7 Forgotten Shore

Isaac heard a vaguely familiar voice.

[Welcome to the dream realm]

' Guess this is it'.

Isaac stood on a slanted hill.

Around him an ocean of darkness.

"So this is the forgotten shore".

Isaac looked around.

Then he smiled.

"I can't do anything right now, but I should at least amplify my strength".

Isaac thought about the flaws of other characters within the novel.

Then he thought of one.

Servas.

The ruler of the Ivory City.

He is also the Transcended of the immortal lords in Sunny's second Nightmare.

His flaw was strong.

At night his strength vanishes.

But during the day his strength increases.

Of course, he would not get Servas's benefit of daytime but his strength would increase.

Then Isaac spoke.

"I will gain Servas's flaw, with this sacrifice my physical strength increases".

Within his soul in the soul sea.

Golden words solidified on a pale sphere.

Then heat.

A burning sensation flowed through his body.

Isaac immediately felt dizzy.

He then fell on his butt.

He felt weak.

Extremely weak.

'Shit, what a crappy flaw'.

Isaac lay on the floor for a while.

The black, opaque water suddenly surged and seethed, as though a living creature desperately trying to avoid the pale light of the coming dawn.

Isaac felt his body burn.

Isaac's body was on fire.

Strength filled his body.

A twisted smile appeared on his face.

Isaac then stood up looking at the now visible crimson coral.

"It's time to hunt".

As the sun climbed up, the monstrous ebb tide continued.

Soon, Isaac found himself standing on the edge of a tall cliff, with a hundred-meter drop separating him from the churning waters.

Beneath him, the rock formation broadened and changed shape.

However, from his vantage point, it was hard to determine what that shape was, exactly.

At that time, the dark surface of the water began to be punctured here and there by sharp crimson blades.

As it dropped even further, it was as though a crimson forest was slowly rising from the black depths.

The "trees" were made of something resembling coral, growing chaotically into each other and stretching toward the sky.

They were colossal, with irregular protrusions entwining and merging, looking monumental and eerie in the black and red reality of the sunlit void.

The labyrinth formed by this strange reef stretched as far as Isaac could see, broken here and there by protruding cliffs, sudden chasms, and distant natural features.

Despite the sudden disappearance of the dark sea and its hidden monsters, Isaac was in no rush to climb down from his circular stone platform.

Soon, he circled the strange cliff and froze, scared by the sight of what was happening.

There, the corpse of the giant shark-like creature was lying on the ground, the pillars of coral around it shattered and broken.

More precisely, half of it was there, with grotesque innards spilling out of the terrible wound and stretching far away into the distance.

The other half was gone, as though it had never existed.

Around the corpse, hundreds of smaller monsters were scurrying, tearing away, and devouring its flesh bit by bit.

Each of them was about two and a half meters tall, looking like a weird mix of a demonic crab, a centaur, and a nightmare.

They had four pairs of long, segmented legs that ended in scythe-like protrusions.

At the front, a human-like torso was protruding from the carapace, also clad in thick chitinous armor.

The head, if it was even the appropriate word, was situated directly on top of the torso, with no neck in between.

It had two narrow eye slits and a viscous-looking mouth with several slimy mandibles.

Instead of hands, the monsters had two enormous pincers.

'With my strength, one of them did not seem like trouble. But there are hundreds of them.'