CHAPTER 68: SHADOW TRIALS (2)

When no notification of their victory came Luna swiftly stabbed the pile of shadow flesh beneath her multiple times. Cutting it up into smaller and smaller parts to ensure that it truly was dead. Yet no notification came. The two looked at each other in worry as this could only mean one of two things.

Either the beast below them was somehow still alive, or it was never real in the first place.

"I think we should just run, I don’t know what that thing was but I don’t want to stick around to find out." Violet said.

"Yeah I don’t like whatever the hell is going on here. Let’s just go." Putting action to her words she turned and began to run forward once more only to dive to the floor a moment later to dodge a blade of shadow that rushed towards her from her side.

Seeing this Violet growled in annoyance as she realised that their ordeal was not yet over. Instead of blindly firing off more void volts into the surrounds she once more summoned a collection of bolts that floated around her as she made her way over to her companion to cover one side.

Together they once more stared into their surroundings and awaited the next incoming blow. Only this time it did not come from a single direction. It came from 5 separate directions.

Both girls reacted instantly Violet opted to use void step and moved directly to the spot she saw one of the blades originate from she appeared before a creature that was not at all what she expected. It was not yet another horror like what they caught before but a much smaller shadow beast that was almost humanoid in appearance, if you discounted that multiple eyes that covered its grotesque body.

Still she wa snot to be dissuaded and seeing as her void bolts traveled with her she unhesitatingly launched all of them forward at the foe before her whilst also spinning slightly and letting her tail whip forward to smash into its legs. The combined assult was devastating in its brutality.

The creature stood no chance of surviving and was swiftly riddled with holes, it’s now corpse falling to the floor. This time she did notice a new notification trying to get her attention but ignored it as she turned her head towards where she could feel Luna was fighting and dashed in her direction to provide her support.

Luna meanwhile also dashed forwards, whilst she could have used void steps to instantly close the gap as violet had she was still not too used to that ability and felt much more comfortable using her own legs when possible. She slid under the incoming blades and dashed forwards. She lay witness to yet another of the multi limbed horrors from before and grimaced slightly as she knew this would be a rough battle if their were surrounded by 5 of these beasts.

Yet she also noticed some movement from behind the beast and saw a humanoid form try to dash away to hide in the shadows once more. It was then that she received a short bundle of information from Violet letting her know what she had just killed and a wicked smile rose on her lips.

Well, if the horror before her was just a distraction then she would be happy to respond by completely ignoring it and going after the true foe.

Changing direction she once more dashed forward after the retreating figure. She had to dive into a quick roll to avoid the lashing limbs of the horror but lost none of her momentum and soon found herself laying eyes of the shadow beast. With a yell she froze the ground beneath the figure causing it to slip and crash to the ground.

With a powerful leap forward Luna brought her spear down, its edge elongated with ice and delivered a brutal slash that tore into the creatures back allowing it to let out a screech. This too was swiftly silenced as she delivered a decisive stab to the back of its head.

Consuming the kill she turned just in time to see that the multi limbed horror began to dissolve into shadows after its summoner had been dealt with.

From there the fight was short but brutal. Well for the strange creatures at least. Now aware of the trick the duo swiftly dealt with 2 more of the beasts but were unable to find the last one. It had evidently ran away into the shadows.

Not interested in chasing after the fleeing foe the two took a moment to catch their breath and take a quick note of the notifications that awaited them.

[Your group has defeated Shadow Summonor lvl 58~53 x 4 exp rewarded]

[You have leveled up]

Smiling at that the two didn’t waste any more time and once more began their journey to leave this accursed land of perpetual shadow.

As they ran Luna’s healing presence and Violet’s own image regeneration slowly healed her wound, yet it would take some time as that initial would had torn right through her right wing and it was somewhat of a miracle that she didn’t loose the entire wing. Thankfully it still remained and in due time it would fully recover.

The duo still had to battle a number of shadow beasts yet thankfully none seemed as dangerous as that quintuple of summoners.

They did also notice the return of sounds of battle after they had defeated the last of their foes indicating that it must have either been a natural phenomena of that particular area of a skill of the shadow summoners themselves.

Either way they were glad to be out of that particular spot and were eager to be out of the perpetual darkness.

They traveled like this for another half hour before they finally saw an end to the darkness around them and sped up in eagerness to finally reach the end of the accursed shadow region.

Rushing out of the wall of shadows they were initially elated to be out of that hellscape. Yet that relief was short lived as they saw what lay before them. A hellscape of cracked and destroyed earth lay before them with bolts of lightning falling in random spots all around them.

The first noticed the wall of sound that struck them. A continual cacophony of thunderclaps dominated this environment leaving them unable to hear anything else.

They also noticed the beasts. Whilst they saw hundred of the beasts from the cliff edge rushing towards the center it seemed like all of the native beasts to these concentric rings had decided to stay in place and defend their locations from the encroaching hoards.

For before them yet another battlefield awaited them with elementals and a wide mix of lightning attuned beasts waged war on the invaders. Violet and Luna amongs said invaders.