However, the state of the battle caused her to frown in confusion the moment it began.
The legendary fire adept’s power was too unusual. How…how was it that even the spiritual appendages he extended outwards carried with them a trace of fire energy? How exactly had he achieved this feat?
Had he not just advanced to Fourth Grade, according to the information She sent? Why did he have such mastery over the fire laws?
It was important to note that even with Shani’s incredible talent, she had only barely grasped the shadow laws despite six hundred years passing by since her advancement to Fourth Grade. There was still a long way to go before she could master the use of this power.
However, it had only been a dozen years since Greem had advanced to Fourth Grade.
This strange discovery caused the hatred in Shani’s heart to grow even more significant.
If the shadow energy could not penetrate his domain, then something more substantial should be able to do the job!
Under Shani’s command, the shadow army that had been lying in wait in the town finally moved!
It was like dark black ink had been poured into black water. Packs of shadow panthers leaped out of hidden corners, stepping through the air and jumping across the buildings as they quickly surrounded the room where Greem resided.
The more intelligent high-grade shadow creatures quickly gathered in the meantime, forming squads of shadow warriors and marching in an orderly fashion towards the burning sun in their shadow world.
Indeed, in the eyes of all the shadow creatures, it was like an overwhelming, oppressive, and proud sun was hidden within that shabby house.
Golden threads of light penetrated the floorboards and the ink-black shadow domain, shining upon the swarming packs of shadow panthers. It didn’t even take three seconds for a Second Grade shadow panther to disintegrate under the golden sunlight, reduced to unconscious shadow energy once again.
Rather than the shadow panthers desperately attacking their target, it was more like the shadow panthers casting themselves into the flame like suicidal moths.
If the legendary fire adept were only a small candle flame, it would be devoured by the darkness eventually, with the endless hordes of shadow creatures. However, if that legendary fire adept was not a candle, but a wildfire blazing across an empty plain, then what awaited the shadow creatures was not victory, but……
Dark Witch Shani’s heart suddenly sank!
Chapter 1095 - Battle in Darkness
If Greem and Shani’s battle was still a battle in the shadows before, then with the appearance of the shadow army, the fight quickly escalated into an actual war.
Naturally, war had its own unique characteristics and traits!
A proud, massive red sun rose from the wooden house, endless light and heat shining from within burning and roasting all of the space nearby. Unfortunately, the entire town had been converted into a pseudo-shadow domain. Even such great heat and light were constrained within a hundred meters of the sun, unable to travel any further.
This ten-meter-wide fireball could only illuminate a hundred-meter space around it. It was still a lightless world of darkness a hundred meters away.
Shani, who was hiding in the core of the darkness, lifted her head. With her extraordinary vision, she saw through the blinding heat and peeked at what was happening within the fireball.
The legendary fire adept stood in the air, holding a crimson fire-coral staff in his hand. A magical crown of strange design had appeared on his head, and red light flickered on his waist, arms, neck, and feet, creating a crimson barrier around himself.
He wore all sorts of unusual and unique rings on his fingers, each radiating a drastically different and unfamiliar energy aura.
The legendary fire adept himself was radiating fearsome heat and light from head to toe. An imposing sort of golden fire wrapped around his body.
The interference of such a tremendous aura prevented Shani from seeing Greem’s face clearly, despite her prowess and spiritual senses. The spiritual appendage she had silently extended into the domain of heat and light sizzled and burned to ashes almost instantly.
Dammit! How was she supposed to lock onto her target without being able to extend her Spirit?
Dark Witch Shani let out a roar of anger. She immediately commanded the shadow army to launch a reckless charge at the fireball.
A single order was given, and a thousand ghostly eyes flickered in the shadows.
Hundreds and thousands of shadow panthers leaped out of their hiding spots, jumping and striding through the air as they lunged at their target.
Greem took a quick look at the battlefield, and a soft smile appeared on his handsome, blazing face.
Low and rapid chanting could be heard. A dozen appendages of fire fifty-meters-long and a meter in width suddenly reached out from the ball of light. They began to lash about in the air like the tentacles of an octopus.
All the shadow panthers that entered the hundred-meter diameter were knocked away by the tentacles before they could even enter the Burning Domain.
The violent fire energy contained within the fire appendages spread through the bodies of the shadow panthers upon impact, causing the feline monsters to ignite into pretty fireworks as they sailed through the air.
A Second Grade shadow panther could be considered a calamity in a small human kingdom. Yet, they were no more than cannon fodder that relied on their numbers in a Fourth Grade battlefield like this one.
Typically, the shadow panthers would be able to rely on Shadow Teleportation to travel to their enemies’ shadows. That gave them the absolute advantage in both offense and avoiding attacks. Today, they had run into their most terrifying predator!
Where were they supposed to find a shadow in which they could hide and reside when all was illuminated by this giant ball of light?
These shadow panthers that charged forth from every direction were forced to reveal themselves, no matter how powerful each one of them was. This temporary pause in their Shadow Teleportation spelled their doom.
