"Here's the plan, judging from Cassie's vision and Sunny's observation, we can be certain of one thing, the tree is special..."
Merlin looked up gauging their reactions before continuing.
"... So we'll use bait, it'll require three things, one will be your echo Sunny..."
Sunny's squinted his eyes a little but Merlin ignored it and continued.
"... The other will be my echo and lastly this.."
Merlin said as he brought out one of the transcedent soul shards, although using one would definitely cost him, he would rather lose sixty four fragments than end up in the shadow realm.
"That's a transcen__ wait, you have an echo, when did you get one?" Sunny's voice echoed in the bone.
"I got it on the day we killed the spire messenger" Merlin's reply came flatly.
"Wait... You mean to say you had an ascended echo all this time, and you didn't think to tell us!?"
Sunny's words reminded him of something he hadn't thought about in a long time.
'And here I thought I finally got the hang of it'
"I'm sorry, My flaw does that to me sometimes, I'll try to keep you updated tho" Merlin told them the base truth of it.
"Your flaw... I see, well is there anything more you're not telling us?" Sunny asked, but the suspicion in his voice had died down a little.
"Nothing of importance, anyway back to the plan..."
"Our goal is to climb the tree, but doing so just like that would be suicide, so we'll have to distract it, we'll stage a play..."
Merlin stayed quiet for a few seconds, recounting the details in his mind before continuing.
"... Sunny's echo will take this shard to the Demon like the centurion did, but if it only does that then we'll not have enough time to reach the tree, that's where my echo comes in, it'll try to steal away the shard while fighting the demon, combined with the joint effort of the two echoes, we should probably have enough time to get to the tree, if that doesn't work, then we'll improvise, you guys go to the tree, I'll distract it, I'm not really confident in that part so let's hope the first plan work okay..."
He paused to catch his breath, then resumed.
"If we get to the tree, we'll stay up the branches until night falls, then we'll take a play out of Cassie's vision..."
Cassie hearing her name tilted her head
"My vision?"
Sunny's shaky voice followed after with a mix of doubt in it.
"You.. you don't mean..."
"Yes Sunny, we'll set it on fire, not the tree, but close enough to threaten it, it should attract whatever is in the dark sea and after their fight, we'll move in to finish it"
Merlin declaration had left them silent, Sunny's mouth hang wide, Cassie was pale and Nephis, well she was being Nephis I guess.
"That's crazy, what if we get caught up in their fight?" Sunny asked.
"I told you didn't I, prepare for one of the worst night of your lives"
"Are you seriously okay with this, it's insane!?" Sunny turned to Nephis who was pondering over the plan.
Hearing his question, she snapped her head up and turned to him replying.
"It's feasible and it's safe, and somehow his plan always work"
"Oh gods, this is going to be the death of me" Sunny said clutching his head.
"A-Although it's incredibly terrifying, I feel like this plan would work" Cassie finally added, earning her a nod from Merlin and Nephis.
"Fine then... let's do it, but how are we going to set it on fire"
"With these..." Merlin answered Sunny pulling out the galls he harvested from the centipedes. They were incredibly corrosive and highly flamable, since his advancement to monster, Merlin's flame control abilities could now be used to ignite flammable things at a distance.
"Those are... How long were you preparing for this...?" Sunny turned to him asking with squinted eyes, even Nephis had focused on him gauging his response.
'These kids are getting harder to fool'
"Opportunity Sunny, My abilities deals a lot with fire so I kept them incase, and now there's an opportunity so I'm using it" Merlin gave a half-assed answer.
Sunny nodded in agreement but the doubt still layed in his eyes, Nephis meanwhile didn't believe his bullshitting in the slightest.
"Now then, let's eat what might very well be the last meal of our lives, get some rest and prepare to kill an awakened Demon tomorrow".
...
The next morning, Merlin was standing atop the ridge, staring at the tree in the distance, they still had lots of time until the plan began.
From behind, Nephis walked to him, Sunny was still practicing his morning swings.
"Do you know how to destroy the Nightmare Spell?" Nephis' question came out raw.
"No I don't" His reply came sharp.
'G3 still hasn't given us a profound answer yet so...'
"I see... Is there a way out of here?" Nephis asked her voice still emotionless, the question made him take a deep breath before replying.
"Yes, but it's a path filled with blood and corpses... You already know this so, why ask me?"
Merlin turned to face her, his voice dripping a little too low for his character.
"The vision... The fight... There's only an angel of light and a shadow, so where are you Merlin, where do you fit in all this, Cassie can't see your runes, your abilities are... bizarre, your true name even more so..."
Nephis' stared at him, eyes blazing with intensity.
