518 Cargo Hold

Landing into the poisonous miasma of the ancient wreck, Sunny immediately turned into a shadow and glided over the ancient wooden boards, which were long ago overgrown with brown moss and bulging, thorned vines.

To be honest, he would have preferred to move through the ship as a human. Sunny knew that he was going to inhale at least some of the poison while fighting the being that dwelled in the cargo hold, so having some time to get accustomed to the debilitating effect of the toxin was better than going through that process in the middle of the battle.

But he couldn't risk getting noticed too soon. The whole battle was supposed to be over in just a few moments, anyway... alas, Sunny had little hope that everything was going to go as planned.

His previous experiences had taught him that very few things ever did.

Remembering the path he had taken during the hunt for Noctis coins, Sunny glided through the narrow corridors. This time, they were vastly different from how they had been before… after all, the monster was wide awake now.

The vines sprawling through the ancient wreck were pulsating and moving, spouting clouds of deadly mist. The air was murky and full of disturbing sounds of something slithering beyond the wooden bulkheads. It was as though Sunny was inside a giant, living organism.

A virus cell that invaded the ancient wreck to kill its host.

…Luckily, these were mostly just the roots of the vile vines. The parts that were really mobile and dangerous were far away, currently killing the cohort of Fire Keepers.

Suddenly grim, Sunny increased his speed, and soon reached the gates of the cargo hold, which were bent outward, as if straining to contain something pressing on them from the other side.

He could feel the vast space beyond the gate, and a massive shadow of the creature in its center, its form rhythmically expanding and contracting, as if breathing. With each contraction, a wave of warm wind blew through the remnants of the flying ship.

He lingered for a fraction of a second, and then gathered his resolve.

There was no time to waste.

Spending a small fraction of his essence to step through the shadows once more, Sunny appeared in the cargo hold… and froze, slightly stunned by the terrible visage of the Corrupted Monster.

'What… what the hell… is that?'

The cargo hold was very large, and filled almost entirely with thick, brown vines that snaked outward and disappeared in the breaches in the ancient wood. They all originated from a single source… a vast, pulsating mass of moss in its center.

In the very heart of the mass, however…

There was a shape of a human, their body twisted in a terrible convulsion. Sunny couldn't tell if the human was a man or a woman, alive or dead, but he was sure of one thing… the vines sprawling through the entire island all came from within the flesh of that creature.

They grew from the mouth of the abhorrent corpse, from their ears, piercing their chest and abdomen, snaking from beneath the skin of their arms and legs. The sight of it was both terrifying and repulsive, but most of all, it was… ghoulishly wrong.

It was as though the vines had once exploded from the body of the ancient human, killing them, but also somehow keeping them alive and breathing. And as long as the human breathed, the vines would continue to exist and grow, too, slowly absorbing the ancient ship, the valley beyond, all of the Shipwreck Island, and then, one day… who knew?

'That… that is the thing I need to kill?'

Sunny had seen many horrors in his life, and killed his fair share of them, but no matter how experienced and powerful he became, there were things that humans were just not meant to be able to behold calmly. Staring at the ghastly being trapped in the cargo hold of the flying ship, Sunny didn't lose his composure or resolve… but he couldn't help but feel a deep, cold sense of fear.

Fear, however, was a welcomed guest… fear told him that he was still sane, and had some measure of humanity left in his soul. As long as Sunny did not surrender to fear, it was alright to feel it from time to time.

'One strike… get close, exit the shadows, and thrust the Cruel Sight into its chest. The divine flame is going to do the rest.'

Steeling himself, he began to glide forward, trying to traverse the vast cargo hold as quickly as possible.

The plan, however, went wrong just a moment later.

Because as soon as Sunny moved, and long before he was able to get anywhere near the terrible creature, the corpse suddenly opened its eyes.

Those eyes were empty, dead, and as dark as the abyss of the Sky Below.

…And they were staring directly at him, as if the creature could easily pierce the veil of darkness and separate the intruding shadow from all the rest.

Sunny was caught.

'N—no way…'

He froze for a fraction of a second, stunned by the fact that the incredible stealth augmentation of his Aspect was broken with such ease.

And then, all hell broke loose.

***

Sunny's first thought was to retreat and run as fast as he could. After all, he was currently a shadow… and as far as he knew, thorny vines and poison were not capable of harming a shadow.

But if he did so, the Fire Keepers were going to die.

And more than that, he was determined to kill this thing. He wanted its shadow fragments, its Memory — if there were to be one — and its secrets. The terrible creature had to die for his plans to go smoothly, for his challenge of the Second Nightmare to have as high a chance of success as possible.

So, he didn't run.

Instead, Sunny dashed forward, flying toward the pulsating mass of brown moss and vines with as much speed as he could muster. It was only going to take him a second to reach the ghastly corpse, as long as simply stepping through the shadows would.

However, the host of the ancient wreck did not remain idle.

Countless vines sprawling on the floor and the walls of the cargo hold suddenly surged, spewing clouds of poison, and more emerged from the mangled flesh of the ancient being.

These vines, however, did not shoot at Sunny in a futile attempt to catch a shadow.

Instead, they flew upward, tearing the hull of the ship apart.

Bright sunlight flooded through the wide breach, and as it banished the shadows populating the cargo hold, Sunny was suddenly expelled from their safe embrace, rolling on the floor while the sharp thorns of the vines bit into his flesh through the fabric of the Puppeteer's Shroud.

His thoughts were in a state of momentary panic.

'...Not good!'