“Idiot, stay behind me,” Senna hissed while standing in front of Thomas protectively, her gaze constantly scanning through the thick forest.
It may have been daytime, but shadows danced through the leaves and under overhanging trunks as if they were alive.
They had run across several groups of heroes and other forces in the forest here for rare resources or as contracted hire, but currently everything was deathly silent as they felt isolated from the rest of the realm.
“It’s almost like a shadow demon, but much more…”
“More powerful and lethal.” Anthony Reeves finished off Thomas’ words for him, his sword drawn and postured into a defensive position. “I don’t know what it is doing here though. This area had previously been explored, and there was no such reports of such a creature.”
This monster had picked up their scent some time ago and begun stalking them, like a predator hunting its prey. It was a strange beast that hadn’t been encountered by humans, or at least, nobody had made it back alive to report it, but few had ventured out this far.
It was a beast that could take many forms, from a four story tall pitch black panther, to a tentacled monstrosity that strangled the forest with its feelers. To make matters worse, it phased itself between a physical and non physical form, making it incredibly difficult to attack.
As fast as the beast’s presence would appear, it would vanish. Currently, the forest around the trio was eerily silent as the creature seemed to vanish, but its presence suppression ability was truly profound, able to create such an illusion.
There was a brief lull as no attacks came, and the creature seemed to have left
All of a sudden, the shadow beast attacked once more in a storm of black conical tentacles with razor sharp tips, each one either trying to impale, shatter, or constrain. The attacks came from all sides, making it difficult to defend against.
Anthony Reeves had formed a defensive formation of swords the circled the group, interweaving one another and would attack as soon as the shadow beast appeared. Still, the formation couldn’t keep up with the shear number of attacks that would come and allowed many to pass through.
Senna on the other hand had nothing but brute force and speed behind her attacks. She tore the shadow tendrils to pieces with her hands or crushed them below her feet. Not even the forest was spared as she wrought destruction on everything around her.
She only had two hands and feet however, which meant a large number of attacks landed on her. The arachne thread clothes truly showed their durability as despite the number of attacks that landed on her body, there were only two small tears in the fabric.
Thomas had the easiest role due to standing in the center of the formation where it was also the safest, but some attacks still made it to him. This was especially so as the shadow beast could attack from any existing shadow, allowing it to mount many varied sneak attacks.
He spun his modern spear around as he seemingly effortlessly intercepted and destroyed the shadow beasts’ tendrils.
Despite being under attack, the trio still continued to travel in the direction the compass pointed.
“Say, drug addict, can I decide the official name for this shadow creature,” Thomas asked as Anthony Reeves swallowed some spiritual pills to restore his qi.
“Now isn’t the time for that!”
“I was thinking – shadowloper. It’s clever, no?”
“Are you even listening to me?”
“Of course I am~”
“…Just shut up and focus on keeping its attack’s busy, I’ve almost finished calculating the variations in the formation.”
The urban cultivator truly knew a thing or two about formations, although he wouldn’t even be considered an apprentice in the field if the traditional cultivators were to input their opinions.
True to his words, he soon finished calculating the movements of energy within the ground and pulled out ten silver flags from his storage ring, eight of which were sent flying in the cardinal directions, one up into the canopy of the trees, and the final one three feet away sticking out of the ground.
“Activate!”
Anthony Reeves placed his hands together at the fingertips and activated the formation, his recent;y replenished qi rapidly draining as he injected power to start the formation as a trigram constructed from qi scrawled itself along the ground and in the air.
Perhaps the shadow beast sensed danger, but it focused its attacks on the cultivator which posed a threat to it. Thomas stepped forth at this moment and his spear turned into a blur, forming a perfect defense around Anthony that prevented him from being interrupted.
With the activation of the formation, a translucent dome spread and covered that area several hundred feet wide with them at the center. Once it had finished forming, all the shadows begun receding and melting like the snow before the summer sun.
This formation was also known as the Twilight Formation, a formation that created a sourceless light within the area. It was a basic formation that banished shadows and was very useful for countering assassins who used shadow arts to lurk in wait for their targets.
*SHRIIIEKKKKkk…..*
The leaves rustled as the shadow beast shrieked in seeming pain, its voice dying off as all the shadows were banished.
“To think that would kill it~ I guess it wasn’t as strong as it appeared,” Thomas commented as he pierced his spear in the ground and massaged Senna’s shoulders.
The demi-fallen fae was no longer dashing around chasing the source of the shadows and instead standing in front of Thomas, allowing the latter to dig him thumbs into her shoulder blades and nape.
“It’s not dead, probably not even injured,” Anthony shook his head and sighed. “It won’t be able to attack us within this zone though, and will probably think twice about attacking again. We had best move and get away from here as soon as possible.”
The trio quickly climbed over the broken and shattered giant trunks of the primordial trees that decorated the landscape due to Senna
Anthony casually swung his sword through one of the fallen trunks, the blade getting caught and unable to proceed deeper barely half an inch in. With a cultivation that was almost at the late Foundation Establishment stage, he could cut down a normal tree as if it were paper.
His expression turned aghast as he calculated the amount of strength that would be required to snap and send such a strong tree flying, something Senna did over and over again in a manner that seemed effortless.
Subscribe now and be the first to be alerted of any new chapters!
End Online Novel 