"... Who are you really Merlin?, You claim to be from the outskirts but you know about the great clans, you act like you know the future, and most of all, you hide your thoughts, you have an answer for all questions asked, but somehow the answer is never really an answer, so Who... Or rather What are you?"
Merlin held her gaze, no flicker of emotion in his eyes, but I'm his mind.
'I don't think she's ever said something this long before, not even in the original story, I'm definitely a shady character if we're going by her description, but who cares, you can't prove anything... now for my answer, time to act...'
"You've done your homework Neph, well it's understandable to a certain extent, what I didn't mention before is that I also have a high affinity to revelations like Cassie, but unlike her unless I actively seek the future, it won't come to me like visions, and even when I see, I don't see as much as she does".
Nephis squinted at his reply, she considered it for a while then asked again.
"Is that why you don't associate with her, because of the future?"
"You see Neph, knowledge is the heaviest thing in the world, so tell me what do you think the weight of knowledge would do to a sixteen year old blind girl..."
He didn't wait for her reply before continuing.
"She's too stupid and rebellious to hold such knowledge, she'll make useless choices out of fear, and with my affinity to change, I'll be stuck at the center of god's know what she'll create, and I'm not ready to take my chances with a child dictating what happens."
After listening to him, Nephis didn't say anything and quietly left, Merlin simply sat and went into his soul sea to try his new challenge. Countless failures after, and it was finally time to hunt the demon.
...
A few distance away, a spire messenger was flying high above the sky, and below a Carapace Scavenger had a transcedent soul shard in it's hand walking through the sea of ash towards the hill in the distance.
The Scavenger arrived timely and dropped the shard on the ground retreating a few steps before lowering itself into a bow, From the cave not far away, A larger centurion amassed, two terrifying large pincers with two scythes to follow, it's shell a silver that seems more profound with the sun reflected on it, and on it's shell, seven distinct colours engraved like stars.
The Carapace Demon walked towards the shard, gauging the pitiful creature who brought it, as it was about to pick up the shard, a massive looming shadow was zooming into view on the sand, the Spire Messenger had arrived.
Immediately a distinct battle took place, one trying to protect, the other vying to eliminate, despite being of a higher rank, due to the hard metal-like shell of the Demon, the Spire Messenger was at a slight disadvantage, making use of that opportunity, the Scavenger immediately rushed into the fray, buying more time for the distraction.
In a different side of the hill, Merlin and the group were currently running up the hill, even with Cassie on his back he was still able to keep up with their speed. They were currently a considerable distance to the tree, but their plan had still held steady.
Just as they were a nearing the tree, Sunny's pace noticably faltered, he turned to the group and whispered.
"M-My echo, it's gone"
The loss was visible in his voice, but with more important matters at hand the team dismissed the issue quickly.
From the hill, they could see the fight still ongoing, the remains of Sunny's echo dissipating into sparks of light. The Demon sensing something was off turned towards the tree, as if attracted by their presence, it began to make it's move but it's actions were halted by the Spire Messenger's relentless attacks.
As they arrived at the top of the hill just below the large tree, Merlin using his Clown's body control quickly climbed up the tree before receiving the golden rope and tying it around a large branch. They immediately climbed up the tree, before they climbed completely Sunny used Cassiel's stick memory to produce enough wind to cover their tracks.
"Haa... I guess that's phase one complete..." Merlin's voice sounded like a whisper as he dismissed his echo.
"We should hide now, I've dismissed my echo and I have a feeling that bastard will definitely come to check up on us" Merlin said as he adjusted his position on the tree.
And as he had said, after the disappearance of the Spire Messenger, the Carapace Demon immediately rushed towards the tree, it didn't forget the shard as it picked it up and moved towards the tree with insane speed.
Arriving at the bottom of the tree, the Demon looked around, not finding any footprints, it also looked upwards at the tree, but as the group had long hidden all it saw were branches and crimson flowers. It search a few more times before willingly giving up, it layed down the shard at the bottom of the tree, plucked a fruit from it's branches and proceeded to return to it's cave to nurse it's wounds, although it didn't sustain any major injuries because of it's shell, there were still a few, one of it's scythes had been damaged to a noticable degree, it's once pristine shell now held little cracks, and one of it's legs had been badly damaged by the Scavenger.
'Sigh...'
Above in the tree, Merlin let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"That makes up for the first half, now we'll have to wait till night comes for the second half".
Sunny then spoke up.
"Isn't there a simpler way to solve this, one that doesn't involve summoning an abomination from the depths of hell?"
Faced with his question, Merlin simply explained.
