Juno almost didn't see the last scavenger of the day.
It had been a really bad day for hunting. Not only had he killed and harvested a single Scavenger, but he had run into four groups, all numbering at least three. His nervous system was a wreck, and he had been less on edge than ever before due to the fact that he was simply too mentally exhausted that day.
That was his mistake.
He was on his way back to Bongo, half thinking about food and half about the stretches he still owed his aching legs, when a familiar scraping sound slid through the coral.
He stopped.
The scavenger came into view a few moments later, emerging from behind a bend of crimson mounds into a wider corridor of packed mud.
It was whole.
Its carapace was smooth and uncracked, all legs and pincers present. What's worse, the Scavenger seemed to process the sudden appearance of Juno faster than he did. Combining that with the better physique of the beast meant almost any Sleeper would have been killed.
Juno was not any Sleeper. He was, in fact, probably one of the strongest Sleepers.
Ultimately, it didn't mean much.
The Scavenger moved.
The pincer shot out faster than his thoughts could line up. Not a probing swipe, not a half‑hearted test — a full, committed cut aimed straight across his torso.
Piercing Mind screamed a warning a fraction of a second too late.
He threw himself backward, away from the path of the swing.
The chitin blade carved a vicious line across his chest. For a moment, he didn't feel it; only the impact, like being hit with the edge of a speeding car door. Then heat flooded the cut, followed by a spreading, wet warmth.
He hit the mud on his side, air knocked from his lungs.
Breathless, Juno rolled by pure reflex.
The second sweep tore through the space he'd just occupied, ripping a groove in the ground and showering him with muck. Pain finally caught up, sharp and white, radiating from the wound. His chest burned with every shallow inhale; warm blood trickled down his stomach.
Finally, Juno got his feet under him and managed to shove himself upright.
Keenly noticing its prey hurt and weakened, the Scavenger pivoted and raised its pincers for another cross cut. This was going to be its last attack. This was how it would kill Juno.
Juno bared his teeth, snarling like a wild animal as he came across that realization.
A mere Awakened Beast was daring to try to extinguish his flames.
It would have to pay.
It wouldn't get to run from this.
Surging forward, Juno called forth all his previous experience with killing these abominations. He would have to adjust his approach to this one, but it was still just a Scavenger.
A Scavenger was always killable.
Ducking as evenly as he could, Juno felt the pincer fly above his head. At the same moment it passed, Juno evened himself out and swung Execution directly toward the knee of the Scavenger.
It went through.
Not clean — it grated on the shell and tendon before biting fully — but enough. The joint parted with a wet, cracking sound. The leg spun away, trailing azure.
The Scavenger, already preparing another attack, lurched. Maddeningly, though, it seemed to regain balance and control almost immediately after losing one of its legs. The remaining seven legs slammed down in a tight pattern, catching its weight and hauling its bulk back up with terrifying ease. For a moment, it looked less like a crippled beast and more like some armored siege tower simply shifting stance.
It was at that moment that Juno realized he was punching way above his weight.
This bastard was stronger, faster, larger, and smarter. It was simply better than the rest. That meant one thing.
It was almost a Carapace Centurion. Not quite, but almost.
The Scavenger proved that point a moment later.
Instead of simply swinging wildly, it shifted its weight, drawing the wounded side back. The intact pincer slid forward, the whole upper body angling just enough that any straight rush would have to get past that brutal line of chitin first.
Then it came.
The first swipe was a horizontal cut, low and vicious, aimed at taking his legs out. Juno leaped over it, boots clearing the edge by a whisper. The second was already following — an upward rip meant to catch him mid‑air and cut him in half on the way down.
He twisted, arms screaming as he forced his body into a sideways roll around an invisible axis. The pincer tore past his back, missing by a palm's width, the gust of air slamming into him like a shove.
He landed badly, half‑sideways, feet sliding in the blood‑slick mud.
The scavenger tried to capitalize immediately, stabbing one of its middle legs straight down to pin him in place.
He chopped at it on instinct.
Execution's edge hit just above the joint, where the shell thinned to allow flex. The blade chewed through plate and sinew; the leg buckled, not fully severed but ruined enough that when the scavenger tried to put weight on it, it collapsed.
That stumble was smaller than the first.
With his opponent slightly off balance, Juno tore across the ground with frightening speed. He felt the white-hot pain shoot through his chest, but he didn't care. He hacked at the already‑maimed front side, finishing the job — one more brutal swing to take off what was left of the first leg, then a second to tear the half‑cut one free.
Four legs are functional now.
The scavenger shrieked, mandibles frothing, and tried its trick.
The wounded side twitched, telegraphing another low sweep from the pincer. His body began the familiar duck on reflex.
Piercing Mind flared.
No.
He killed the motion halfway and drove in closer instead.
The "feint" pincer aborted its sideways arc and came down in that same murderous vertical chop he'd already tasted once. But this time, he'd been waiting for it.
