the trees games

sat upon the apex of the skeletal behemoth sat the trio, a small light was emitted from its spine.

The three had decided to cook some of the meat they had gathered from the encounter they had just faced moments ago, Sunny could be seen stripping the meat into small chunks and then piercing them with the smallest bones he could find on this behemoth.

He placed the skewered meat above the fire and watched in anticipation, he was excited to taste the millipedes meat. All nightmare creatures tasted good, so long as they were cooked.

The three waited a while before impatiently taking the skewers off the fire and stuffing their faces, sunny had a look of enjoyment while Nephis she had a complicated look, anyone who didn't know her all too well would think she wasn't happy with the food but not sunny. He could tell she liked it, from the way her eyes sparkled to the way she adjusted herself while eating.

And cassie well she was the same as sunny, a cherry look in her face as she happily devoured the monster meat.

It did not take them long to finish what they had collected and by then it was almost night, and time for sunnys first lesson from neph.

As they put out the fire Nephis began to speak,

"We will start with a theoretical lesson to start with, Cass you should listen too" She seemed way more talkative,

'perhaps she likes teaching' sunny mentally noted.

She began again after hearing Cassies shy agreement.

"What do you think the essence of combat is?"

The two pondered in their answers for a while before eventually blurting out.

"Survival"

"Victory"

Nephis had a smug look on her face as she steadily replied,

"Wrong, the essence of combat is murder"

The two gave eachother a strange look, well Cassie didn't look at much she just looked in the direction of Sunny's voice.

She had began doing this a lot, perhaps to make the two less awkward when talking to the girl.

"What do you mean" Cass shyly whispered.

Alan: 'she means the only way to survive is to kill or be killed, it's just how this world is'

"She means that if we don't kill Cass, we will be the ones getting killed" Sunny added, to which neph gave him an interested look.

"that's correct" Neph spoke a hint of favour in her voice, at this Cass slumped back in defeat.

Alan: 'haha i win you blind seee'

(wow Alan so rude)

sunny gave himself a disgusted look at what he just heard from his companion, is he in competition with her or something? a competition that she doesn't even know about didn't seem very fair to sunny. But then again nothing was fair it was just cruel

A while passed as Neph explained the different ways of using the sword, it truly was a theory lesson as by the end of it Sunnys head was hurting more than after a lesson with teacher Julius, and that was saying something. It spoke leaps and bounds of Nephis's knowledge, to Sunny it seemed endless but even she had a limit to how much she knew.

By the time they had finished darkness had almost completely enshrouded the forgotten shore and the rumbling of the dark sea grew louder and louder until all that could be heard from the surroundings was waves crashing against the beasts gigantic bones.

Sunny had the first watch though they were pretty secure inside the beasts spine, it was still a good idea of keeping the watch shifts a regular occurrence just in case something happened.

The water was dangerous so Sunny and the others sat far from it in fear of what may happen and what would emerge from it in the middle of the night.

and over the night nothing much happened, the girls slept peacefully until Nephis woke and it was time for them to switch positions and sunny could finally rest until daylight.

When the day did arrive sunny was quick to spread his shadow out and used his shadow sense to try and survey the are around him, by the use of this he had found a large island with a beautiful tree sat upon its centre and all around the island not a soul was seen. There was no living beings or plants or coral, nothing of the sort.

They were shocked, how could a place that was brimming with life end up like this in a state of depravity.

Despite this they still needed a place to stay for the night, and so they set off toward their destination which they nicknamed the ashen barrow due to its rather 'scenic' surroundings.

They set off not long after sunny had surveyed the area to make sure that nothing was following them and that nothing would be encountered on their way to the Ashen Barrow, once he had done so it was time for them to set off in the direction of the island.

They started by trekking through the coral for a while before eventually ending up in the scenic space of absolute nothing, the lifelessness around the barrow had sunny and the others bewildered.

There was nothing.

Yet they pushed inward toward their goal.

It was then when sunnys shadow sense had picked up on something not too far from them, it was a centurion one of the very same things he and Neph teamed up to kill a few days ago.

Sensing the monster sunny began toward the nearest rock, the place was littered with them since they technically weren't alive.

He hid behind the rock and ordered the two girls to follow him, they huddled closely behind the rock.

Soon the three could see the monster walk on past them before eventually placing what it was carrying in front of the island.

Upon closer inspection what the monster had placed was in fact not just an ordinary item, it was a transcendent soul shard.

The one from the very beast which had chased him on his first ever few days in the dream realm.

Moments later the trio continued observing the beast as it kneeled and a loud thumping could be heard from around the island until the source revealed itself, a large beast about the size of a posh man's house showed up and took the shard before swiping its scythe like arms at the monster.

It was met with no resistance as it pierced the monsters flesh and armour until it was no more.

"that things a demon" Nephis whispered.

"What" Cass shivered in fear., her warm petite body pressed firmly against sunnys.

Sunny blushed, 'it's not the time for this you fool!' he reprimanded himself at the thought of his perverted self.

moments passed as the beast walked back up the mountainous island and back toward the tree, now it had finally gone sunny could relax realising the intensity of the situation.

A demon, so that's what Alan had meant sunny though a wry grin forming on his face.

'this will be fun'