As he spoke, the shadows around me and Marko morphed and twisted—or that was how it appeared at first. A closer look revealed that several figures were actually emerging from the shadows. They wore cloaks and had white masks covering their faces. Some of the masks were quite plain, but a few had horned masks with the visages of terrifying demons. There were two dozen of them.
“These are the same kind of puppets that attacked me, and that technique just now was Shadow Walking.” I glared past the puppets to stare at the cloaked man. “So you were the one who attacked me in my old apartment and my new house. Who are you?”
“Ke ke ke. I can’t tell you who I am just yet, but… hm… let’s just say I am a man fighting for a higher power and leave it at that. You can call me Skygge.”
“Skygge…”
I tested the name, which was already familiar to me. Dyr had used that name in the same sentence when she had mentioned Hagen. So this was Skygge. I didn’t know what he meant when he said he worked for a “higher power,” but the only thing I could think of was maybe he worshiped one of the Great Overlords, or perhaps even the Sekbeists. I wouldn’t know for sure unless I captured and beat the information out of him.
“Marko,” I said.
“What?” Marko glanced at me as the Shadow Puppets closed in.
“Your earth element isn’t going to do much good against these Shadow Puppets. Stay back and wait for a chance to disrupt that rune array.” I pointed at the glowing runes surrounding Dyr.
“I hate the idea of taking orders from you, but fine. I’ll listen to you for now.” Marko took several steps back as I stepped forward.
The Shadow Puppets were already close enough that they could attack if they wanted, but they didn’t—not at first. I wondered why, then realized they weren’t really trying to kill me. They were stalling for time.
In that case…
Swinging the Dragon’s Tail Ruler in a horizontal arc as I channeled a combination of the lightning and water elements through it, I unleashed a massive wave of white light that sliced into the foremost shadows, cutting them in half at the waist. Rather than falling into a pool of blood, their bodies burst into smoke and ash. I had only managed to kill six. The rest had been too quick and disappeared into shadow.
“What incredible power and control. And you don’t even need to use movements to properly channel your Spiritual Power. It’s enough to make one think you aren’t human,” Skygge cackled.
I gritted my teeth, but I didn’t let his words bother me as I activated the Flash Step and wove around the Shadow Puppets. The first three were killed easily. I sliced their heads off before they knew what hit them. Like the first six, these three burst into smoke and ash as if their bodies couldn’t maintain cohesion.
That was nine. Just fifteen more to go.
Two Shadow Puppets appeared within my shadow, but I activated my Spiritual Aura before they could attack. Lightning burst from my aura and struck their masks, shattering them, which caused the Shadow Puppets to disperse. I was beginning to understand more about these things the longer I fought them.
Raising my hand, I splayed my five fingers and pointed at a horde of Shadow Puppets preparing to attack me. Lightning and water combined on my fingertips, forming five glowing spheres that shot out, each striking a puppet’s mask and blowing a hole clean through it. Again, they reverted to smoke and ash.
“I see now,” I said. “These things are just masses of the darkness element, agglomerated together and forced to remain in this form with the help of those masks. My guess is you don’t have enough control over the darkness element to keep them together. The masks have a rune array that helps you.”
“Ke ke ke. That’s an awfully perceptive deduction,” Skygge said, all but admitting I was right. “It’s incredibly difficult to create cohesive beings that are capable of affecting the environment like this, especially with the darkness element. I use runes to fix that.”
I didn’t talk anymore; now that I knew what they were, I attacked with greater zeal. Swinging the Dragon’s Tail Ruler, unleashing bursts of lightning and water, destroying the masks at every opportunity. One. Two. Three more fell to my blade as I used the Flash Step in a continuous flow, reducing the number of Shadow Puppets to five.
“E-Eryk…”
At the sound of a weak voice, I stopped my unrelenting attacks and looked toward the rune array. Dyr was lying on her stomach now. Her shoulders and back heaved as drool leaked from her mouth and tears dripped from her eyes. She was looking at me. It was the saddest, most pathetic look I’d ever seen on a person. It was the look of someone who’d given up.
