CHAPTER 137: SHADOWS SKILLS

Sylva’s eyes narrowed, locked on the boy floating amidst the storm. If he can dodge even this... then what am I supposed to do next?

Tens of millions of arrows shimmered in the sky, each one pulsing with condensed wind and light, weaving in unpredictable, jagged paths. It wasn’t just a storm anymore it was chaos incarnate. A living web of death.

Even Sylva herself couldn’t imagine escaping such an onslaught. Each arrow had been fired at a slightly different trajectory, angled so no single dodge could cover more than one. They came from above, below, behind, and even curved back to strike from impossible directions.

To dodge a handful was feasible. To dodge hundreds was already a miracle.

But tens of millions? That wasn’t just improbable. That was impossible.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. The perception, the reaction time, the body control needed to move through this kind of net... no human should have that.

And yet she had seen him do the unthinkable once already.

Still, her sharp eyes noticed something. Subtle details most would have missed in the blur of speed.

That strange black energy. Those wings of shadow.

Sylva leaned forward, her curiosity overpowering even her battle focus.

"Are you guys seeing this?" she asked softly not to anyone visible, but to the unseen presences lingering around her. "What even is that? Those wings... that black element. An affinity?"

A voice came

We do not know either. Never seen or heard of such a thing even in all these thousands of years. But one thing is certain... whatever that is ..it is like us.

Sylva’s eyes narrowed further.. Don’t know what thinking

Her chin tilted slightly as she rubbed at it in thought.

"And... I think he has healing abilities too. And natural ones at that. Do you see it?" she said again, rubbing her chin.

"Leave that. I’m still more intrigued by this elemental affinity. Maybe I should visit our home and speak with the elders. They must know something about this. This isn’t a small matter if a new element exists and we don’t know about it..."

Other voices agreed in low tones, theorizing.

Meanwhile, Razeal sighed.

He didn’t look excited or intimidated.. maybe just looking little annoyed. His eyes flicked to the sky, where the pink arrows danced closer, their zig-zagging speed making it impossible to judge distance. One moment they seemed far, the next they were at his throat.

No choice. I have to dodge them again. What a bother.

The system’s voice intruded sharply in his mind.

[Why don’t you use your high-level Shadow skills, host?]

[Shadow Storage. Shadow Space. Shadow Teleportation. Even Shadow Invincibility. Use them, and this entire mess becomes meaningless.]

The system’s tone carried a rare hint of irritation, like it was tired of watching him play with fire.

Razeal’s lips twitched. He almost laughed.

"No," he answered silently.

[No?]

"Remember what we did three days ago. Remember the plan. I’m serious about this."

The system hissed, but he continued.

"Our life doesn’t end after this duel. This fight is nothing compared to what’s ahead. If I reveal my cards here, in front of them, it’ll only disadvantage us later."

His eyes hardened, focused on the incoming light storm.

"I’m not revealing my unique skills. Not here or atleast this time for sure."

[...We aren’t even sure about that plan though.]

"Maybe we will.. So lets make sure the deck is hidden well."

He would’ve said more, but the sky gave him no time.

The arrows were already there.

A razor of pink energy whistled past his cheek, slicing a single strand of his hair. Another shot upward from below, ready to spear him through the spine. His body bent, contorted, sound-ripples guiding him in impossible angles. He clapped, whistled, snapped anything to create his signature vibrations, riding the waves of air like a man balancing on threads.

But this time, it wasn’t enough.

These arrows weren’t uniform. They curved midflight, zigzagging, filling every gap his movements created. His perception could keep up, yes he could see every path clearly but his body had nowhere to go.

The storm was too tight.

Too much.

For the first time, Razeal raised his hand.

Blood seeped from his palm, dripping not downward but upward, floating as though gravity had lost interest. Thick crimson drops hovered, swirling, spreading thin until they formed a delicate ripple of liquid film above his skin.

The crimson shimmered faintly, as if alive.

"Blood Manipulation," Razeal muttered, almost to himself.

His palm pulsed, coated in a thin veil of deep red, gleaming like polished glass.

