Transmigrated as a Ghost

Marcus was not too surprised to find that his hand passed straight through the Umbrashnul he had just struck.

He knew about their characteristics and most physical attacks could only cause minor damage to them.

Still, it had not been like his hand had connected with nothing.

The Umbrashnul's shadowy body had felt like a thick liquid.

Even when he had reached through the shadows that their main body was wreathed in, their form had felt only slightly different.

It seemed that while extreme light did reveal a more humanoid form underneath the shadows, their bodies were still entirely composed of the substance.

After his failed attack, the Umbrashnul that had slipped past his radiant scales tried to strike him again, by releasing a whirlwind of shadowy blades.

Marcus allowed the attack to hit him, but it hardly did any damage to him.

His defenses and natural durability simply out classed his opponent's power by leaps and bounds.

"I think I've seen enough from you."

With his fist clad in light, Marcus punched the Umbrashnul in the chest.

Unlike before he connected with something solid, and their entire body exploded.

The shadows around them quickly dissipated and revealed the true form beneath.

Marcus' hit had left a giant hole in their body like they had been hit by a cannonball, and dark purple blood that was almost black flowed out of the wound.

Yet, even as they fell, the now dead Umbrashnul started to dissipate.

Their entire body turned to dust the color of ash and splattered onto the ground. That was all that their species left behind when they died it seemed.

"Light truly is their weakness. More so than even vampires." Marcus committed.

His words were a bit callous, since he had just killed a person, but he knew that he could not let his emotions or morals get in the way.

He was fighting in a war, and he had already chosen a side. The Umbrashnuls were enemies and he would take down any that attacked him or his friends.

As for the other eight combatants, they had not remained idle.

While Marcus was analyzing the capabilities of the one that had slipped past his defensive spell, the others had surrounded him and started running in a circle.

The longer they moved the faster they seemed to grow, and more and more shadows gathered around them. As if the substance was being pulled in towards them like a funnel.

It was an interesting phenomenon to watch, and while he could have stopped them with some more light magic, Marcus allowed them to finish whatever preparations they needed for their next attack.

A few seconds later, the eight Umbrashnuls stopped, and the vortex of shadows they had created rushed towards Marcus like a tidal wave.

When the spell reached the radiant scales that protected him, the shadows halted and spun around him like rotating saw blades.

At first, the shadows were unable to get through, but in only a couple seconds, Marcus' spell began to crack.

He was honestly surprised that the eight Umbrashnuls were able to breach his magic.

They were all much lower level than him after all.

Except, it seemed that when working together and concentrating their unique powers as one, they could produce an attack that vastly exceeded their typical capabilities.

Once the shadows broke through, Marcus wasted no time in activating Embodiment of Light.

His entire body burst with blinding luminescence, and the roiling mass of shadows started to weaken before they even reached him.

Still, his presence alone was not enough to dissipate the attack, and it soon impacted him. Swirling around and trying to snuff him out like a candle in a storm.

Marcus reached his arms out and pushed back against the shadow magic but was shocked when he found that he was the one being driven back.

"I guess that the Draayer Vampires weren't having trouble with these people for no reason."

For the debilitating weakness to light that they had, the Umbrashnuls had received very powerful racial abilities to balance things out.

While they would never be able to exist on the surface under the light of the sun, they had a significant advantage in their underground home.

To give himself an extra boost in power, Marcus embraced Embodiment of Eclipse.

Darkness began to coalesce around his body as well, though he kept light as the dominant force.

The sudden influx of strength allow him to shove the shadows away without any further difficulties.

The torrent burst apart once it had been pushed beyond its limits, and the collected shadows quickly dissipated under the light of Marcus' still active solar flare spell.

When he looked towards his eight adversaries, he saw that all but the leader of the entire squad had fallen to their knees.

It seemed that while their combo attack was immensely powerful, it took a great deal out of them.

"Muvophascal."

The leader said a word that Marcus did not understand, but the general meaning still made it through.

She was terrified of him and thought that he was some sort of terrible monster. Which in some respects, he was.

"You should have learned to pick your battles better. If you had realized how powerful we were before you attacked us, you could have run away." Marcus said.

Unfortunately, the Umbrashnuls would never get the chance to take his words to heart.

With a single swing of his scythe clad in slight, he carved through all eight of them. Each of them only leaving behind a pile of ash.

Having finished up his own fight, he turned to see how the others were doing.

Predictably, Roxene was already done.

From the waves of mana he had felt from her direction, Marcus figured that she wiped the group attacking her out with a single spell. Had he not been testing the Umbrashnul's capabilities he would have been able to do the same.

Lyra was still fighting three of her opponents, though only because she was continuing to test things out on them.

Her flames possessed special properties that allowed her to harm the Umbrashnuls. As soon as she got serious, she could finish off any of her barely level fifty opponents.

Quillon, on the other hand, was struggling.

Try as he might, he could not put a single one of his adversaries down.

Marcus watched him slash one of the Umbrashnuls into over a hundred pieces with his sword. Yet, the scattered shadows slowly began slinking back together and reforming themselves.

It was almost comical to watch the usually impressive swordsman floundering around against enemies he could not harm.

The Umbrashnuls were desperately attacking him as well, but he was to fast for them to catch. He either easily avoided or blocked any strike coming at him.

Eventually, he grew frustrated and even used his Supreme Skill against one of them.

Marcus recognized it as his Shattering Strike, from his Ten Greatest Techniques skill.

Needless to say, the results were explosive, as the Umbrashnul that he struck burst apart into millions of tiny dots of shadow.

However, even that was not enough to kill them.

Judging by the speed with which their shadowy body was coming back together, the reformation process would likely take days if not weeks.

Still, the Umbrashnul was clearly not dead. Proving just how utterly ridiculous their powers were in the face of someone that did not have a means to counter their racial abilities.

Quillon furiously continued his assault until he had cut down all of his adversaries.

He slashed them all apart to the point that they would need a long time to pull themselves back together, but not matter how much effort he put in, he was unable to kill a single one. All he could do was neutralize them.

Marcus approached Quillon to finish the defeated Umbrashnuls off.

"I think this is the first time my sword has been so ineffective. If they were much stronger than me or were using some sort of Unique or Supreme Skill, I could accept it. But this is just ridiculous." Quillon said, his frustration clear to see on his face.

"There are just some things out there that are like this. They remind me a bit of the Dread Burrower with how they can pull themselves back together. But that monster was far worse. I don't know how many times we blew it to pieces, and it just kept regenerating. At least these guys have a very exploitable weakness."

With a wave of his hand, Marcus enchanted Quillon's blade with light energy.

This was a strategy that they had already come up with, but Quillon had insisted on testing only his own skills on the first Umbrashnuls they encountered. He wanted to determine if they truly were beyond his ability to kill.

With that answer now having been found, he accepted Marcus' aid and struck each of his opponents down.

It was almost too easy compared to how much effort he had needed just to scatter their shadowy bodies.

In their current states, they had no ability to defend themselves, and it took only one swing each from the light enveloped blade to finish off all nine of them.

Lyra had also concluded her own battle, though, there was a somber expression on her face.

She had no problems fighting and killing for a cause she believed in, but she did not enjoy being essentially a hired killer for a war that she had no stake in.

Still, just like Marcus, she was here to pay off a debt. She would see her part in all of this through.