“Marko! Hurry up and disrupt that rune array!” I snapped.
“Got it!”
Whatever Marko thought of me, he was smart enough to realize that the rune array needed to be destroyed. He rushed forward and prepared to disrupt the rune array. All he needed to do was cut one or more of the runes that made it up and the whole thing would cease functioning.
Before he could, the remaining five Shadow Puppets vanished into the shadows and appeared in front of him, forcing him to stop. I grimaced as I used the Flash Step again. I appeared directly in front of Marko and swung my lightning-coated ruler hard enough to destroy all five masks, once more ignoring the sounds of metal cracking. The Shadow Puppets burst into smoke.
However, it was already too late.
“Ke ke ke. I’ve already done what I came here to do,” Skygge said, and indeed, the glow from the rune array was already gone. He and Dyr soon began disappearing into the shadows around them. “Ke ke ke. I recommend you two head back to your camp. They’re probably in a lot of trouble right about now.”
I was just about to use the Flash Step. Even though I hadn’t been able to stop the rune array from doing whatever it was supposed to, I could at least grab Dyr. Before I could, however, Skygge lifted his head, and I froze upon seeing bloody crimson eyes glowing vibrantly within the shadows of his hood. They were so horrifyingly familiar to me. These were not the eyes of a human. I’d only met one creature who had crimson eyes like this. Recently, I had even begun seeing these eyes in my dreams, as if to remind me of who my greatest enemies were. My current dreams were all about the war from my past life. Seeing the eyes of enemies from my past in my present made me hesitate for one second. That single second was enough time for both Skygge and Dyr to disappear into a shadow.
“Damn it,” I muttered.
“What should we do?” asked Marko, who was deferring to me for the moment. “Should we chase after them?”
I shook my head. “We can’t. Skygge just used a Spiritual Darkness Technique called Shadow Walking. It allows him to move between shadows. Even if I activated Spiritual Perception, I won’t be able to track him when he’s using Shadow Walking. What’s more, the fact that he managed to evade my detection for so long means he probably has the ability to traverse at least one or two kilometers with a single use of this technique. We won’t catch up to him.”
“Then what should we do?” asked Marko.
“Let’s head back to camp,” I said. “That man said our camp is likely in trouble. I don’t think he was lying.”
Marko didn’t look like he was as sure as me, but he didn’t argue either. As we turned and headed back the way we came, I prayed that nothing bad had happened to our group.
My prayers were unanswered.
When Marko and I returned to the camp, it was to find pandemonium had spread. Demon Beasts were attacking our group. Several Spiritualists already lay dead. One, an older man of middle age, was being viciously ripped apart by a Felinoid—a jungle cat Demon Beast with sharp claws and fangs. A younger woman with auburn hair lay on the ground several meters to my left, staring sightlessly at the sky as a Greater Jungle Python swallowed her whole starting from her feet.
“W-what is going on here?!” Marko screamed.
“Don’t ask obvious questions! Get in there and help everyone!” I snapped.
I didn’t w
ait for Marko to get his act together as I used the Flash Step to dart forward and began carving my way through the Demon Beasts attacking the camp. There were so many I couldn’t begin to count them all. Most of them were just D-Ranks, but there were a few like the Greater Jungle Python and Felinoid that were C-Ranks. With my blade coated in lightning and water, I cleaved through all the Demon Beasts in my path as I made my way to the tent my group had been using.
The tent was already in shambles. It looked like multiple Demon Beasts had trampled over it.
Calming down before I could panic, I remembered it would be easy to find my companions if they were still alive. I activated Spiritual Perception and sent Spiritual Power into the Ring of Marji. My awareness quickly spread out as the world around me lost color, becoming monochrome. The only thing I could see in color now were the lights from various Spiritual Auras, most of which were red and blue.
