The Invincible Full-Moon System

Chapter 1364: Cracks in the Night

A wound for a wound.

Rex was prevented from participating due to the Pack Quest issued by the System.

Since Flunra and Gistella were wounded badly, the System encouraged him to let the two of them reclaim their honor by wounding Shadow. Although Adhara helped—as long as Rex did not help, the Pack Quest would be honored.

Knowing the Systemʼs subtle tricks, he expected the Pack Quest to be purposeful.

It didnʼt seem to be the case but Rexʼs clone couldnʼt be certain.

He needs to be skeptical that there is more than meets the eye or the System will lead him to fall into a hole full of troubles like he did when he entered the Carabidis Temple. Now that the Pack Quest has been completed, he could now help.

However, due to his skepticism, he noticed Shadowʼs reaction was odd.

Being a Knight-class Order Beast nearing a breakthrough to the Lord-class—Shadow is more or less as smart as people. It wasnʼt stupid, as even its minions were capable of inducing fear and unrest, terrorizing the Elven people before massacring them.

Recognizing—and gauging fear and having restraint reflects exceptional intelligence.

So Rexʼs clone didnʼt understand why it chose to stay here where it was surrounded.

If I were in its position, I wouldʼve made a path to break this encirclement. Unless I couldnʼt.

Once he realized that, Rexʼs cloneʼs eyes darted ahead.

He came from behind so the only place he hadnʼt explored was ahead.

Exercising the Systemʼs heightened capabilities—Rex scanned the area ahead—his eyes saw blue light permeating from his position like a scanner and expanded ahead rapidly. It took the blue light seconds to reach miles and miles away.

Almost as if he has a highly advanced radar built inside of his retina.

Rexʼs clone saw hundreds of open windows across his vision.

As expected, the System scanned literally everything in his vision ahead, starting from the hiding mutated animals, mutated trees, magical ingredients, everything. Seeing this, Rexʼs clone narrowed his gaze, ”Get rid of mutated animals stats window”

In a fraction of a second, dozens of stats windows disappeared, leaving some behind.

”Donʼt show anything that doesnʼt relate to death mana”

Once again, the stats windows narrowed even more, leaving a handful behind.

”Now—get rid of all the death order stones and only show me those at ninth rank or above”

Just as he said that the stats windows narrowed into a single one.

Seeing this, Rexʼs clone motioned to pull the last window close—and realized that it wasnʼt a stat window, but an item window instead. And with only a few seconds, he found the reason why Shadow stayed behind.

...

Item Rank: Legendary (Tenth-rank)

Elemental Affinity: Death

Durability: 5/100

Description: A skull, that once belonged to the Rider of Dissolution, cursed by the Council of Darkness to roam the land between life and death for slaughtering Demi-Gods. He was slain and purified, leaving behind this skull, that still contained what little power he had. It has the ability to turn any energy into death mana and give three riders his power—allowing them to turn others into slaves and harvest death mana with each kill.

...

From the description alone, Rexʼs clone now began to understand the situation more.

He found it weird that the minions were able to turn Elves into slaves of this caliber, there are dozens of ninth-rank realm slaves, which should be impossible. An ability, that could turn the living into stronger slaves, reaching even the ninth-rank realm is too powerful.

If a Ruler-class or even a Lord-class Order Beast has it then it wouldnʼt be as surprising.

For a Knight-class Order Beast, however, it was too powerful of an ability.

None of these fallen Elves were remotely as strong as this when they were alive.

As it turns out, the minions didnʼt have that ability, it was borrowed.

Shadow appointed them as ʼridersʼ of the black skull and the minions gained this ability—and based on the description, Shadow would become stronger with more slaves under him. Such a powerful item would cost countless lives.

It was the reason why Shadow stayed here and fight, to protect the black skull.

Realizing this, Rexʼs clone tilted his head down, facing Flunra on the battlefield.

Sensing the gaze, Flunra hacked the slaves around him away and glanced over his shoulder.

Meeting Rexʼs cloneʼs gaze, a telepathy seeped into his mind.

A powerful artifact taking the shape of a black skull resides ahead, Shadow is protecting it—Go and find it, tell the Alpha Primes, and leave the Werewolves and Elves behind.

ʼI understand, Alphaʼ

Once Flunra heard the command, he made a dash to the Alpha Primes to alert them.

Just as Rex was about to move on ahead to see if he could go past Shadow without it finding what he was up to—he reached his left hand to the side to hold on when a violent roar shook the entire place hard.

Focusing back on Shadow, he saw that Adhara, Gistella, and Valkis were doing a great job.

All three were able to wound Shadow severely, the scratches across its body were evident.

But none of them were severe, and Rex could fix that.

...

-> Shadow Lock

-> Adaptive Unity

-> Scale of Fiend

...

Using the pack skill upgrade feature for the first time, Rex scanned Gistella and was shown three options that she possessed that could be upgraded. Scale of Feind skill was her very first ability while the other two came from her bloodline evolution.

Oh...? Even her moon ability, Adaptive Unity could be upgraded.

Rex was surprised to see that her moon ability could be upgraded since he couldnʼt.

All of his moon abilities couldnʼt be upgraded using the Skill Upgrade so this was surprising.

Must be because it wasnʼt a complete moon ability.

Moon Abilities are exclusive abilities that could be used by Werewolves who were accepted by one of the full moons and formed a King Mark, it was an ability that wasnʼt only powerful but also a symbol of status.

