Weeks after...

[Your soul grows stronger...]

"Ahh… sweet Copium…" Asher moaned dramatically, as bits of soul essence seeped into his being. "Ash! You idiot! Those centipedes will melt your face off if you stand there gawking!" Sunny yelled, already walking away with Nephis and Cassie aboard the Echo.

"Wait! Guys! Don't leave me behind!" Asher screeched, frantically stuffing his arms with soul shards and a few sacks of oil like some kind of demented hoarder. He scrambled to catch up and threw his loot onto the Echo with an unceremonious grunt. The objects floated for a moment before clattering down beside Cassie.

Asher heaved a sigh of relief—right before a sharp bonk landed on the back of his head. "Ow!"

"Bastard! I told you not to do that stupid trick again! We lost ten soul shards because of your idiotic theatrics last time!" Sunny roared, his face ashen with fury.

Asher, rubbing his head, stuck his tongue out. "That was because I couldn't control my aspect well—"

"You still can't!" Sunny interrupted, with enough volume to rattle the Echo itself.

Nephis glanced back, cracked a rare sigh, and shook her head. Cassie giggled softly. "I'm starting to get tired of their nonsense," Nephis muttered, adjusting the starlight legion armor on her shoulders.

"But you have to admit, it's impressive. Even in the middle of this hellscape, those two idiots have stayed exactly the same since the academy," Cassie mused.

Nephis nodded solemnly. "Yes, like cockroaches. Immune to change…"

"Nephis!" Sunny called from behind. "We're smack in the middle of Flat Hill and Bone Ridge. Do we head back or push on to the Ridge?"

Nephis paused for a moment, then made her decision. "We push to Bone Ridge."

"Hey! What about my opinion?" Asher piped up indignantly.

"It doesn't matter," Sunny snapped, sending his shadow forward.

Asher grumbled, muttering something about democracy and unfair treatment while kicking at a rock on the ground. Except… the rock stopped falling. It started to float instead.

Now spinning around Asher like a tiny, rocky moon, the stone occasionally veered off course to smack Sunny in the back of the head.

"Will you stop that?!" Sunny growled.

"Nope!" Asher chirped, grinning as if he'd just invented fun itself.

This went on for miles. Sunny and Nephis dealt with nightmare creatures along the way while Asher stuck to his critical new role: rock management. Balancing the small stone with his aspect required his utmost concentration. He was practically sweating by the time the rock started feeling heavier.

"Ugh… headache…" Asher groaned, just as his precious rock plummeted back to the ground.

"Guys, something's wrong," Sunny muttered, his voice suddenly serious.

"What's wrong," Asher said mockingly, "is that I was about to set a world record for rock floating until you distracted me!"

Ignoring him entirely, Nephis asked, "What is it?"

Sunny frowned, his face shadowed by confusion. "I don't know… something feels off."

Nephis glanced at Cassie, who shook her head, then turned to Asher, who mirrored her uncertainty with a shrug. It was clear that Sunny was the only one sensing the disturbance. Logic dictated there was something unique about him that made it possible—specifically, his shadow sense.

Closing his eyes, Sunny concentrated for a moment. When they snapped open, his expression had turned grim. He shivered. "T-There's a huge shadow to the west."

The group exchanged uneasy glances before Cassie murmured, "The Crimson Spire."

Asher tilted his head in curiosity. He could detect the faint gravity fluctuations caused by the gate within the Spire, but the Spire itself eluded his senses. How exactly did Sunny's shadow sense work?

"Focus." Nephis's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

Shaking off his distractions, Asher redirected his attention to the task ahead. They were approaching Bone Ridge, a name as ominous as the sight itself.

The Ridge loomed in the distance, a stark, jagged outline against the crimson coral fields and the oppressive grey sky. Its ivory splendor was unmistakable—a massive graveyard made of bone.

The skeletal remains of a gargantuan sea monster sprawled atop an enormous mound of chaotically growing coral. Its spine arched high above the landscape, a grim monument to the creature's ancient demise.

With evening creeping in, their next task loomed large: they had to scale the dead leviathan.

The ridge's towering bones could provide the shelter they desperately needed, but there was a risk. If anything had claimed the remains as its home, they would have to fight.

Retreat wasn't an option. Their previous safe haven was too far to reach before nightfall.

Asher clenched his fists, his mind racing. He didn't know exactly how much time separated his current predicament from the canon timeline, but he remembered enough to stay on high alert. This place was ripe with dangers, and horrors could lurk in the shadows of the Ridge's immense bones.

Nephis stepped forward, her starlight armor gleaming faintly. "Get ready," she commanded.

Coming to the base of the coral mound, the group moved around it, searching for a convenient path up. Eventually, they arrived in front of the creature's cracked, misshapen skull. With its lower jaw missing or buried under the mud, the upper formed a vast, cavernous cave.