The first arrow struck.

Instead of piercing, it touched.

The crimson layer quivered like the surface of a pond. A ripple spread across it, absorbing the force. Then, with a twist of his wrist, Razeal redirected the arrow, guiding it past his shoulder. It zipped away harmlessly.

Another arrow followed. His body twisted aside, but his hand snapped up, brushing the shaft with a feather-light caress. The blood veil rippled again, and the arrow’s path bent, diverted away.

And another. And another.

Some he dodged. The rest he turned aside.

The technique was delicate. Risky. It wasn’t brute force he wasn’t overpowering the arrows. He was using flow, precision, and the strange properties of blood. Surface tension combined with his sound ripples, layering control upon control.

A dance of physics and magic of flow.

Each movement demanded perfection. The gentlest touch at exactly the right point, or he’d be skewered instantly. His body twisted like liquid, dodging left, then right, flipping midair as his blood-coated palms brushed against the most dangerous strikes, diverting them just centimeters from his flesh.

From the ground, he was a blur of shadow and crimson light, weaving through a neon storm. Arrows zig-zagged toward him from every conceivable angle but none struck true.

Some curved away midflight, as if repelled. Others skated harmlessly off invisible ripples of crimson.

He was no longer just dodging. He was redirecting the storm itself.

Sylva’s lips parted, her composure finally cracking. Her bow trembled ever so slightly as she watched the boy weave between the storm of arrows.

"He’s a... a monster..." she whispered, disbelief flickering in her voice.

Her mouth hung agape, eyes wide. It was one thing to expect him to dodge a few hundred, maybe a thousand but this? Tens of millions of arrows, each zigzagging unpredictably, from every possible angle, every direction at once. And he was still moving through them, redirecting the ones he couldn’t dodge, slipping between the rest like water flowing through cracks.

"This... is unimaginable..." Sylva murmured again, the words escaping without her realizing.

Down below, the crowd of spectators was frozen. Most of them couldn’t even comprehend what was happening. To their eyes, Razeal was little more than a blur of shadow and crimson flickers, surrounded by a neon storm of pink arrows. Some thought he had already been skewered dozens of times, but then realized he was still floating there, unbroken, untouched.

The few who could see clearly the knights, the higher-ranked mages, the elders were pale, frozen in shock. Their faces betrayed a mixture of awe and terror.

No one should be able to do this.

Arabella leaned lazily against her seat, one hand draped over the carved armrest as though this battle were little more than a casual play for her amusement. Her eyes, however, glinted sharply as she observed the boy dancing with death in the sky.

She smirked, then turned her head slightly to the side.

"Daughter," she said casually, as if discussing weather. "You should have a child with that boy."

Nancy, seated beside her, stiffened instantly.

Arabella’s tone was light, unbothered, as she continued, "He isn’t that bad. Physically, perceptively... he’s the Dragonweaver’s type. It’s fine if he doesn’t have mana or aura. Whatever those skills of his are, they’re already more than enough to impress me."

Nancy blinked at her mother in sheer disbelief.

Arabella’s smirk widened. "I wouldn’t mind him as my son-in-law. He’s almost the same age as you... and" she tilted her head, eyes flicking upward "Hes good looking too just as you prefer he has that Virelan charm written all over his face. What do you say?"

Nancy turned slowly to face her, shock and awe from watching Razeal still lingering in her eyes, but her expression shifting rapidly into a deep frown.

Her lips curled in disgust.

"What... are you talking about, Mother?" she snapped. "Ewww. I wouldn’t even in a million years let someone like him come near me let alone touch me!"

Her voice rose sharply, her face twisting with anger.

"And have you lost your mind? He’s a fucking rapist!" Nancy spat the word with venom. "How dare you.."

Arabella waved a dismissive hand, interrupting her daughter’s outrage.

"Who cares?" she said with a shrug. "I mean... rapist? He didn’t succeed, did he? I mean.." She shrugged.

Nancy froze, eyes widening at the sheer casual cruelty of the words.