I locked onto the unique Spiritual Signatures of Kari, Lin, and Fay. They were fighting about two dozen meters to my left alongside several other Spiritualists. It looked like they had grouped together, which explained why I’d only seen two corpses so far. These must have been the people who had survived the initial attack and gathered to defend themselves. Through my Ring of Marji, I could sense Lin’s irritation and desperation.
Moving within a Flash Step, I darted through the twisted trees of the jungle and arrived quickly at the scene where I had sensed their Spiritual Signatures.
Fourteen of the initial twenty Spiritualists were there. They had formed a defensive ring—a formation where several people created a circle so they could defend from attacks coming in any direction. It was a sound strategy. Catalyna was the one directing them. She stood next to Finn and an older man as she barked out orders and attacked Demon Beasts that came too close with her jagged blade. While she was doing what she could, Kari, Fay, and Lin were taking the brunt of the Demon Beasts’ assault. The normal Spiritualists had formed the circle, and those three were using their teamwork to take down any Demon Beast that got too close.
They were working well together, with Lin creating a number of ethereal snakes to attack multiple Demon Beasts at once. Her snakes would sink their fangs into the flesh of Demon Beasts—Ligers, Felinoids, and Great Pythons mostly—and the poison they injected slowed the monsters down long enough for Kari or Fay to finish them off with ranseur and gauntlet-clad fists. They weren’t using Spiritual Techniques. Given how many Demon Beasts were present, I assumed they were trying to conserve their Spiritual Power for when they really needed it.
I had no such compunctions.
Taking a deep breath, I channeled my Spiritual Power, which surged through my body like an electric current as I activated the Flash Step Version 3: Lightning Step. As lightning skittered around underneath my feet, I moved.
When the initial attack came, Kari had been sleeping with Lin and Fay. She’d been woken up by the loud crashing sound of trees being felled. Fortunately, that noise had woken up all three of them, and they’d been able to emerge from their tent in time to avoid being trampled to death as several Demon Beasts stampeded into their clearing.
They hadn’t been able to put on their armor, but they had grabbed their weapons, which she and Fay used to fight their way through the horde of attacking Demon Beasts and link up with the others. From there, they had formed a circle-defense formation, but she, Fay, and Lin had decided not to join the formation and went on the attack. Their goal was to bolster the circle formation’s defense from the outside.
That had been fifteen minutes ago.
The current battlefield was an absolute mess, with the corpses of numerous Demon Beasts strewn across the jungle floor. There were Greater Pythons, Felinoids, Ligers, and Poisonous Stinger Frogs.
While it would be easier to assume the Greater Pythons and Felinoids, which were larger and physically stronger, were a greater threat, the truth was the D-Rank Poisonous Stinger Frogs were the most troublesome enemies to deal with. They were only about knee-high. Their smaller profile made them harder to spot within the chaos, and they could shoot poisonous needles from their mouths and hides. Their poison was also potent enough that it could numb a Spiritualist’s body if their needles penetrated flesh.
So far, she, Fay, and Lin had avoided having needles pierce their skin by activating their Spiritual Auras, which acted as a shield to protect them from receiving damage from both physical and spiritual attacks. But some of their comrades weren’t so lucky, and a number were already on their knees. Their Spiritual Auras flickered wildly as if they would go out at any second.
She and her two companions did what they could to protect the others. Lin was poisoning the Demon Beasts with fast-acting toxins that slowed reaction times and dulled the senses, while Kari and Fay attacked with purely physical techniques. They didn’t know what was happening. However, if a stronger Demon Beast showed up, they would need all the Spiritual Power they had to deal with it. Thus they fought conservatively.
“Haaaa!!!”
Kari shot forward as a Felinoid roared in anguish after a snake bit into it, using its distracted state to thrust her ranseur into its left eye socket. Her weapon caused the eye to burst. As blood and other fluids spilled out, she plunged her weapon in further, going straight through its eye and into its brain. She didn’t wait for the creature to fall as she yanked her weapon out and sought another enemy to slay.