Inside the spine, the bone surface under their feet was as wide as a road. Actually, it looked a lot like a highway running through a long tunnel, with stark beams of light falling through the gaps between the massive vertebrae. The tunnel was inclined upward, most of its length hidden behind the bend of the ceiling. When the Echo entered the spine, its chitin legs produced a loud, echoing clatter.

Nephis grimaced.

"Any movement?"

Asher and Sunny shook their head, not sensing any movement with their senses.

Eventually, they came to a conclusion that there is nothing hiding in the bones. By the time they got to safety, the sun was already setting. The dark sea was returning, filling the inside of the sea monster's spine with the echoing sound of rushing water.

Sunny unstrapped the saddlebags from the Echo before dismissing it, the creature vanishing in a wisp of shadow. The campsite immediately felt more open, though it did little to ease the heavy air of exhaustion around them.

All four of them were filthy, their skin caked with grime and dried blood. Nephis and Cassie drifted off to wash, leaving the boys to take a moment for themselves. Sunny and Asher walked a short distance away and collapsed onto the ground, their tired bodies grateful for the rest.

Sunny's eyes glazed over as he stared into the distance, his mind clearly elsewhere. Asher realized he was reading his runes. A sly grin spread across Asher's face as he summoned his own.

[123/1000]

The number gleamed in his mind's eye, and Asher couldn't suppress a smirk. It was a dramatic increase, one that felt almost unnatural. His gaze flicked to Sunny, who remained engrossed in his runes.

'He's stronger than the version of him in the canon timeline,' Asher thought.

The realization wasn't comforting. Over time, Asher had noticed something unsettling—the scavengers they encountered were more frequent and more dangerous than what he remembered from the story.

He was certain it was his fault.

But why?

The answer eluded him, though a single, maddening thought lingered at the edge of his mind: the Spark of Anomaly.

A so-called curse. Yet, that explanation felt incomplete. It didn't explain the eerie sense that the very fabric of the realm was shifting, twisting itself to draw danger toward him.

His mind wandered back to the massive hand he had glimpsed in his first nightmare. That shadowy, grotesque thing… it had reached for him with undeniable purpose.

He shivered. The memory sent a cold sliver of dread down his spine.

'What was it?'

A nagging suspicion had gnawed at him since their close encounter with the Spire Messenger weeks ago. Its erratic, almost deranged behavior, coupled with how narrowly they had escaped death, wasn't supposed to happen—not in the novel, not in the timeline he remembered.

Finally, Sunny stood and wandered off to wash, leaving Asher alone beneath the infinite expanse of the black sky.

He tilted his head back, staring into the void above. It was strange. Most people, if thrown into a nightmare like Shadow Slave, would be consumed by despair. The knowledge that death lurked around every corner would suffocate them. But for Asher, the thought of dying didn't stir the same terror.

He had toyed with the idea of death before—entertained it, even. In his past life, the thought had come and gone like an uninvited guest, lingering long enough to whisper its temptations before he pushed it aside. Social bonds had tethered him to life back then, a flimsy anchor at best.

But fear of death? He'd never truly felt it. Not until now.

Here, in this hellish realm, the stakes were different. Dying wasn't just an end—it was a descent into something worse. Something darker. The shadow realm. And yet…

Asher chuckled softly, the sound hollow against the oppressive stillness of the night.

"What are you laughing at?"

The question startled him. He turned his head to see Nephis approaching, her silver hair damp and her expression as unreadable as ever. She sat beside him, her piercing gaze searching his face.

"Nothing," Asher said with a faint smile, turning back to the empty sky. "Just… thinking about how dying wouldn't be so bad."

Her frown deepened, her eyes narrowing. "Why would you say that?" she asked, her voice low but firm. "Dying is horrible."

Asher leaned back on his hands, his gaze distant. "You wouldn't get it," he said, his tone light but tinged with something darker. "You're ambitious, Nephis. You've always been moving toward something, fighting for something. For someone like you, life has purpose. For someone like me… dying feels like a relief. Better than living in—"

"You're wrong."

Her voice was sharp, cutting through his words like a blade.

Asher turned to look at her, startled by the sudden intensity in her eyes.

"Dying isn't relief. It's surrender," she said, her tone unwavering. "It's giving up. It's letting every nightmare, every scavenger, every force that ever wanted to see you broken, win." She leaned forward slightly, her gaze burning into his. "Living in pain is hard. But dying? Dying is letting them take everything from you. Do you really want to give them that satisfaction?"

Asher was silent for a moment, her words hanging heavy in the air. Then, he chuckled, "You sound like Sunny you know?" Nephis' face broke a girn, "perhaps I'm copying him too much."

Before he could say more, Sunny's voice rang out, breaking the tension. "Hey, Ash! I'm done. Go wash up while we figure out dinner!"

Asher stood, brushing himself off as he grabbed the Endless Spring. He glanced back at Nephis, his smile lingering for a moment.

"Let's leave this conversation here for now," he said softly.

Nephis nodded, her expression unreadable again as she watched him walk away.