Sunny did not know how far, exactly, they had traveled away from the dark island, but the distance had to be immense. His shadow sh.e.l.l was not only enormous, it was also created to reign in the water. Considering that he was moving with the current of the Great River, his already great speed was enhanced even more.
So, he decided that it would be safe to rise to the surface.
Gradually ascending, he tore through the radiant abyss and finally raised his head above the glistening waves.
Still clinging to his horns, Nephis slumped down and breathed heavily. It had been hard for her to withstand the resistance of the water, which had been battering her like a ram for so long.
The greater Sunny's speed was, the greater was the resistance. She had already been exhausted by straining her Ability beyond its limit, and enduring the feverish race through the depths could not have been easy.
But now that the onyx serpent's head was above water, Nephis could finally rest a little.
The sky was still impenetrably black. A soft glow was rising from the river, illuminating the vast emptiness of its flowing expanse. The view was as dreamlike and magical as it had been on the first day Sunny had seen it...
But his heart was pierced by despair.
It was because even now, after leaving the dark island so far behind, he couldn't see any hint of land anywhere around them.
An old doubt crawled into his mind, sapping strength from his tired body.
'What if there is no land... what if this whole world is nothing but water...'
Gritting his fangs, Sunny let out a quiet growl and strained every fiber of his sh.e.l.l to accelerate even more.
With his onyx snout as the spearhead and his black dorsal fin as a sharp blade, he cut the glowing surface of the Great River. Faster, faster... he was not out of essence yet.
There was a certain sense of exhilaration he felt, flying toward the horizon with terrible speed. The speed, the might of his sh.e.l.l, the slender weight of Neph's body pressing down on his scales, and the empty vastness of the boundless black sky... it was almost liberating.
But, at the same, his heart was drowning in anxiety, fear, and dread.
And soon, he was proven right to be afraid.
Sunny felt an ominous premonition and rose his head a little higher above the water. In the next moment, his serpentine eyes narrowed.
There, ahead of them... the surface of the Great River was seething and boiling. A boundless krill swarm was swiftly moving to meet them, hundreds of thousands of Corrupted Beasts burning with a mad desire to devour the onyx serpent and his rider alive.
Sunny's enormous body shuddered, but he tried to remain calm.
'This is not the end...'
The krill swarm was a harrowing foe, but the terror of it lay in how numerous the River Locusts were. The hungry legion rus.h.i.+ng toward Sunny was the largest he had ever seen by far, enough so that even the Azure Serpent might have been unable to prevail against it. However...
Unlike the ancient leviathan, Sunny was not constrained by the need to defend his prey, and while the krill were numerous, they were not individually strong.
Much more importantly, they were not too fast.
Cutting a sharp turn, Sunny roared and flew west, parallel to the approaching ma.s.s of abominations. His feverish thoughts dissolved into a simple, b.e.s.t.i.a.l need to outrun the swarm. The distance between them grew smaller with frightening speed, and yet he still couldn't see the edge of the vast patch of rough water.
And by the time he saw it, there was no time left.
'd.a.m.n it!'
As Nephis picked herself up and summoned a sword, Sunny plunged into the ma.s.s of krill. The water surged around him, creating a barrier... but more than a few abominations pa.s.sed through it.
His jaws snapped, and Neph's sword flashed.
...A few moments later, they broke the wall of River Locusts and tore free of the swarm. Sunny had just barely reached the edges of the rough water patch, and even though they had to go through the krill at the very end, the expanse of the Great River in front of them was clear.
Sunny swam with all his might, skirting the pursuing swarm and increasing the distance between the slithering locusts and his tail.
'Faster, faster, faster...'
Soon, the krill were left far behind. Nephis slumped again, clutching her sword with a trembling hand.
...He did not have a lot of essence left.
They continued to move downstream, covering a tremendous distance. The onyx serpent flew like an arrow... no, much faster than any arrow could fly. But that was still not enough.
After the first swarm, there was another.
After the second swarm, there was a harrowing creature that lunged at them from the depths.
After the creature, there was a gargantuan ma.s.s of rotting seaweed that almost ensnared and devoured them, a dozen grotesque maws suddenly appearing from beneath the swaying weeds.
And after that, there were more horrors than he could count. Flocks of predatory birds that seemed to have pearls growing in their desiccated flesh, invisible creatures that were able to instantly turn large spans of the river into adamantine ice, ghostly lights that burned in the depths of the water, filling their minds with an indescribable desire to approach them...
But Sunny was a river serpent, a monarch among beasts. His long body was fast, mighty, and tenacious. He was incredibly fast and at home in the water. He had outrun the krill, tore through the rotting seaweed, dove into the depths to avoid the birds of prey, broke through the ice, resisted the allure of the ghostly lights...
He had escaped from them all.
However...
His essence was running dry. It was almost gone. He was exhausted and well past the limits of his mental strength.
And there was still no land in sight.
By the time the seven suns slowly appeared from beyond the horizon, chasing away the impenetrable darkness, and the Great River stopped s.h.i.+ning...
He was utterly spent.
It was not even a matter of willpower anymore. It was simply a matter of not having anything else to give. His essence was fully depleted.
Finally, despair consumed his heart.
The shadow sh.e.l.l was the first to crumble. The mighty onyx serpent shuddered, and then dissolved into shadows, which were instantly chased away by the pale light of dawn.
His incarnation disappeared next. Sunny turned intangible, and was then thrown out of the embrace of the shadows, finally regaining his human form.
He was in pain. Every muscle in his body felt like it was about to burst. His lungs felt as if they were consumed by fire. His head was heavy, and his limbs were weak.
He even failed to adapt to the change in time, swallowing a mouthful of water.
...Which was fine. He was dying from thirst, anyway.
Sunny felt himself sinking, and struggled weakly to stay afloat. But even that was too much of a strain.
'Am I... going to drown?'
A moment later, a strong arm embraced him, and he felt Nephis pressing his body against hers. Swimming with the help of her one free hand, she pulled them both upward.
Soon, their heads broke the surface of the water.
Sunny was momentarily blinded by sunlight and coughed, trying to push air into his lungs.
'Over... it's over... we won't survive the few days needed for our essence to recover...'
As he tried to think of something - anything - that could keep them alive, a strange s.h.i.+ver suddenly ran through Neph's body. Since she was still hugging him from behind, he could feel it clearly.
"Sunny... Sunny..."
He tried to answer, and was suddenly struck by the strangeness of his human body. It felt alien and tiny, not at all befitting a ferocious serpent like him.
He had forgotten how to talk.
'Snap out of it, d.a.m.n it.'
Sunny slowly gathered his senses, remembering what it meant to be human. Then, he moved his unfamiliar tongue and said hoa.r.s.ely:
"What?"
Nephis moved, turning them both to face downstream. Her voice was just as hoa.r.s.e as his:
"There!"
He frowned, following the direction where her finger was pointing with his gaze, and then froze.
There, on the water, no more than a hundred meters away...
A small boat was swaying on the waves, both of its sails lowered.
It was made out of beautiful dark wood, with intricate patterns carved along its sides. There was no movement inside, but the boat seemed to be staying in place, strangely unaffected by the strong current of the Great River.
And so, they were being slowly pulled in its direction.