About two meters from her current location, Fay unleashed a series of monstrously swift strikes with her gauntlets, repeatedly pounding into a Greater Python with a relentless barrage. Indents appeared on the snake’s body as scales cracked and fresh blood poured. The creature hissed as it tried to attack her with its tail, but she avoided it with nimble steps and continued to hammer it until the Demon Beast’s organs ruptured from the repeated attacks and it died.
No normal person can do that…
Eryk’s training was proving itself during this battle. Hers and Fay’s physical prowess was incredible. She didn’t know another human being that could cause so much damage to a Demon Beast with purely physical attacks.
Twirling her ranseur around her body, Kari took several steps back as she sliced into the muzzle of a Liger—a furred animal similar to a Felinoid but smaller and less powerful. The creature screamed and moved back. She took a step forward and stabbed her blade through the tip of its mouth, killing it.
Several more Demon Beasts tried to attack from her blind spot, but Lin created a pair of whips to force them back. The loud cracking of her whips caused Kari to recognize the threat as well. She spun, darted forward, and leapt onto the back of a Felinoid. Blood spurted from the creature’s back as she plunged her ranseur deep into its body. She didn’t stay for long. As the Felinoid released a dying whimper, she removed her weapon and jumped off.
Landing on the ground, she was just in time to spot Fay rotating her entire body as she punched a Liger so hard it was lifted off the ground and sent soaring. She didn’t need to watch it tumble like a ragdoll to know her friend’s attack had killed it.
As the three continued to fight, Catalyna barked out orders. “Everyone! Tighten up our defensive formation! Work together! Finn! Get back in line and stop messing around!”
“There’s too many of them!”
“Why are there so many Demon Beasts?!”
“Quit whining and keep fighting! Do not give up!”
The battle continued to rage. Kari could feel her body becoming sluggish. She’d been fighting nonstop for a while now, and while she only had a few cuts and bruises to show for it, she knew it was only a matter of time before she ran out of energy. The last Felinoid who attacked had managed to slam its head into her torso, where a large and ugly black bruise had formed.
“This is getting us nowhere,” Fay said as she and Kari regrouped with Lin. Like her, Fay and Lin were also injured and breathing heavily. “There’s no end to them.”
“You’re right.” Kari frowned. “What is going on? Why are all these Demon Beas
ts attacking us?”
“This princess just wants to know where Darling is,” Lin said. “Why isn’t he here?”
Kari wished to know that as well. Eryk had been on watch, and she knew he wouldn’t disappear unless he had a good reason. With the current situation being what it was, she believed that reason had something to do with this horde of attacking Demon Beasts.
As more Demon Beasts came pouring in like an unrelenting flood, Kari and the others found themselves unable to converse as they focused completely on defending themselves and each other. Marko arrived at some point and joined Catalyna in the defensive circle. There was still no sign of Eryk, but none of them could afford to think about that as they were soon overwhelmed by enemies.
Forced to constantly backpedal as more and more Demon Beasts rushed in from the ground and treetops, Kari found herself receiving more injuries. A Liger managed to catch her off guard, scratching her arm and drawing blood. She wasn’t the only one to get hurt. Lin hissed as a Felinoid bit into her tail, sinking its fangs in deep. The Lamia girl killed it with a swift whip strike that cracked open its head, but the damage had already been done. Similarly, Fay was knocked to the ground as a Felinoid pounced on her. While she managed to kick it off, the Demon Beast had crushed her left gauntlet; blood leaked from the cracks.
Just as it looked like they were about to be completely overwhelmed, a bright flash of pale blue lightning suddenly rushed into the clearing, and the Demon Beasts that had been harassing them became little more than broken bodies lying on the ground.
Chapter 5
Demon Beast Mountain Range - Part V
I had Spiritual Power to spare, so I didn’t bother holding anything back. After activating the Flash Step Version 3: Lightning Step, I began mowing down every Demon Beast within the clearing, cleaving their bodies in half with the Dragon’s Tail Ruler, slicing their heads clean off, and removing limbs with quick and precise swings. Blood traced arcs through the air as I raced across the clearing and hacked apart every Demon Beast within sight.
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