CHAPTER 151: DEATH OF SHADOW

Shadow got back on her feet. She stood there covered in heavy wounds and burns, looking at Fey and Raze. Even with her body torn apart, she forced herself to smile, her lips curling upward.

She looked Raze straight in the eyes.

Then her body began to change.

Bones cracked. Flesh twisted. Her frame convulsed violently, reshaping itself. Fey and Raze watched in confusion, unsure of what they were witnessing.

"Fey... what’s going on?" Raze asked.

"I’ve never seen anything like this," Fey replied, and that meant something, considering how long he had lived and all he had witnessed.

"Should I attack?" Fey asked, claws twitching.

"No," Raze said, eyes narrowing. "I want to see where this is going."

Shadow’s body continued twisting, growing in height and mass until she stood over ten feet tall, made entirely of darkness, with glowing purple eyes burning like twin flames. At first glance she resembled an abomination, but she wasn’t. Raze couldn’t sense any demonic energy from her.

It was still mana.

Mana mixed with soul energy.

"She’s burning her life force..." Raze muttered, eyes widening. "She’s killing herself."

Fey frowned. "Why would she go that far just to take you down?"

"I don’t know," Raze replied, "but there’s more to this. I want her to answer it, so we take her down before she—"

BOOM!

Before he could finish, Shadow’s massive arm ripped through the air and slammed between them, unleashing a shockwave so powerful it blasted Fey and Raze apart. Fey flipped mid-air and landed on his feet, while Raze crashed to the ground, rolling before forcing himself up again.

Shadow was already in front of him.

She attacked instantly, elongated shadowy limbs thrusting toward Reed’s chest. But before they reached him, a massive bolt of lightning slammed into her.

CRACK!

The explosion sent her flying, smashing her through several trees that shattered on impact.

"Don’t think that some lousy power of yours will let you defeat me," Fey spat, cracking his neck as lightning rippled through his arms.

Shadow’s eyes narrowed as she focused on Fey. She raised her arms and moved them in a vortex-like motion. Countless wind blades formed around her, thin, sharp, and deadly, cutting through the forest in an endless barrage toward Fey.

But he moved too fast.

He dodged every blade with ease, weaving through the attacks as if he were dancing between raindrops.

Raze saw his opening.

He gripped his bat tightly.

He sprinted.

He leapt into the air.

"I’m not done with you yet!" he bellowed, swinging down with full force.

Shadow noticed at the last second and shifted her head aside. The bat slammed into her shoulder, shattering part of her shadowy body, but it reformed instantly before Raze even touched the ground.

She grabbed him with one enormous hand and hurled him like a doll, sending him crashing through a thick tree.

Shadow turned back toward Fey. She wanted to finish him first, then Reed.

But as she looked where he had been,

Fey was gone.

"Up here," a voice echoed.

Shadow looked up just in time to see a massive bolt of lightning descending from the sky.

KA-THOOM!

It hit her dead-on, tearing her shadowy form apart. Her body flayed into pieces of darkness, but within seconds it reattached itself, reforming.

She lunged at Fey again, but he was far too strong. He blocked and parried every strike with casual ease, then spun mid-air and delivered a hammer kick straight down onto her head.

THUD!

Shadow was driven into the ground so hard the earth cratered beneath her. She bounced off the dirt and skidded across the forest floor.

Raze jogged up beside Fey.

"You okay?" Fey asked.

"Yeah... just a little sore," Reed replied.

"She’s not taking physical damage," Fey noted.

Razw clenched his teeth. He activated God’s Eye to search for her weak point, but the moment he did, something struck back at him. A sharp, stabbing pain hit his mind.

He winced, clutching his head.

"I’ll... I’ll find her weak point," Raze forced out.

Fey nodded once, and then lunged forward to continue the battle. He charged in, unleashing a barrage of lightning. Shadow could barely react as each strike slammed into her.

"Let’s see how far your regeneration goes," he said.

