My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 534: Chapter 536: Tall Beautiful Lady

It was late into the night. Everyone had already left the cemetery—everyone except Damon, who had stayed behind to share a drink with his father.

It was strange how sentimental he had become. At first, he hadn’t wanted to speak, but once he started, he couldn’t stop.

He sat cross-legged on the cold grass before the tombstone, talking to it as though his father’s spirit truly stood before him.

”I’m still working on a cure for Luna... but I have a lead. I’m going to find it.”

Biting his lip, he glanced at the gravestone, fingers tightening on the bottle in his hand.

”I’ve made... a few powerful enemies, and I’ve been thinking of—”

A deafening scream tore through the stillness of the village. Damon froze mid-sentence. His head snapped toward the sound, eyes narrowing into slits.

Without hesitation, he rose to his feet.

One step. That was all it took for him to vanish into the darkness—melting into the shadow at his feet and reappearing in the village streets. He stopped, senses sharpening, and spread his shadow perception outward like an invisible web.

He froze. His eyes widened slightly. There was a scent in the air he knew all too well thick, metallic, disgusting. Blood.

The village was shrouded in darkness; it was midnight, after all. Damon moved toward the narrow gap between two buildings, the stench of blood growing heavier with each step.

He already knew what his shadow perception had shown him. Still... he needed to see it with his own eyes.

His boots made no sound as he slipped into the shadowy alley, broken sword in hand. The cold night air carried a heavy stillness that seemed to cling to his skin.

Then he saw it.

A small arm was nailed to the wall. A severed head lay beneath it—lifeless eyes frozen wide in despair. The body... or what was left of it... was pinned open. Organs spilled across the dirt like a grotesque offering. Blood soaked the ground until it pooled at Damon’s feet.

It was the body of a child.

He stepped forward until his boots stood in the blood. She was a young girl, her hair once golden but now matted and crimson with blood. Even in the oppressive darkness, her delicate features were unmistakable.

”Who... who would do this?”

He crouched, shadows rippling faintly as his perception swept the surroundings.

The noise of panicked movement spread through the village—villagers and traveling merchants rushing toward the source of the scream.

She didn’t look like she was from the village. Perhaps she was one of the traveling families passing through... but Damon couldn’t be sure.

What he did know was troubling—there was no trace of the killer. No footsteps. No signs of struggle. Nothing but his own presence here.

He turned to leave. That’s when his danger sense erupted.

He shifted back instinctively, but too late—something slammed into his chest with brutal force. The impact drove him into the pool of blood and torn organs, splattering them across his face and clothes. The cold stickiness clung to him, soaking his long hair and staining his broken sword.

Damon’s gaze snapped upward, ready to glare into the eyes of his attacker—only to find that what stood before him was not human.

A figure stood in the alley, dressed in pure white so bright it seemed to drink in the darkness. Long, pitch-black hair fell like a curtain of shadows over her body. Her skin was pale to the point of being almost translucent, lips drained of all color, pulled back into a jagged, inhuman smile lined with rows of serrated teeth.

Her arms were impossibly long, ending in claw-like nails. She was tall—at least eight feet—and her eyes were wrong, pupils twisted in unnatural directions.

When a gust of cold night wind lifted the hem of her gown, Damon saw them...hooves... she did not have feet.

And she had no shadow.

”Heheheheheh...”

The sound was low, like laughter bubbling up from deep water. She stepped toward him, each clop of her hooves echoing unnervingly like the sound of a woman in high heels.

Koi...Koi..Koi

Her presence pressed down on him, slowing his limbs, gnawing at his nerves.

Damon knew this sensation. He had felt it many times before—in the deep, dark heart of the Duhu Mountains.

This was no person.

This was an evil spirit.

He blinked—and she was gone.

Danger flared in his mind. Damon dropped into the blood-soaked dirt just as a long, thin arm phased out from the wall beside him, claws raking across his cheek.

Cold seeped into his skin, sliding down into his very soul. He rolled away, blood smearing across his body, hair whipping as he rebounded off the opposite wall. But she emerged again, rising out of the ground itself, claws reaching for his legs.

He lashed out, black flames roaring to life in his palm and streaking toward her. Her long, wet-looking hair shifted like a living curtain, absorbing the attack as strands burned away.

Landing on his feet, Damon felt the shadows around him suddenly shift—not to his command, but against him. Spikes of darkness erupted toward his body. He dove, flipping in the air, and with shadow control he ripped command of the shadows back to himself, forcing them to disperse.

”You really thought you could use shadows against me?”

Her smile widened, eyes narrowing into slits.

”Heenejejehejehe...”

Her hair began to move again, stretching and writhing until it filled the entire gap between the buildings, its tips tapering into sharp, spear-like points.

Damon tightened his grip on his sword, igniting it in compressed black fire. The heat of Ashborn’s flames seared the air as he cut through her hair, weaving between strikes in the narrow space. In a burst of rapid movement, he stepped through shadow, appearing behind her.

Her twisted pupils swiveled to meet him.

”Die.”

He swung down. The compressed heat and freezing cold of Ashborn’s flames flared, cutting toward her, but her hair twisted mid-air, intercepting the strike.

Burning strands fell, filling the alley with the acrid scent of charred spirit.

She vanished, reappearing at the alley’s edge. Light spilled from approaching torches, voices calling out, drawn by the earlier scream.

And then... she smiled. Her towering form leaned toward Damon with a slow, deliberate malice.

When she spoke again, her voice was not her own.

It was the soft, trembling voice of a little girl.

”Ahhhhhhhh! Please... don’t! I don’t want to die!”

The scream was sharp, piercing—and then came the sound of something wet tearing, blood splattering onto stone.

Her smile returned, jagged teeth gleaming in the dark. Then she was gone, fading into the night like mist in the wind.

Damon stood alone, dripping in blood, broken sword in hand.

The torches arrived moments later. Gasps and whispers broke out as people saw him—standing in the alley over the torn remains of a child no older than eleven.

A suffocating silence fell.

Then a man stepped forward, his voice trembling, lips quivering in horror.

”Se... sen... Sena... my child... what have you done to my child...?”