Arabella leaned back, sighing with a mock weariness. "Look at him. He doesn’t even seem interested in girls anymore. And besides.." she gave Nancy a sideways glance, her grin sharp, "if you don’t like him, you can always kill him after having the child. Doesn’t everyone do that? Use a man for what you need, then toss him aside? The choice is yours. I’m not saying you have to... I’m just pointing out: his bloodline is priceless."

Nancy’s face twisted further, disbelief giving way to anger. "You’re... disgusting."

Arabella ignored her tone and pressed on, her grin widening, her voice dipping lower, conspiratorial.

"He is the only male living person carrying the direct royal Virelan bloodline." Her eyes gleamed. "Do you understand what that means? Do you know how impossible it is? The Virelans only ever have two children per generation in the main line. Two. No more. No less. Just to keep their bloodline pure, their power focused. And now..."

She chuckled softly.

"...one of those children was cast out. Do you see? This is our chance. If we take him in.. if our family acquires Virelan blood we’ll become unstoppable."

Arabella leaned back again, her tone almost casual as her eyes glittered with ruthless intent.

"All the other Duke families celebrated when the Virelans weakened. With Razeal cast out and Nova left alone, their main line was doomed. Everyone thought it was over. Their destruction was inevitable."

Her lips curled into a smirk.

"But here he is. Alive. Powerful. A perfect vessel for the next generation."

Nancy’s disgust boiled over. Her hands clenched into fists.

"No." Her voice was sharp as a blade. "No, I don’t care about his bloodline. I don’t care how strong or powerful he is. He’s beneath me in character, Mother. I’m not like you I’m not barbaric. I don’t use men like toys and discard them."

Her lip curled in fury.

"I’m not that vile. Not that... filthy."

Her eyes cut toward Arabella, filled with nothing but contempt.

"Oh, come now..." Arabella rolled her eyes. "It’s not such a big deal. You could even train him from the start, mold him to your liking. Think of the family’s future. That’s all this is. For the family."

Nancy snapped.

"If you want his bloodline so badly, then do it yourself."

Arabella’s eyes blinked slightly in amusement at the venom in her daughter’s voice.

Nancy’s lips curled into a vicious glare. "Yes. You. You’ve already had plenty of experience, haven’t you? So if this is so important to you, then you should do it." She pointed a finger directly at her mother’s face. "Don’t you dare push your disgusting fantasies on me."

Her voice trembled with raw fury. "You want him so badly? Go sleep with him yourself."

For a moment, there was silence.

Then Arabella threw back her head and laughed. Loud, rich, utterly shameless.

"Hah! Bold words, daughter!" she said, still grinning. "Maybe I will."

Nancy turned her face away in disgust, muttering under her breath.

"You’re insane..."

Arabella only smirked wider, eyes returning to the sky where Razeal danced amidst death.

Above them, Razeal’s expression soured as he twisted past another cluster of zigzagging arrows, redirecting those that came too close with his blood-coated palms. His patience was thinning.

"This is getting boring..." he muttered under his breath, his tone laced with annoyance.

Even as arrows ripped through the air around him, his voice was steady, almost irritated.

"Annoying."

His eyes narrowed as another streak of pink light tore across the sky toward him. His body tilted effortlessly, flowing past the deadly arrow, but even as he dodged, a thought surfaced in his mind.

I think... maybe using one skill won’t be such a big deal.

The decision settled in him. He raised one hand above the other, the upper palm angled slightly so that it blocked the light from above. In doing so, a faint shadow fell across his lower hand.

Razeal’s lips curved faintly.

Slowly, deliberately, he clasped both hands together as though seizing the darkness itself. Fingers tightened, pressing into the intangible, dragging it taut as if pulling on an unseen fabric. The shadow quivered, stretched, then bent under his will.

And then he pulled.

The darkness between his palms expanded outward in a ripple, spreading in a circular shape, thin and flexible like cloth, until it became a disk suspended between his hands. Its edges shimmered faintly, rippling with unstable energy.