Shadow lashed at him with elongated limbs, but he leapt into the air, spinning before landing a clean kick, his foot coated in pure lightning as it smashed into the back of her head again. He bounced off, landed lightly, and before she could recover, he rushed in with another flurry of punches. Each blow obliterated a part of her body, only for it to reform moments later.

Seeing nothing he did was working, Fey flipped backward, retreating a few steps before shifting into his full Fenrir form. His massive wolf body towered, fur crackling with electricity. He opened his jaws and a glowing magic circle formed before his snout.

A thunderous roar ripped from his throat as the circle brightened, then—

BOOOOOM!

A massive bolt of lightning, thick enough to match the width of two grown adults side by side, blasted forward. It slammed into Shadow, forcing her back. She crashed into a tree, shattering it instantly, then through another, and another. Her body evaporated and reformed repeatedly as the lightning beam kept pushing her.

When Fey finally ended the attack, he shifted back into his human form and walked toward her.

But then, movement.

She wasn’t dead.

In a blur, Shadow shot forward, her broken frame floating off the ground, her arms stretching toward his head. Fey dodged aside, grabbed her wrist, and slammed her face into the ground with brutal force.

She bounced up again, her ten-foot frame lifted into the air from the impact. Fey leapt, spun, and delivered a lightning-charged kick straight into her back. The explosion blasted downward, leaving a massive crater beneath her.

Fey landed a few meters away, watching her body heal once again.

"What could it really be that drives you to do this?" Fey asked. "I don’t believe this is just a desire to kill. There’s a reason beyond all this, isn’t there? For you to burn your own life... sacrifice everything... just to fight. I would respect that, if your goal wasn’t so misplaced."

Shadow’s glowing eyes fixed on him. She stared for several long seconds, but said nothing. Her massive frame repositioned itself, ready to attack again.

Fey sighed.

"I’ve had enough of this."

He raised both hands into the air.

Multiple magic circles materialized, dozens of them, forming a massive array above the forest. They all pointed at her.

Shadow looked up, finally showing fear.

Each circle began spinning.

And then, a rain of lightning fell from the sky.

Bolts strong enough to rip apart a small town descended from every circle, slamming into her. The forest exploded. The ground tore open. Shockwaves thundered for kilometers. Shadow’s body disintegrated under the onslaught, leaving nothing but a scorched crater where she once stood.

When the barrage finally ended, Fey looked over the destruction. The earth was blackened as if hell itself had scorched the land.

Then he saw it, a faint sliver of darkness flickering in the crater.

Shadow.

She began reforming, but this time only into a tiny three-foot silhouette, unstable and fading. Her form trembled violently; she had used up everything. Her life force was almost gone.

Raze approached Fey from behind.

"There was no way to kill her," Raze said quietly. "The only way was for her to either exhaust her life force... or stop using that form before it drained her completely. This time, she chose to go all the way."

"Why...?" he muttered. "Why would someone go that far?"

Raze looked at the flickering remnants of her body.

"I guess people have their reasons," he said softly. "But I have a feeling Shadow’s reasons were... not simple at all. I think death was an escape for her, one she’s been longing for."

The last fragment of Shadow’s soul fluttered weakly... then dissolved into the air.

She was gone.

A few days ago, Shadow had met Raze when he had been alone. She told him of the plan that the Viscount had. Raze had been skeptical at first, wondering why she would reveal that, but then he got to know her even more.

Shadow had been a construct; she was an evil spirit of wind, forced into a human form through experiments of Dark Elves. Her survival was linked to whoever was her master, which was the Viscount.

She could have dreams and desires all she wanted, but she would never be free, and the only way for freedom was for her to truly die, something that she couldn’t do to herself. If she let herself die for escape, her curse would capture her soul for eternity, so the only way out was to burn her life force in that state, while serving the wish of her master.

She told Raze that he should help her escape, and he did. Finally, she could rest, after many years of bondage.