Those one dozen fire tentacles were not for show. They possessed incomprehensible power and near unbelievable intelligence. Any shadow panther that appeared within their range of attack would be whipped into sparks and fire before they could get any closer.
Despite the sheer number of shadow panthers penetrating from every angle, the tentacles intercepted every single one of them. They couldn’t even touch the edge of the ball of light. This obviously caused Shani to become increasingly frustrated and impatient behind the scenes.
This place wasn’t the World of Adepts, after all. It was the Morrian Plane where the arcanists reigned supreme.
Shani required the power of the Orb of Shadows and the aid of the Dark Witches’ origin tower to be able to drag this town into the boundary between the Shadow World and the material plane. Naturally, the cost of doing so was an extreme exertion on the shadow power reserves of the origin tower.
If Shani didn’t want to weaken the strength of the entire Dark Witch branch, quickly ending the battle was her wisest course of action!
However, it was only at this moment that she truly experienced how troublesome an opponent Greem was.
Even the entire army of shadow panthers could not get close to him. This…this was simply far too unexpected!
With hatred and fury rising in her heart, Shani gave her orders. An army formed from Third Grade shadow warriors marched toward the ball of light. Two strange spirit shadows started to fire shadow arrows at the ball of light from behind the army.
Although the fire tentacles intercepted most of these shadow arrows, a few of them still made their way through the defense and landed on the ball of light. These shadow arrows erupted upon contact. They then started to corrupt everything around them into shadow energy, and the darkness spread like ink.
Fire and darkness were two opposing yet complementary powers to begin with!
As such, the appearance of the sha
dow energy triggered continuous shockwaves and damage within the fireball.
With this shadow energy as a stepping stone, the obstructed shadow panthers could immediately use their innate Shadow Teleportation ability to penetrate the defensive line of fire tentacles. They could directly appear at the edge of the fireball now.
However, as Second Grade creatures who could not even withstand a single strike from the fire tentacles, they could not possibly resist the effects of the Burning Domain. The shadow panthers that did leap into the fireball exploded into black mists before they understood what happened.
If it were only a few shadow panthers, these black mists would have rapidly dissolved and vanished in the endless heat and light. However, it was an infinite horde of shadow panthers that exploded within the ball. The layer upon layer of black mists continued to appear even as they dissipated in the light.
As a result, a visibly large dark spot appeared on the red and white fireball.
Moreover, as more and more shadow panthers added their bodies to the count, the dark spot began to show signs of growing larger!
This phenomenon caused Greem to frown.
He was currently protected by three layers of fire.
The innermost layer was a burning fireball composed mostly of the golden fire. That was Greem’s melee defense.
The second layer was the ball of light formed by the radiation of the first fireball and the Burning Domain itself.
Last of all were the fire tentacles created by his spells. They were all controlled by the Chip and would not provide the enemy with any openings.
However, Greem was fighting alone against an entire pseudo-shadow domain, after all.
Faced with the full force of the enemy, his seemingly invincible defense was still penetrated.
Greem showed no signs of panic against the enemy’s comprehensive attack from every angle.
In all seriousness, it was only the prequel leading up to the actual battle!
Even if they could pry open his defenses, the best the shadow army could do was cause him to exert more effort than necessary. They could not even injure his actual person. Thus, the Fourth Grade Dark Witch would have to strike if she wanted to kill him.
After all, the enemy of a Fourth Grade adept could only be another Fourth Grade!
This chaotic attack and endless horde of shadow creatures were only cannon fodder meant to develop a slight advantage for the Fourth Grade Dark Witch.
They could never hope to be the protagonists of a battle between Fourth Grades!
Despite how many shadow panthers hurled themselves at his fireball, over sixty percent of Greem’s attention was still fixed on the two annoying Fourth Grade spirit shadows. Another thirty percent was hung up on Dark Witch Shani, who had yet to make her appearance. Only the remaining ten percent was used to deal with the shadow creatures.
She wanted to suppress him with numbers?
Greem chuckled inside his golden fireball. He lifted his fire coral staff, and a giant, majestic Flamegate formed behind him.
In any other situation, Greem would only need to exert a tiny amount of fire energy to summon a Flamegate like this. After all, countless fire elementium particles in the air could be gathered for his use, thereby reducing the strain on his energy reserves.
However, in a pseudo-shadow domain like this, all other elementium powers aside from shadow energy had been banished. As such, a spell like the Flamegate would have to be sustained almost entirely by Greem’s own fire energy.
If it weren’t for the unusual Heart of Principles in his body, he would never be able to afford such exhaustion!
However, with the Heart of Principles endlessly supplying him with powerful golden fire energy, Greem could easily summon a massive Flamegate.
The doors of the Flamegate hurled open. Countless fire creatures swarmed out from within. They roared and charged at the shadow creatures outside the fireball.
Compared to the well-trained shadow army elites of the Dark Witches, these fire creatures were far weaker and inexperienced. There were very few high-grade fire creatures, and in fact, most of them were First Grade.
Trying to fight back against the elite shadow army with such numbers and inferior quality was no more than a pipe dream.
