My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger

Chapter 1004: Chapter 1006: For The First Time The King Felt Dread

”Left, left, dodge you fool. Why are you so daft? Down... don’t roll. Attack. Use a wind spell!”

Ashcroft’s voice lashed through Damon’s mind like a whip.

Damon’s body slammed across the chamber and bounced off the far wall as if he were nothing more than cloth thrown by a storm. The impact rattled his bones and knocked the air from his lungs before he even hit the floor. He rolled, coughing blood onto the stone as the massive creature advanced.

It looked like a wolf.

But no wolf in existence had scales layered over its hide like armor forged from a dragon’s corpse. Its body alone spanned over thirty meters. Its breath came out as freezing gales that carved lines into the walls and froze the air itself.

Sixth Class.

Damon had truly tried to fight it.

He now understood just how meaningless that attempt had been.

The gap between Fifth and Sixth was not a step.

It was a cliff.

”Cough—” Damon spat blood as he forced himself to his feet just as a gale of ice tore through the chamber where he had been lying seconds ago. The wind alone lifted him off his feet and hurled him sideways.

”How do I get past that..” he muttered, eyes locked onto the enormous scaled wolf.

”You don’t,” Ashcroft said coldly.

Damon gritted his teeth.

”Then how am I supposed to stop Paimon from getting reinforcements?”

Ashcroft sighed inside his mind.

”How did you manage to kill me when you are this foolish?”

Damon was about to snap back when Ashcroft spoke again.

”Don’t try to get past it. Just make sure your attacks touch the gate. As you can see, it cannot leave its position. It cannot stray far from the Nexus.”

Damon froze mid-step.

His eyes flicked back to the creature.

It hadn’t chased him when he was thrown across the room.

It always stayed within a certain radius.

His brow twitched with rage.

”Yo—you did that on purpose.”

”What do you think I am, your mother? Do I need to hold your hand through everything? At this rate I may yet die again in this wretched body,” Ashcroft mocked.

Damon raised his hand.

A sword formed out of condensed air.

Then he spoke.

[Magical Arsenal]

The air around him rippled.

Dozens.

Hundreds.

Swords formed in the air around him.

The scaled wolf roared and lunged, but it couldn’t block everything. The storm of blades shot past it like rain in a hurricane and crashed directly into the Nexus.

The black stone cracked.

Shattered.

Fragments exploded outward as the runes flashed violently and then collapsed.

A massive burst of magic detonated through the chamber.

”Run...” Ashcroft muttered.

”What—” Damon began.

”Run!” Ashcroft screamed.

Space folded in on itself.

Reality behind the Nexus ruptured like torn cloth. Rifts opened in the air and through them Damon saw something that made his mind recoil—vast cosmos, countless stars, and a shimmering barrier of light that suddenly flared into existence.

That light crushed the spatial rupture into itself.

Compressing it.

Condensing it.

Into a forming black hole.

Damon didn’t think.

He tried to teleport.

It failed.

”Fly, fool, fly!” Ashcroft roared.

Damon’s demon wings burst from his back in full. They spread wide, dark and feathered like the wings of a fallen angel. A sonic boom cracked through the chamber as he launched himself forward, half running, half gliding through the halls.

Behind him, the world shattered.

The pull began.

He heard screams.

Voices.

Screeches of things that did not belong to this world.

”Don’t look back. They aren’t real as long as you don’t observe them!” Ashcroft warned.

Damon’s heart hammered.

He did not look.

He refused to look.

He already knew horrors existed in this world. He did not want to meet the ones that lived beyond the heavens.

He slammed shoulder-first into a pillar as the pull suddenly stopped.

Silence.

He turned slowly.

The Nexus arch stood there.

Unbroken.

Still.

Around it, however, the air had changed. A black and grey substance spread across the stone like rot eating through flesh.

”Is that... rot?” Damon whispered.

”Yes. Corruption from the void. The Nexus prevents corruption and even heals lands touched by it. By breaking it, rot spreads now.”

Damon dropped to his knees, staring at the fragments of stone.

”If you put them back together, they will reform,” Ashcroft added calmly.

”Now onward to the next one.”

Damon didn’t respond for several seconds.

He just stared.

Then he slowly stood and looked up. Far above, Paimon’s battle with Seras continued. She seemed panicked.

Good.

Damon ran.

He found the second Nexus easily.

But this time, he wasn’t alone.

Priestesses in armor resembling valkyries stood in formation before the stairs, shields raised, weapons drawn. Each of them looked like a painting of a divine warrior.

”Protect the Nexus,” one of them commanded.

Damon exhaled and shook his head slightly.

He drew his sword.

”Ladies, leave. I won’t kill you.”

They raised their shields in response. The front line locked into a defensive stance as magic flared and a barrier formed.

”Do not hesitate because they are women. They would not hesitate because you are a man. I hate to break it to you, there is a zero percent chance you’ll get lucky tonight,” Ashcroft said inside his head.

”Unfortunately,” Damon muttered, stepping forward, ”I happen to be an advocate of gender equality.”

He charged.

Mana poured into his blade.

The battle lasted three minutes.

When it ended, steel stopped clashing.

The last priestess’s eyes remained open as her severed head rested at the top of the stairs and her body lay crumpled below.

Blood trickled down the steps, its stench filling the chamber.

Damon looked up.

A giant serpent was coiled around the Nexus.

He didn’t approach.

He simply turned and walked toward the door as swords of ice formed in the air behind him and fell like rain.

Damon was already gone.

The black hole formed again.

Then he moved to the third gate.

When he arrived, there was no battle.

Only death.

The priestesses were already dead.

The guardian, a massive knight-like construct, lay in a pool of its own blood.

Damon’s skin crawled.

He slowly looked up the stairs.

A young girl stood at the top, looking down at him calmly.

Before Damon could speak, Ashcroft did.

”Ittorath.”

Then Ashcroft’s voice changed.

For the first time, it held something Damon had never heard from him before.

Dread.

”Run.”