"Shadow Storage," he whispered, the words vanishing almost instantly in the roar of battle

[Shadow Storage: Use shadow to store items and objects. Items stored within will maintain their exact physical state at the time of storage. Size of the storage depends on the user’s proficiency with shadow affinity.]

Razeal held the circular sheet of darkness in front of him just as another pink arrow screamed toward his chest.

It struck dead center.

But instead of piercing flesh, the arrow vanished the instant it touched the black disk. No explosion, no resistance just the faint ripple of shadow waves spreading outward, as though a pebble had been dropped into still water.

The deadly projectile was gone. Consumed.

And Razeal felt it. The arrow was still there, not destroyed but contained, suspended in the abyss of his storage. He could sense its weight, its velocity, its perfect preserved motion waiting to be released.

His lips curved in a sharper smile.

Far below, where the colosseum walls stretched high and cast long shadows across the arena floor, one pool of darkness rippled unnaturally.

And then

Buzzz!

A pink streak exploded upward from the shadow, erupting with the exact speed and force it had carried a moment before.

The arrow cut the air like lightning, appearing directly beneath Sylva’s feet. Its speed was absurd, its trajectory merciless an unavoidable strike.

Sylva’s eyes widened, her instincts screaming. At the last instant, Beneath her feet ground surged, forming a razor-thin shield of earth just under her soles.

Boom!

The arrow slammed into the earthen layer with a thunderous impact, the force rattling the air. A shockwave rippled outward, sending a gust of dust and wind exploding in all directions. But the thin shield did not crumble. Not a single crack marred its surface.

And when the light cleared, the arrow was gone dispersed into nothingness.

Sylva blinked down at her feet, confusion flashing across her features. The shield crumbled back into soil, disapering into air. She searched for traces of what had just happened, but the arena floor looked untouched.

How...? she thought, her mind racing. How did my own arrow... attack me?

The answer came before she could fully process the question.

Buzzz! Buzzz! Buzzz!

Ten more arrows erupted almost simultaneously, each one bursting from the shadows below and screaming upward at different angles.

Sylva’s eyes narrowed. With a sharp gesture, the ground beneath her solidified once more, forming a dome-like barrier around her lower body.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The arrows crashed against the earthen shield in rapid succession, detonating into shockwaves that shook the air and blasted outward in waves of pressure. Dust lifted in clouds, wind howled, but Sylva’s shield held.

Still, her brows furrowed.

Her gaze snapped downward, catching it this time the subtle shimmer of blackness where the arrows emerged. Not from the ground itself. From the shadows.

Her lips parted, a whisper escaping. "...Shadow."

Her eyes shot upward to Razeal, and her suspicions solidified in an instant.

The arrows weren’t being blocked. They weren’t being destroyed.

They were disappearing.

Her sharp gaze locked on the black wings stretched from his back, and more specifically, on the strange, thin sheet of shadow he occasionally conjured before his body. Every time her arrows struck that darkness, they vanished. And now, they were reappearing beneath her.

He was catching them somehow dissapearing in it and somehow teleporting to different location?.

Sylva’s teeth clenched.

"Arghhh! You are so fucking annoying! Why are you fucking with me?!" she shouted, her composure cracking.

Her breathing quickened as frustration boiled over. She had thought she understood his limits, thought that sheer overwhelming firepower would crush him. Yet he kept slipping through irritating her.

"Alright," she hissed, her voice dripping with venom. "I give up. I won’t hold back anymore."

Her hand darted to the ring on her finger. With a sharp pull, she drew forth another disk this one a deep, dark brown, its surface engraved with jagged lines that seemed to pulse faintly with earthy energy.

Her gaze hardened.

Without hesitation, she set the new disk atop the pink one already fitted into her bow. As the two locked together with a soft click, the air around her trembled.

Rumble...

The space itself seemed to groan, as if the earth beneath the colosseum were waking. The bow in her hands pulsed with raw power, the air beneath her feet vibrating itself in response.

Sylva exhaled, her eyes cold and merciless.

"You wanted to play with me? FINE! Then suffer the damn consequences too!"

----

3k words~

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