Chapter 61

  A Slight Miscalculation

  A cocoon of unending darkness surrounded me.

  For a moment, my mind flashed back to my vision from last night, one where I was swallowed whole by an apparent Death Eater. Yet unlike that time, this time there was hope. The sun was up, causing multiple rays of light to come in and slowly wither the outside of the giant shadow creature that I found myself fighting.

  The advent of so much sunlight being able to penetrate this deeply into Bloom Park had to be a sign of irony at its greatest, for the only reason why the sky was so open, even with the fall foliage showing was that the rot had prevented so many new trees from forming. Creating an effect where the park was slowly dying, with only the few dozen old trees that predate the corruption of the park as the sole survivors. Meaning, there was now plenty of light to shine down and help further slow the shadow creature that was now desperately trying to circle around me and devour me.

  However, I had just met my second wind, as I could feel my body changing thanks to my Class. I didn’t know what exactly happened, but for whatever reason exactly, but I had my guesses. Based on the way my body and my wooden blade now glowed with a bright green hue, I assumed I had somehow managed to force my body to convert Life Mana that almost all of my Class Skills now focused on, and somehow forced my body to convert that same energy to fuel my awakened bloodline Skill Soul Devour. Resulting in a bright green glow that still has the same slicing and cutting action into the dark shadows.

  There is also the added benefit that with a green glow, I can now see things within this slowly fading cocoon much better. As I have finally found a core.

  Like fighting a living shadow jelly fish, I can see a direct effect caused by my striking and slashing at the various tentacles, causing more and more of the outer layers to be eaten away, revealing a glowing core the size of a fist sized inky black pearl.

  With the obvious core so close, I make my move. Rather than striking and hitting what feels mostly like rubber and slowly whittling down the beast, I try to cut the battle short, thrusting forward, aiming my sword directly at the core.

  But the shadow creature is either sentient, or has a very high survival instinct, for it sees the desperate attack and redirects. Shifting the blade off center and causing my strike to go wide. Then it makes its move, thinking that I have over extended.

  Crackling-sizzle.

  Even with the glowing blade buried deep within its slithering body, it chooses to take the blow and then try to absorb it, despite the clear pain it must be suffering. That is assuming that a creature like this can even feel pain to begin with. Judging by its current reactions, if it does feel pain, it is not as much of a limiting factor as it might be for me.

  The fact that this creature is somehow alive is not lost on me, but it is also clear that this creature does not belong here. That every part about this creature screams that it is wrong.

  Pulling-lurch.

  A sudden jolt of force pulls me forward as the wiggling monster pulls me closer, as it simultaneously closes its dark net around me. Which if fine, as I use the forced momentum to pull me forward, but I angle my fall away from my blade and directly towards the oddly glowing core.

  Before the creature can even react, I do what would be death to a normal swordsperson, for I willingly give up my blade, as I turn my now purely glowing hands out and claw my way through the dense dark tar.

  Pop.

  The second I do, the creature seems to realize that it messed up, as it panics, putting in layers of thick and gooey membranes in front of me. Membranes that instantly burst and splatter upon contact with me, as I begin cycling my Soul Devour infused power all throughout my body, but particularly on my hands.

  Slime sprayed wildly, splashing into my face and over my hands. Yet, I didn’t stop.

  Unfortunately, my past life had well desensitized me to such minor inconveniences like unwanted fluids spraying over my body and into my face. Not even flinching, I focused deeper, moving my hands and watching as the shadow creature desperately tried to move its bright core out of the way, but it was too late.

  Like a bear sitting upstream during mating season, I just reached my glowing paws into the gelatinously flowing fluids and grabbed for the first truly solid item I found. Then once I felt it in my fingers, I didn’t pause, I didn’t hesitate, instead I just dug my glowing fingers as deeply as possible. Realizing that somewhere in the melee that I had allowed my head and face to be slightly covered by the dark cloud, but it was too late, as I could clearly feel the dense sandstone-like material breaking apart within my hand.

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  Finally, with a hard yank, I fully removed the crumbling stone material from the rest of the shadow body, causing a dense suction like sucking sound that caused a faint tremor to run though my body. The removal and subsequent final dissolving of the stone core started a chain reaction, as if I had somehow flash congealed a mountain of dark Jello all around me.

  Jello that quickly began to wiggle and pulse with all the excess energy that I was still releasing around me.

  In that second, I realized I had done something incredibly wrong.

  ***

  (Mr. Yi, Long)

  Mr. Yi stood and watched his student grow right before his eyes. While her movements were still unrefined, it was clear that she had taken to heart the lessons from the previous nights. Her feet were balanced, her form while still allowing for a lot of improvement was solid. Mr. Yi could work with solid.

  Not only was she solid in her base, but she was calculating, never overreaching, always maintaining balance and form in her strikes.

  Even while fighting the shadow creature, a creature that feeds on life energy, he felt she still had a chance.

  That was, until he saw the fact that he had both over estimated his student, and underestimated the age of the shadow guardian that had managed to remain dormant here for so many years. And it was years, as the size and capabilities of the growing shadow showed.