Execution rose to meet it, braced in both hands, the angle slightly canted to bleed force off to the side. The blow hammered into the blade; for an instant, the weight of the world tried to drive him into the earth.
Juno's whole body creaked, threatening to give way. If it wasn't for his own bestial nature, he would've been folded like a pretzel from the power behind the swing.
Finally, the pincer skidded off Juno's sword, leaving him free. It slammed into the mud beside him instead of through his skull.
Before it could react, Juno moved once again. The world quickly turned into a blur of blue after that.
One swing, and there was resistance that quickly faded.
Another spray of blood was all Juno saw.
Soon after the madness began, it receded and left Juno as clearheaded as he had ever been. What greeted him was a beautiful sight.
The mighty Quasi-Centurion was reduced to an upper body. All of its legs had been chopped off. Both of its pincers were destroyed and strewn all across the battlefield. Best of all, Juno saw half a dozen cuts on the thing's body.
He had gone quite mad, it seemed.
Juno stayed there a moment longer, hands still wrapped tight around the hilt, chest heaving, the cut across his ribs burning like fire.
Then the Spell spoke.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Carapace Scavenger.]
[You have received a Memory: Azure Carapace.]
[Your Desire sharpens.]
The warmth that encased him seemed distant and vague; the only thing he was able to feel was pain. Still, he tried his hardest not to let it get to him. He had to get his shit together and run back to Bongo. Even though the fight he had didn't last any longer than five minutes, nighttime was quickly approaching, and there were still at least two miles before he was at safety.
'No rest for the wicked,' thought Juno grouchily.
…
Sunny sat at the edge of a cliff. His feet were not dangling off the edge, but he was still close to it.
All around him, he saw the still waters of the Dark Sea. They were as black and flat as always, which made him feel slightly put off.
It had been almost ten days since he had arrived at this cursed Forgotten Shore, and shit was not sweet here.
By this point, the only things that kept him going were his Soul Fragments going up and two beautiful girls fighting by his side.
Nephis was a few paces away, standing with her back to the wind, staring out over the water with that same unreadable calm she always wore. Cassie sat closer to Sunny, her legs drawn up, arms wrapped loosely around her staff.
He watched the horizon for a while, then cleared his throat.
"Hey, Cass."
She turned her head a little, her light eyes glancing toward the sound of his voice.
"Yeah?"
Sunny hesitated.
"…Do you know if anyone else got stuck here with us? On the Shore, I mean."
The question had been circling his mind for a couple of days now.
The Crimson Labyrinth felt too big for just the three of them. It was, by all accounts, as large as a continent. Somewhere in him, a small, stupid part still hoped they might stumble onto other survivors. People who knew more. People who could help.
Cassie was quiet for a few seconds.
Then she shook her head.
"No," she said softly. "Not here. Not in the crimson labyrinth."
Sunny frowned.
"None at all?"
She tilted her head slightly, as though listening to something only she could hear.
"The only other people I am sure are here are in the Castle, and the city surrounding it."
He had figured, of course. But hearing Cassie say it out loud made the distance between this lonely cliff and that distant goal feel even larger.
They sat in silence for a little longer then, both thinking about their own thoughts. Suddenly, Cassie spoke again. Her voice was slightly smaller than it was before, laced with some emotion Sunny couldn't understand quite yet.
"Sometimes it feels wrong, though."
Sunny raised an eyebrow.
"Wrong how?"
"Like there is some… noise," Cassie said slowly. "All of the visions I have had were clear in picture, if not in meaning, except for one thing. Sometimes, I would feel a wrongness right next to me, or even all around me."
Her voice dropped a little.
"Whenver that happens, I always feel like some devil is standing right next to me."
A shiver slowly crawled up Sunny's spine.
"That sounds amazing," he muttered. "Love that for us."
Sunny looked back at the water, jaw working.
His thoughts drifted, uninvited, to the classrooms back in the Academy. To the fake cliffs he had climbed under Teacher Julius. To a red-haired idiot who was too smart for the world.
At the time, Sunny had written Juno off. He had seemed like some of the crazy outskirts kids he used to know. Ones that went insane from all the shit they've seen.
But he had been wrong. It seemed like all that craziness was fake, and that a genuine person lay beneath it all. Like that time he refused to move up in the world and sit with Legacies, publicly announcing how he would rather sit with a rat than the rich.
There was also that part where, right before entering the Dream Realm, Sunny got advice from him. It seemed like he knew where Sunny would be going and what he would see. He suspected it was something to do with his Aspect, but at the same time, he wasn't convinced. Juno was a strange man anyway, so it would be too hard to figure him out without more interaction.
By the time Sunny was heading to bed, he had stopped thinking about his unusual and unwanted little brother. Instead, it was on the things Cassie had shared with him.
The devil she had described sounded incredibly dangerous to Sunny.
It sounded like a devil he didn't want to know.
'Maybe I should frame that wisdom in my Memory boutique in the future,' he thought. 'Yeah. Something along the lines of, "Better the devils you know."