However, Greem had never placed much hope on these cannon fodders. He only needed them to delay those annoying panthers for a brief moment. This way, he could spare some effort and focus on dealing with the two Fourth Grade spirit shadows instead.
After all, these two spirit shadows were the only ones who could threaten the defensive perimeter!
Chapter 1096 - Exterminating the Spirit Shadows
With the fire creatures staving off the shadow army’s pursuit, Greem could finally free himself to deal with the two ‘cowardly’ and ‘despicable’ spirit shadows.
Despite being Fourth Grade creatures, neither of these two spirit shadows had the attitude or manner of an individual of that power. They hid behind the Third Grade shadow warriors, only using their shadow arrows to attack the ball of light to tear open a path for the weaker shadow beings.
They didn’t dare take even a single step towards the ball of light themselves!
If they believed they were safe as long as they kept their distance, they would have underestimated Greem’s abilities. After all, the legendary fire adept was known for the ferocity of his elementium attacks!
Greem chuckled within the fireball. The golden fire within his body started to gather rapidly.
It was as if a jet of golden fire were shooting out of his blazing eyes. His long, black hair was scattered across his shoulders, flickers of fire dancing and leaping upon them. His entire body was engulfed by violent and ferocious flames, constantly radiating terrifying heat and light.
“My fury as my power, Blazing Light!”
Greem loudly shouted the activation chant for the spell as two blinding red lights appeared in his burning eyes. The two lights gathered into two fearsome beams of Blazing Light. They cut across the skies, piercing through the formation of shadow creatures and landing upon one of the Fourth Grade spirit shadows.
Aaaaaah!
A tragic, sky rending howl rang out in the air.
A thick, nearly solid layer of chilling death aura appeared around the Fourth Grade spirit shadow, desperately shielding it from the Blazing Light as it fled into the distance.
Unfortunately, it didn’t matter how fast it could run! There was no way it could be faster than Greem’s gaze!
Greem stood upright like a mountain, mighty as a god of fire. His blazing eyes slightly adjusted their angle and direction as the spirit shadow fled. Regardless of where the spirit shadow withdrew, the two beams of Blazing Light remained fix upon it.
The death aura surging out of the Fourth Grade spirit shadow’s body clashed with the red beam endlessly. The two energies devoured and neutralized each other wildly. However, judging by the current situation, it was evident that the red beams firing from Greem’s eyes were slightly stronger. They destroyed the spirit shadow’s body even as they fought against the death aura. Bit by bit, they reached into the core of darkness in the spirit shadow’s body.
The core of darkness was where the soul consciousness of the spirit shadow resided.
Should the core be destroyed, the spirit shadow would perish as well, even if it was a Fourth Grade entity!
As such, the Fourth Grade spirit shadow was terrified and fled as hard as it could.
Shadow Teleportation, Shadowstalk, Shadow Substitution, Shadow Clone. It used a series of dark magics, either teleporting it to another region, swapping positions with another shadow creature, or dividing itself into a few dozen clones that looked the same as itself.
However, it didn’t matter what it attempted; the two beams of Blazing Lights seemed to be locked on to it. They remained fixed on its body no matter where it went.
In truth, the death aura was the spirit shadow’s body, while the core of darkness was where its soul reside
d.
Thus, as the death aura rapidly evaporated, the spirit shadow’s body started to shrink as well. Soon, the death aura was no longer enough to cover the black, crystalline core.
When the Blazing Lights finally shone upon the core of darkness, the Fourth Grade spirit shadow immediately stopped fleeing. Its entire body started to twist and distorted maniacally as its form flickered and cycled through the appearance of the countless creatures it had devoured in the past. Finally, the crisp sound of shattering glass could be heard; two small holes had been burned into the core of darkness. Countless pale and tragic souls escaped from within the nucleus, circling the spirit shadow briefly before dissipating into the air.
[Target creature has been eliminated. Requesting permission to undo target lock!] The Chip’s notification rang out in Greem’s mind.
“Undo target lock!”
[Understood!]
It was nearly impossible for Greem alone to maintain target lock on a Fourth Grade spirit shadow with multiple mobility spells from a distance of two thousand meters away. However, with the Chip’s help, he could burn a Fourth Grade spirit shadow alive with the golden flames without so much as taking a single step.
This mighty display of power had undoubtedly intimidated all of his opponents.
The other remaining Fourth Grade spirit shadow was scared out of its wits. It didn’t dare approach the ball of light now. Instead, it screamed fearfully and fled into the darkness in the distance.
A Fourth Grade creature. That was a Fourth Grade creature!
Even though Fourth Grade creatures could not possibly be as powerful as an actual Fourth Grade adept, it was still a Fourth Grade creature after all. Though most Fourth Grade adepts could suppress and defeat a Fourth Grade creature in a duel, it was challenging to inflict a killing blow.
After all, Fourth Grade creatures still had a fundamental level of power!
They might be inferior to a Fourth Grade adept when it came to knowledge reserves, knowledge application, and the use of magical equipment, but they also had unique, innate abilities of their own. These abilities were no weaker than those of a Fourth Grade adept.
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