Gistella doesnʼt have her own King Mark, none of his pack members had.

Probably due to Rexʼs problem with the Lunirich Gods but the fact still stands.

Her Adaptive Unity moon ability was possible thanks to the Herald Mark Rex had transferred from Adhara to Gistella before the pack duel. Because of that—her Adaptive Unity was most likely an incomplete one, less strong than indirect Moon Ability.

It was only carried by her immense moonlight energy reserves due to her strong bloodline.

Averting his attention away from that, he squinted his eyes.

Gistella is our anchor, she needs to be resilient and provide more support.

Adaptive Unity is a good moon ability but it provides no real support other than increasing oneʼs strength to a higher degree, and that is even with the cost of her—merging with the target, it provides no support other than that.

From that deduction alone, Rex decided on what he was going to do.

Upgrade her Shadow Lock and also her Scale of Fiend.

Yes.

Rexʼs clone didnʼt hesitate and instantly upgraded her abilities.

As the purchase was processed, Gistella, who was still trapped in her madness in her head felt a sudden change. A torrent of information pierced through her brain like an arrow—and infused her with new information.

It lasted seconds and once it was done, she blinked and smirked.

She had obtained a blessing from the Alpha, from Rex, nothing else could explain this.

Chain Phantom Lock>

Mantilla of the Fiend Matriarch>

Roar!!

Adharaʼs eyes darted to the side when she dodged a powerful paw strike from above.

A figure came to vision, Gistella with all her craziness came hot from behind but there was a stark change to her appearance. Now—her skin wasnʼt covered in steel scales but a mantilla that hovered from the top of her head all the way down to her feet.

It was silver in color, and the way it made every time Gistella moved was paranormal.

She looked more like an elegant ghost with a thick steel tail behind her.

A massive ghost to be exact considering that she was slender but taller than Adhara.

Not realizing the incoming danger from behind, Shadow propelled itself towards Adhara, but a loud crash resounded, catching its attention. Looking down underneath, a thick steel tail— stabbed into its shadow.

Recognizing the attack, Shadow roared and aimed to break free from the lock.

It could do that easily by overpowering the lock with raw strength.

But this time, it was surprised to find that it couldnʼt move and on top of that—chains began to come out from his shadow and wrap around him, restricting him completely in place. Tied on the spot like a helpless lamb ready for slaughter.

Smiling at this, Adhara and Valkis came with the axe.

Slash!!

Growl!

Making a perfect synchrony, both slashed their claws deep into Shadowʼs chest.

An X-mark made confided by eight claw marks was left behind.

One set of four claw marks was searing while the other set sunk deeper.

For once, the three of them were able to force a squeal out of Shadowʼs mouth.

Clenching its fangs—with a snarl, it summoned additional death spheres, aiming to hurl them at Adhara and Valkis to gain precious moments to escape Gistellaʼs binding ability. Somehow—it had gotten stronger and would need Shadow to exert more than raw strength.

However, its plan was snuffed out easily.

Gistellaʼs silver mantilla reacted with lethal precision, coiling around the spheres and choking them tightly. Like a stretching fabric, her mantilla was resilient enough to contain these orbs, until they puffed into black powder like earlier.

It couldnʼt summon the skeletal lionesses again because of this.

But as the black powder faded, Shadowʼs eyes caught sight of a figure, going over them.

Rexʼs clone used this opportunity to go past Shadow but he was not fast enough.

As he flew past above Shadow, it saw him and its eyes instantly turned red from anger.

Shadow knew that Rex had caught on to what lies beyond this spot.

ROAR!!

Kaboom!!

Out of nowhere, its death mana soared and exploded, sending a blast of shockwave—that even pushed Adhara, Gistella, and Valkis away, as well as the rest who were near. Clawing the ground, Valkis held on but once he looked up to check what happened, his eyes flared open completely.

He gasped at the sight of his claws rusting rapidly.

Under the constant wind of death mana from Shadow, his claws rusted and broke.

”Did it reach the Lord-class already?! Itʼs transforming!”

Meanwhile, miles away from the battlefield.

Roar!!

A creature, hiding above a tree, looked in the direction of the roar, it was the hiding minion— that was able to escape barely from the pursuit not too long ago. Recognizing the roar to be Shadowʼs, it whimpered, sensing the pain in the roar.

So much so that its death mana was also riled up, enhancing its aura that was hidden earlier.

Realizing that Shadow was in trouble, the minion became furious.

Its wrath needs to be channeled and that made it turned towards a city a mile from it.

A city that was considered dear with a huge great tree at the center, the Elvesʼ capital city.

Growling in anger, it quickly moved, dashing towards the city.

On the other hand, Linthia who was on the lookout sensed a soaring death mana, heading in her direction. To be exact, it was heading towards the capital city. It did not take long for her to realize that it was the hiding minion.

”Alert the sentries and call for Dindora!” Linthia shouted, instructing the Elven sentries.

But then, as she said that, she sensed a familiar mind nearby other than Dindora.

Since she was a Dark Fairy, she was more connected to the mind, she could sense the minds of those—she was familiar with. And considering that this was a dangerous zone, she did not expect to sense this mind to be here.

”N- Nadia...?! Why is she here?!” Linthia gasped in surprise.

Soon she realized that today was also the day Nadia was allowed to go to the Elves.

Panic—Linthia turned towards the soaring death mana and saw that it was going to intercept the path Nadia was going, ”Oh, no... I need to stop it! Nadia, I need to save her!”