My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger - Chapter 909 - 910: War Cry
Chapter 909: Chapter 910: War Cry
At this point it was now already a habit trying to figure out how to kill something or someone.
Damon had expected something horrible to happen to him the moment he entered the evil forest, but now this creature was targeting his expedition unit.
They had not even reached the battlefield and their numbers were being whittled down by something.
This was the seventh time they had changed formation in a period of two days.
Yet the stalker had already gotten ten people and still nothing worked. It was too fast and only targeted the weaker ones.
It had not killed anyone yet, only placing a curse and disabling them, causing them to be slower and spend a lot of healing potions to sustain them.
How obvious was it going to be. If they abandoned them to die just to spare a few potions their morale would plummet to an all time low.
Still, Seras had not made a decision yet. Instead, she just made them continue as is.
Damon nudged the nocturnal stag he was riding towards Seras, his voice low enough for her to hear.
“Do you have a plan?” he asked, wanting to know that at least the leader of the expedition had a plan.
“Whoa, why would I tell you that. For all I know the real Damon may be dead and you are the stalker.”
Damon scoffed with disdain.
“Good to see you are in the mood for jokes. At least your life is not in danger. Even if everyone here dies, you will live.”
Seras smiled, tilting her head.
“Right, that is true. I am at the peak of the sixth class advancement. I am almost a seventh class.”
She placed a hand on her chin.
“As for a plan, well I have not gotten one. You are free to come up with one if you like.”
Damon closed his eyes as the stag huffed softly, the radiant beams of the sun struggling to shine past the argent canopy of ancient trees.
“Fine, then help me lure it out.”
Seras shook her head.
“There is no need. It has been watching us from the trees for the past three hours.”
Damon stopped, his hair standing on end as he glanced around in the trees, his shadow sense spreading outward further.
“Stop that. I do not know if you are using magic sense or something similar, but I would not if I were you.”
Damon shook his head.
“I do not have magic sense. You only unlock that at the fifth class, right.”
“No, the peak of the fourth class actually. That is not the point here. Did you forget where we are,” Seras spoke nonchalantly, as if she had not just given him a warning that had saved his life.
Damon gritted his teeth.
Right, what was he thinking. This place was dangerous. Just as Seras had sensed he was using some kind of perception, this forest would have monsters that could react and even retaliate to his shadow perception. He had experienced something like that in the Whispering Forest.
“No need to feel bad. It is not called a stalker for nothing,” Seras muttered, adjusting her sword slightly.
Damon gritted his teeth.
“If I manage to lure it out, can you try killing it?”
She shook her head.
“That will not work. We do not have a weapon here that can kill it.”
Damon nodded, raising his hand.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just try. I want to experiment. I just want to see it close up so I can figure out a weakness.”
Seras did not stop her stag. Her face was calm, a thin smile forming on her lips.
“If you were hoping to impress me with your bravery, then I am impressed. Something tells me your plan is simple, dumb, and something that can end very badly.”
Damon chuckled as sweat flowed down his head and a coldness touched his back.
“How did you know?”
She glanced at him, her eyes carrying a small glint.
“You have the expression of a brave idiot.”
Damon took a deep breath. This was the only way he could think of. If it went as badly as he knew it would, he could die. Every instinct was telling him no. The curse in his heart was making him reject this idea.
Oddly enough, it was also the same curse that was telling him if he did not try to kill this stalker, he would die.
Damon took out two twin swords. These were the relics of the Halls of Steel. They had tried to take them, but Damon did not give them back, and after some talks between the old man from the halls and his grandfather, they reached some backdoor agreement.
“I will go scout ahead,” Damon said loudly, and his stag marched off through the shrubs and trees of the forest, trampling the deadly flora.
Renata did not hear the plan he came up with. She raised her hand.
“Wait, do not split from the group.”
She tried to go after him with some knights from House Brightwater, but Damon raised his hand.
“Do not follow me. That is an order.”
His voice echoed as he disappeared into the woods.
Damon did not know if it was following him, but he had to risk it. He was unsure if he would even stand a chance in single combat against it.
He traveled about three kilometers through the woods when he suddenly felt his danger sense make his whole scalp tingle.
Damon stopped his stag and found himself standing in a small bough in the woods. The plants were green and grew a few meters off the ground, covering the black soil. The trees made it easy to ambush him here.
The nocturnal stag seemed agitated, as if it wanted to flee from this area. It kept kicking its hooves.
’If this goes bad enough I am dead.’
He could not think about it. Just because he was cursed to persevere his life did not make him a coward.
’Our situation cannot be worse than it already is.’
Even Deathless could not throw more than this at him. He had survived so far. He would not die.
He closed his eyes so his other senses would be more heightened. Then he heard it rustling in the woods and he turned around with a slash of magical energy, but there was nothing.
When Damon looked to his side, a wood spike that seemed to be made of twisted black branches stabbed into his side. He shifted off the stag as the nocturnal stag was kicked into a tree, its body splitting open from the impact, blood and organs flying everywhere in the air and dropping on the plants like rain.
It did not even cry out before it died.
Damon did not even look in its direction as a dark energy began to move through his body, but he resisted due to his resistance to curses. He unleashed a flood of black flames toward where it was even before he saw what it was.
He crossed the distance in the flames and slashed down at the creature. When he did, it blocked his sword. It felt like it was hitting an immovable object.
He looked at its face, but there was no face. It was just a tree. No, it was not. It looked like a treant, but it was not. It was as if it was made of smooth bark with cracks in it, but it was also flesh.
He was touching it, but he was not. It was right next to him, yet there was a gap that was greater than space between them. It was as if it existed in another dimension of reality that he could not touch, almost the same concept of a drawing on two dimensional paper not being able to touch a three dimensional surface.
Damon was a three dimensional creature trying to interact with something just not in the same quantum dimension.
“I hope you like fire.”
He unleashed a torrent of flames as he felt his shadow energy dwindling, the barrier he created in his heart with shadow energy, the two opposing powers in his heart swelling.
He felt the flames break into its dimension, or whatever it was that kept them apart, but it was too weak to kill it. Damon kicked off.
All this was just in the span of a single second, and right on time he saw Seras appear in front of him.
However, when Damon saw her, his danger sense only grew louder. She swung her sword towards the stalker, but Damon was the one who felt danger.
He turned into a shadow right as the blade was about to hit him. He threw one of the silver blades at her, or was it.
And the blade passed right through.
“Tsk,” Damon clicked his tongue. Figures, that was not Seras. It was actually the creature. There were two of them. Of course that made sense. This was a creature that could not move if it was not observed. Then the answer was simple. It just needed to be observed. However, it could not observe itself. Then the answer was even simpler. What if there were two of them. They just needed to observe each other and they would be free to move.
Damon saw its sword, which looked like the plain tachi Seras carried, driving towards his neck.
“Damn it.”
He was screwed just before the blade ripped into his neck.
A tachi swung down at it.
“Not bad,” Seras Blade came from next to him.
“Looks like my guess was right. There are two of you.”
Damon’s eyes widened as he saw her cold, dead eyes. She raised her sword, pulling him close to her.
“War cry.”
That was the last sound Damon heard. What followed was a deafening sound that shook the very soul.
