CHAPTER 75: CHAPTER: 75, SHADOW.

They all looked back to see an absurd scene.

The mutated monster is falling to the ground miserably with one third of its hands and all of its legs cut through like vegetables and are now falling to the ground, scattering around the place.

The scattered limbs then buried into the ground and disappeared into nothingness. Shadows all around them tremble as a dark ball crashes in front of the ground. Dust scattered around and a figure of a man appeared in the middle.

As the dust scattered, the dark figure could be seen clearly. Everyone looked at him in shock as all of them exclaimed at once,

"Mr. Shadow!?"

Shadow looked back at them and using the shadows, he created a dome around all of them, isolating them all from the outside.

Arnold, who was still holding his great-sword in a fighting stance, finally loosened his hand, dropping the sword on the ground. He then fell on his back, shaken by the slaughter of the monsters he could barely content with.

’Just...who is this shadow?’ He asked himself with barely concealed disbelief in his face. The healer got close to him and began to cast healing spells on him. This made him relax and calm his heart.

"Arnold, will Mr. Shadow be alright? The monster has gotten stronger than before."

Arnold stayed silent. He knew the rumors going around about this mysterious hunter of the Land Below. But even he was starting to doubt his capabilities.

"I think he will be alright. He’s known to be strong and fight monsters leveled higher than him." Joe interrupted his thoughts as Arnold saw Joe sitting among three of the female members and the unconscious girl.

Everybody just stayed silent at her words. After what seemed like hours but were just some few moments, some sound of crashing and flesh leaked inside the dome.

The dark dome began to tremble and slowly began to disintegrate. After some moments, the dome vanished for them to see the scene outside it.

All of their faces turned ashen as the bloodied scene made them shudder. Grounds littered with the black blood, pieces of pale hands scattered around. A dark shadowy thing rose from the person’s shadow that was standing in front of the horrifying abomination.

It enveloped the entire ground affected by the onslaught and slowly began doing ’something’ that looked scarily like ’eating’.

And soon enough, the pale hands vanished from the place and with them, the massive corpse of the pale abomination also turned to dust like every ounce of usefulness was completely drained out of it.

Everyone looked at the scene with awe as the monster they all dread and was about to take their lives was now turning into nothing.

The figure looked at the black dust on the ground, sure that the abomination was dead. But he still didn’t relax; he was here for something else.

He looked back at the group of people, his demonic mask emitting a threatening aura which made the people standing back away a few steps, leaving only the four women sitting on the ground trembling.

He reached out his hand and a dark stone as smooth as a polished crystal appeared in his hand. Suddenly, it lit up with a bright golden glow.

After the light subsided, the stone showed a golden arrow pointing towards the group of girls sitting on the ground.

He looked at them and his eyes met with the pink haired girls, and then his eyes landed on the black haired.

Arnold noticed his gaze at first and quickly tried to step forward to shield them, but a sudden shadowy tentacle rose from his shadow and slammed his head on the ground.

"Argh!"

"Eeeck!"

Seeing this, everyone who would’ve tried to step forward quickly baked away.

The memories of what these black tentacles could do was still plastered on their memories, so no one dared to step forward as Arnold struggled while captured by the shadow.

Shadow slowly stepped forward with a calm demeanor, but nobody aside from him thought of it like him.

Everyone else only felt the brief killing intent as he slowly and menacingly threatened their life. But what could they even do? They just accepted this fact and only hoped their death would be quick.

How could they fight against someone who defeated that horrifying abomination with ease?

Shadow then reached and stopped in front of Joe and the unconscious woman. He bent down, looking at the woman’s face and reached his hand to touch her face.

Joe instinctively covered her face to try and stop Shadow.

Shadow again looked at her, and the aura around them chilled, making her feel cold on the back. Fearful from seeing the hollow eyes, she moved her hands.

Shadow tentacles rose and wrapped themselves around the woman. After lifting her up, his eyes landed on the green capsule clutched tightly on her hands.

Joe, who backed away with fear, noticed the confusion and hesitatingly cleared it saying, "S-She had i-it when w-we met her. I-it seems...important."

Shadow looked at her one last time and nodded.

Then the surrounding shadows enveloped them. After the shadows returned to normal, everyone faced the eerie silence of the surroundings.

**

"Bleergh! Cough! Cough! Cough!"

In the dark, a man wearing a dark crimson robe spit out blood and coughed out loud. The person wearing similar attire noticed this and asked worriedly,

"Senior An! Are you alright?! What happened!?"

"Cough! Nothing much." He then spit out the remaining blood from his mouth and replied "It’s him again. That bastard killed my type-3 flesh demon which had evolved, along with the remaining type-4 fiends!"

His hands shook violently and an expression of rage emerged in his old and wrinkly face. The person beside him sighed and muttered, "It’s already the third of the evolved demons that fiend took away from us.

"Don’t worry senior An, the ritual is only a month away. Once it is complete, even tens of that fiend will be unable to affect us. All we have to do is keep the ritual site out of everyone’s eyes."

The old man looked annoyed but calmly replied, "I know. I am only enraged that now I have to cultivate another flesh demon from scratch."

He said as he walked towards a certain cage.

As he came close, terrified voices of humans leaked out like a fish market.

"p-please l-l-let m-e go!!!"

"I-i-i a-am s-sor-ry. J-ju-just p-pl-please, l-let me live!"

Ignoring their pleas, the old man opened the cage and reached out a rope which went inside the darkness.

"NO! NO! NO! Let Me Go!! LET ME GO!!"

A man came out bound to the rope and the old man closed the cage. Both of them ignored the man and bid farewell as the old man took the despairing man inside a door within the darkness.

After a few moments, the man’s hoarse pleas stopped for a second and then...

"NO! NO! Arghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!"

To be continued...