974 Shadow in the Shell

In the end, Sunny did make a trade with Naeve. He had a surplus of Memories after slaying many Nightmare Creatures to defend the convoy, and the Nightwalker was in dire need of weapons and armor suited for land combat, to arm his own Awakened.

There had been a full cohort of them aboard the battleship once, but now, only four remained. Since these warriors of the House of Night would be defending the caravan along with the other Awakened in the near future, and Saint was still slumbering, Sunny did not drive a hard bargain.

That was how he received two new Memories, which were meant to cover the gap in his arsenal when it came to traversing and fighting in the water.

One of them was a simple Awakened charm that allowed him to breathe underwater. It was called [Essence Pearl], and had two enchantments. One passively produced air, the other had to be activated and gifted the wielder with the ability to see clearly, as if they were wearing a glass mask.

The description of the charm simply stated that breathing was the essence of life, and beauty was its purpose. One had to be able to see clearly to appreciate beauty, and live long enough to enjoy it.

'How romantic.'

The second Memory was Ascended, and appeared to be an... armor, of sorts. In truth, it was more of a harness made out of a fisherman's net, which provided no protection whatsoever, but allowed the wearer to swim with surprising speed.

The harness was called [Nimble Catch], and its description told the story of a muskrat king who had sworn to eat a wondrous fish, only to learn that it could only be caught by using the eyes of the monarch of birds - his brother - as bait. The whole thing was very weird.

'...What's a muskrat, though? Do rats eat fish?'

The only drawback of the strange harness was that, as usual, no other armor-type Memory could be used while wearing it. Nevertheless, Sunny was happy with his acquisitions. The inability to defend himself in water had been eating at him ever since the sea journey to Antarctica, and even though he hoped to never have to use these new Memories, simply possessing them was calming.

Several hours after encountering the beached battleship, the caravan drove forward once again. The length of it remained the same, but there were much more people in the vehicles now.

Naeve had not been joking when he said that there were thousands of sailors on the mangled vessel. And even then, those were only those who had survived. Sunny honestly did not know whether to consider them soldiers or refugees, but he knew that Sergeant Gere and the other officers would sort that out for him soon.

The caravan had a lot of spare weapons, especially now that they had unloaded the surviving cargo holds of the battleship, so there was a good chance that many of the sailors would become active combatants. Even if not, Sunny was already satisfied to have another Master around.

Naeve's presence also did wonders for the morale of everyone in the caravan, not only because he was an Ascended, but also because of how flamboyantly he had appeared. If there was a sure way to win someone's adoration, it was to shower a horde of Nightmare Creatures trying to eat them with a barrage of artillery fire at just the right moment.

'Huh... maybe I should remember that method...'

Sunny remained on guard until the column of vehicles turned and left the coastal highway behind, climbing back into the mountains. It was only then that he allowed himself to relax and descended from the roof of the Rhino to its interior.

After exchanging a few words with Professor Obel and Beth, he climbed into one of the sleeping niches and closed it to receive some privacy.

There, he lingered for a few moments, and then summoned the runes.

After thinking about it for a while, Sunny finally decided to take the risk and bind the Mantle of the Underworld to his soul. He did not know what would happen, and the idea of being left without a proper suit of armor was more than slightly disturbing, but...

To tell the truth, Sunny was extremely curious to see what would happen.

Soon, he was staring at a string of shimmering runes.

[Bind the relic?]

He hesitated for a few moments, sighed, and then whispered quietly:

"Yes."

Sunny had dismissed the Mantle, just in case, and was now wearing the soft fabric of the Puppeteer's Shroud. For that reason, he did not see any changes immediately.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.

And then, the voice of the Spell spoke.

It said:

[Your Memory has been destroyed.]

Sunny's eyes widened.

'What?!'

He flinched, almost hitting his head on the roof of the niche. His heart skipped a bit.

'What the hell?! What do you mean?!'

But then, the voice of the Spell resounded again.

[You have received an Attribute.]

At the same time, Sunny felt a... a profound, but unexplainable change. The change seemed to affect both his body and his soul.

It was not painful, and did not feel harmful... just very, very strange.

It was as if his skin turned to stone, but also remained exactly the same.

At the same time, he felt as if the enchantments of the Mantle of the Underworld were at his fingertips, even though the onyx armor was not summoned, and in fact had been destroyed.

'...Huh?'

Sunny remained motionless for a while, trying to understand what had happened to him. Then, unable to find answers, he turned his attention to the shimmering runes.

In the list of his Memories, there was no Mantle of the Underworld anymore.

However...

He now possessed a new Attribute.

Holding his breath, Sunny read:

Attributes: [Fated], [Flame of Divinity], [Master of Shadows], [Blood Weave], [Bone Weave]...

And there, a new string of runes appeared at the end.

Attribute: [Marble Shell].