  Still, he wanted to see the mettle of his student, seeing if she had what it took to overcome adversity and fight on.

  From the very start Mr. Yi had been ready to swarm in, especially after she managed to break free of the first seal that the shadow guardian had ensnared her with.

  Yet, rather than taking the opening to retreat and come back, she instead did something fully reckless, she stayed. Worse, Mr. Yi himself had also waited, wanting to let this lesson sink in on why you retreat when the opportunity rises as he wouldn’t always be there to protect her.

  However, he underestimated his student and the shadow creature as the student used the moment to adapt, to change her Class generated life energy to fuel her bloodline. Normally such an advancement would be applauded, as it showed her use of a threatening situation to push herself beyond her mortal limits and achieve the next realm of her own personal journey towards enlightenment.

  Watching his student react, he wondered how stupid could someone be, infusing life energy into a shadow guardian, a creature that literally feeds off of life energy to sustain itself.

  Even with the slight effect of activating her bloodline power, the effects were almost negligible, as she would end up burning away parts of the creature that she would just regenerate. Creating an endless loop of repetitive damage that she would then heal back, causing the creature to become even stronger in the process.

  “Cào,” Mr. Yi hissed under his breath as he charged forward, his bloodline and golden Class Skills activating as he began slicing and cutting at the wriggling dark substance. But there was just a problem, all of Mr. Yi’s Skills were focused on hunting down the corrupted creatures. But these shadow guardians were different, not so different that his golden Light infused Skills had no effect, but different enough that their effects were muted. Still, he had expected even this to be enough to protect his student, particularly if she was smart enough to know to run before the shadow guardian erupted into a shadow prison. One that would permanently seal off the outside world from anything that the shadow guardian had collected inside.

  Why hadn’t she run? This should be the first thing a new apprentice is taught, at least it had been back when he began his training in the far east. Only after making that realization did he see the issue.

  Here the children were treated as precious, they were coddled from the encroaching darkness of the world. Somehow thinking that having an ideal childhood would make the adults try that much harder to give the future generations the world that they so desperately wanted for themselves. A world where you didn’t grow up to fight the darkness, but you could grow up to find your own individual niche in society and thrive. A sentimental gesture that ultimately falls short of the true experience that is needed.

  Just as he was angrily slashing and slicing at the growing shadow guardian, who was in the final stages before it fully erupted, Mr. Yi went all out. Burning through every ounce of mana he had his body.

  He was not alone, as by now all of the other former members of his team were by his side. Markan had his glowing pistols out and was firing precision strikes at areas that Mr. Yi had just carved open. Madman Karl was already jamming his arm into the slimy substance, all while Death Machine herself sang in discordant notes that shook the vibrating slime, keeping it from being able to solidify into a full-blown devouring cocoon too early.

  Unfortunately it was all for naught, as they both waited too long to move, and the creature even now was still in the process of evolving. If they had more time, Mr. Yi could tell the apprentice that this was when the creature was most vulnerable, as it had to solidify its core during these transitions. That if she could find it and destroy the core, the creature would eventually die.

  “Everyone get back, it’s going to burst!” Markan shouted.

  At that, everyone backed up, Madman Karl removed his giant meaty fist from the creature’s side, and even Mr. Yi found himself helplessly backing up.

  There was a chance, once the shadow guardian erupted, they could possibly break in and hopefully remove the new student. She would be broken and shattered by the sudden dry freezing and solidification of slime to stone but given her innate abilities at healing they could possibly get her out before she was completely drained of life.

  Then the unthinkable happened. Just as the shadow guardian’s absorption phase was about to activate, causing the oozing black slime to flash form into stone, it all collapsed.

  Well not exactly, like a piece of bread that didn’t have enough yeast, the outer form of the shadow guardian ballooned outwards, before shriveling back in on itself. Then as if it hit some form of detonator, once the collapsing layer of shadow skin fully collapsed on itself, that’s when a reaction occurred. Not the stone solidification reaction that he and the others had expected, instead this was the quivering explosion of black oozing slime bursting out and covering everything.

  Swiping the gunk free of his eyes, Mr. Yi turned back to see the most unlikely of forms before him. There at the center of the monster, right where the densest pack of flash frozen stone would appear, that is where he saw his now slime-covered student looking absolutely shocked.

  Dark tar covered everything, and even now, Mr. Yi could feel the cold slime that had landed on his face quickly drying out into a solid stone like substance that would take time to remove. He could even see layers of that same dark slimelike substance coating his student who looked suddenly sheepish.

  “I got it,” she exclaimed. Then looking around at the pooling and congealing stone generating slime below, she hesitated before reaching into the pile of gunk and pulled out her wooden practice sword that Mr. Yi had given her that morning. With the sword back in hand, she exclaimed, “now I’ve got it.”

  Seeing the state of his student, and how close she had come to catastrophe, Mr. Yi could only shake his head.

  But he was happy that at least for the moment, disaster had been averted. While he felt undeniable relief that she had somehow survived the ordeal, he felt that it was time to make sure she never got this close to death again.

  “Good, now can you tell me what you could improve on?” Mr. Yi asked, while wiping away layers of solidified stone from his face and clothing.

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