path, some times, the best option is not the safest one.
Sunny laughed a bit.
When his laughter died down, he wiped the corner of his eye and said:
"Alright. Alright. What Nephis said makes sense. But believe me when I say it, as the only one who actually saw the Carapace Demon… we won't be able to defeat it in a fight."
Nephis scowled.
"Your point?"
Sunny spread his hands.
"Don't misunderstand. Yes, we can't defeat it. But…"
A dark smile appeared on his face.
"That doesn't mean that we can't kill it."
Moonlight Deliverer thought about it, then raised an eyebrow and the corner of his lips and asked, followed by Changing star interested gaze:
"You have a plan?"
Sunny shook his head.
"Not yet, not entirely. Let me sleep on it. However, there's one thing I know for sure."
—
He looked west, remembering the Carapace Demon's disturbing, bestial face. In the ensuing silence, Cassie turned her head to face him and asked with curiosity:
"What is it?"
Sunny blinked.
"Ah? Oh, yes. It's pretty simple, really. Unlike the scavengers and centurions, that thing appears to be rather intelligent. Which means that it can be deceived."
"Oh, we will trick that creature? Count me in!"
Alice said happily, she was just watching the conversations and wanted to join, she looked a bit shy the second before stepping into the it.
"Good, we will think about it tomorrow."
—
They spent another uneventful night inside the dead leviathan's spine.
As far as the camps of both groups went, this one was probably the safest.
There was a certain comfort in being surrounded by walls from all sides, even if they were made out of bone.
Sleeping on top of cliffs and coral mounds, just meters away from the surface of the dark sea, exposed to elements, was not very restful.
So that made them feel safer.