"You see this is how power levels work here Sunny, It took three of us with the element of surprise to kill a Fallen beast, the same beast fought this Demon and lost sustaining injuries, now without the echo, how are three of us supposed to fight that..."
His logical explanation left a brief silence in the tree, Sunny replied.
"When you put it that way it's a lot more reasonable, plus with that thing constantly moving around, it'll be difficult for us to simply just up and leave this tree... Haa... Just my luck being stuck in this horrible place"
"We'll fight and we'll win, if it's our will, who dares stop us" Nephis chime came in as he finished.
'Cough... G3... Cough... Webnovel...'
The trio waited till nightfall while constantly avoiding the patrols of the Demon. As the dark sea had risen, Merlin reached into his pocket and pulled out a gall sac, it was filled with the corrosive liquid, so immediately he threw it a few meters away from the tree as it bursted on the ground producing a sizzling sound.
A few moments later, and the ground was was covered in oily liquid, Merlin also held out a stick and used his abilities to ignite it, the yellow burning light attracted the attention of the Demon as it rushed towards the tree.
Merlin immediately threw the flaming stick unto the oily surface on the ground, immediately a wave of heat washed over him as the flames rose brightening up the night, the Carapace Demon instantly recognized the tactics and tried to put out the flames with the sand, but it was already too late.
Merlin saw as the dark sea stirred and churned, Immediately Cassie's voice sounded in his ears.
"Close your eyes, Don't... Look"
Merlin had the urge to shut his eyes, but his intuition coupled by his danger sense had not warned him to that level.
Immediately from the sea, large tentacles surfaced, accompanied by a slightly dense fog, the fog filled the area, and the Demon retracted it's focus from the fire and placed it on the approaching monster.
From the tree, Merlin could hear muffled voices in his ears, The voice of the group calling out to him, his eyes were open and he could clearly see his teammates covering their eyes and ears. The sounds he thought, were most likely mental attacks and the cloak already gave him enough resistance.
In the fog, he could see vague figures, some seemed to resemble his teammates, some resembled his friends and family from his past life, but all seemed to have one goal, to entice him to step forward into the sea.
'That's freaky, if I didn't have a strong immunity, I'd have fallen by now, but I already know this is completely fake... Still, I miss them...'
Shaking his head, Merlin focused on the battle between the Demon and the abomination, it was a brutal fight, if it could even be called a fight, it was just pure mutilation of both sides, though the Demon seems more on the receiving end.
By now, it's remaining good scythe had been ripped off leaving only the damaged one, a few of it's legs had also been torn off, it's cracked shell now riddled with holes, exposing it's skin and internal organs below, the tentacles on the other hand were faring better, for one that was not it's main body, a few of it's tentacles had been ripped off while others bore injuries, but more still emerged from the dark sea.
The fight continued brutally till the morning when the dark sea began to retreat, Merlin had watched the entire fight, he had been too focused and scared to avert his eyes even for a second.
From the side, Cassie told them it was okay to open their eyes, Although Merlin wished they could've witnessed the fight, showing them something like that would probably give them PTSD of the dark sea.
"Is it over?" Sunny's crackled voice sounded out.
"Yeah, brutal fight, but it served it's purpose" Merlin gestured towards where the Demon layed, completely beat and unable to move, only two legs remained unable to support it's weight at all, it's pincers and scythes were destroyed, and most of it's internal organs pierced, a few more hours and it would be dead, but that would mean that the memory they needed would be sent to the hand of the deep sea creature, so Merlin silently thanked the gods that it wasn't killed outright.
"Wait... You watched them fight?, I thought Cassie said we should close our eyes, the voices I heard during the night, what were those?" Sunny shivered a little at the mention of last night.
"Yeah I watched, and also I didn't close my eyes because I didn't need to, unlike you guys, my memory gives me high resistance to mental attacks so I'm good" Merlin said as if stating the weather.
"What did you see?" Nephis asked with rare curiosity, he could guess what the mental attack did to her.
"It was the fog, it has some kind of ability to mimick others to earn trust then try to lure you in" Merlin recounted his experience, skipping a few noteable details.
"Now since that's sorted, we still have an awakened Demon to kill, Sunny, would you do the pleasure" Merlin said as he gestured to the dying Demon.
Sunny climbed down from the tree, approaching the Demon, yesterday the same Demon that could have easily killed him with a mere swing was now helpless in front of him, he summoned his azure blade and plunged it deep through the hole on it's shell, by the side he could see Merlin picking up his transcedent soul shard from yesterday, immediately the spells voice resounded in his ear.
[You have slain an awakened Demon, Carapace Demon]
[You have received a Memory: Midnight Shard. ]
[Your shadow grows stronger...]