Chapter 32: Shadows and Gold

Unlike the common beasts, the gold-striped alpha didn’t rely on raw violence alone.

Its movements were calculated, structured, and precise. It had deliberately let the black-furred leader attack first, forcing Lothe to commit his momentum before lunging straight for his blind spot.

Lothe lands back into the stone pavement.

The Inferno Dragon Spear spun through his fingers, the shaft rising to meet the descending claws.

CLANG!!

The impact detonated with heavy physical force. A shockwave rippled through the blood-stained courtyard, kicking up a ring of dust and stone splinters.

Lothe slid back four meters, his boots carving dark lines into the stone.

Strong... His wrists tingled from the vibration. Its physical strength is higher than the silver wolves.

The gold-striped hyena lowered its chest, its amber eyes coolly analyzing him.

It didn’t rush in for a follow-up strike. It was watching. Measuring his stance. Learning.

Across the courtyard, Seana faced the black-furred alpha alone.

The beast paced in a slow, wide circle around her. Its coarse black fur swallowed the ambient light, making its silhouette bleed into the shadows cast by the ruined pillars. Every step was dead silent.

Seana raised the Blood Moon Sword before her face, crimson Qi coating the dark steel. "So... you like hiding?"

The black alpha growled, a low vibration in its throat.

Whoosh!

It vanished.

Seana’s instincts flared. She pivoted hard on her left heel.

SHHK!

A black claw sheared through the air where her throat had been a millisecond prior. The beast materialized behind her, its body twisting in mid-air.

She spun, sweeping her blade up to meet it.

Clang!

Crimson Qi and dark energy clashed, the force driving both combatants back.

The black-furred alpha landed on all fours ten meters away, its narrow eyes narrowing. For the first time, its ambush had failed to draw blood.

Lothe didn’t give his opponent time to set its pace.

He stepped into a forward drive, the Inferno Dragon Spear blurring into a rapid series of thrusts—the opening rhythm of the Blazing Horizon Spear Art.

The gold-striped alpha didn’t retreat. Its razor-sharp claws moved in tight, defensive arcs.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Every thrust was intercepted. Every angle was turned aside.

It’s reading the angle of my shoulders, Lothe realized.

The gold-striped alpha suddenly lunged forward. Its torso twisted in mid-air, one claw sweeping for Lothe’s ribs while its muscular tail whipped toward his ankles.

A feint.

Lothe recognized the setup instantly. He ignored the tail sweep, driving the butt of his spear upward.

Bang!!

The descending claw was knocked off-target. In the same breath, Lothe channeled Qi into his Gale Boots, triggering a burst of wind that propelled him six feet straight backward.

The tail swept harmlessly through empty dust.

"So you can think," Lothe said, a cold, lazy smile touching his lips. "Good. I’d be disappointed otherwise."

The gold-striped alpha growled, its amber eyes darkening.

Then, it disappeared again.

It wasn’t a sudden burst of speed, nor was it a visual illusion. It simply ceased to register.

Lothe’s pupils contracted. He expanded his [Spatial Perception] to its 5-meter limit, scanning for physical displacement.

Nothing. No sound of footsteps, no air resistance, no breathing.

Danger!

A sudden spike of intent flared directly behind his neck.

He spun on his heel, driving his spear back in a blind thrust.

BOOM!!

Claw met spearhead once again, the heavy collision blasting both of them back.

Lothe felt his chest rise and fall. It erased its killing intent until the moment of the strike...

It wasn’t invisible; it had learned how to suppress its mental footprint.

A beast that understood how to bypass sensory tracking was far more dangerous than one with raw power.

Across the square, Seana was locked in her own stalemate.

The black-furred alpha moved around her like living ink. Every strike came from an unexpected vector; every retreat left behind fading dark afterimages.

She parried a low swipe, ducking beneath a secondary claw strike, and drove the Blood Moon Sword forward in a quick counter-thrust.

Shhk!

A shallow line of red opened across the beast’s shoulder.

The black alpha leaped back instantly, landing on a ruined marble bench. It didn’t roar in pain.

It simply stared, its black pupils tracking the edge of Seana’s sword, mapping her attack range.

"You’re adapting too," Seana muttered, tightening her grip on her hilt.

The black beast dropped low to the stone. Dark, oily energy gathered around its claws, and the shadows across the courtyard began to stretch unnaturally toward its body.

The ambient light grew dim.

Professor Sy’s face went pale. "Everyone! Fall back to the steps! Now!"

No one argued. The heavy, suffocating pressure rolling off the two alphas was overwhelming. The common hyenas in the background whined, backing away from the square.

Only Lothe and Seana remained standing in the open center.

The gold-striped alpha let out a loud roar.

Golden Qi erupted around its body, lightning crackling under its paws as its leg muscles visibly expanded.

The air pressure alone shattered the glass of nearby windows.

At the same time, the black alpha opened its jaws. Dark, suffocating mist poured from its throat, spreading across the floor.

Wherever the mist touched the blood-stained pavement, long, black tendrils rose like squirming ropes.

Nyren gripped her icy hands together, her voice shaking. "What... what are those things?"

Lothe glanced sideways toward Seana for a fraction of a second, checking her position.

The gold-striped alpha instantly seized the lapse in focus.

It vanished.

[Spatial Perception] flared a warning, but Lothe’s body was half-turned.

BOOOOM!!

A gold-coated claw slammed into Lothe’s side like a battering ram.

The sheer kinetic impact launched him across the courtyard, smashing through two concrete pillars before he crashed heavily into the library’s brick foundation wall.

Dust and stone splinters exploded into the air.

"Lothe!" Seana called out instinctively.

That single second of concern was all the black alpha needed.

The dark tendrils beneath her boots erupted upward.

Dozens of shadowy ropes wrapped tightly around her ankles, knees, and wrists, pinning her arms to her sides.

Her movement stopped completely.

The black alpha lunged, its razor-sharp claws descending straight for her exposed neck.

Seana’s eyes remained icy calm.

Just as the claws came within inches of her throat—

[Skill Activated: Blood Manipulation]

The pools of blood scattered across the stone floor trembled violently, surging toward her in long crimson currents.

The shadow tendrils binding her legs strained and cracked.

BOOM!

The gathered blood exploded outward from her body in a violent, high-pressure shockwave. The crimson surge shredded the shadow restraints into harmless wisps of dark mist.

The black alpha’s pupils shrank in surprise.

Seana didn’t miss the opening. She stepped forward, bringing the Blood Moon Sword up in a sharp, vertical arc.

Shhk!

A crescent of crimson Qi cut across the beast’s chest. The black alpha twisted mid-air, narrowly avoiding a fatal heart strike, and landed eight meters away.

Its thick black tail whipped the air.

The surrounding shadows rippled, and three identical black hyenas emerged from the dark mist around it.

Four alphas stood in a semicircle, all sharing the exact same physical form, the exact same dark aura, and the exact same killing intent.

Nyren gasped. "Four of them..."

Professor Sy’s eyes narrowed, his sword raised. "Only one is physical. But their energy signatures are identical."

The four shadow alphas lunged at once—from the front, left, rear, and above. Four sets of claws descended simultaneously.

Seana exhaled slowly, her chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm.

She closed her eyes.

The visual noise of the battlefield faded away. The dust, the shadows, the four identical shapes—none of it mattered.

In her dark perception, she listened to the blood.

The blood pooling on the stone. The blood beating in her own ears. And the thick, heavy pulse of blood circulating inside a living heart.

Only one shape held a beating heart.

Her eyes snapped open, locking onto the alpha airborne on her left.

"There."​