After achieving the Legendary Team Wipe, Ye Chui stored the dragonblood stones back in his [Storage Space]. Exhausted but with no time to rest, he hurried to the grand hall, slipping into [Shadow Advance] as he approached.
Upon entering, the first sight was Cass and Tumu locked in brutal combat, both bloodied and battered. Cass’s face blazed with fervor, his fighting spirit unyielding, while Tumu showed signs of exhaustion and fear. His duty as a Shadow Swordsman wasn’t enough to make him sacrifice his life.
Ye Chui’s gaze shifted, but a thud interrupted him as a severed arm landed before him, belonging to the devil Thorne.
Turning, he saw Valkyrie Jiji had hacked off Thorne’s arm and was pressing her attack. As Thorne staggered back, blood-red tendrils sprouted from the stump, fusing into a new arm. “Yargh!” he roared.
“Jiji! Jiji!” the Valkyrie retorted, likely trading curses with the devil.
Debbie had Bilith completely subdued, the man sprawled on the ground as she crouched beside him, stabbing with her knife, “Shoo shoo shoo, shoo shoo shoo.” She seemed in no immediate danger.
As for Green, a gambler who squandered his spatial magic talent, his resistance against Shadow Mage Edel was astonishing. But when Ye Chui looked, Green’s tricks had failed. Edel had him by the throat, pinning him against the doorframe.
A few seconds later, and Green would be dead.
Ye Chui cast [Wind Walk], his shadowed form flashing to Edel’s side.
[Spatial Blade]
“Crash!” The already ruined door of the Goddess’s Palace shattered as Edel, cloaked in darkness, slammed into the room.
Freed, Green slid down the doorframe, coughing violently. Seeing Ye Chui emerge from the shadows, he gasped, “You, you’re back… The others?”
“All dealt with,” Ye Chui said calmly, entering the palace.
In the dim chamber, a shadow flitted unpredictably. Ye Chui frowned. “You dodged my [Spatial Blade].”
“I’m a Shadow Mage. No one knows shadow magic better. I sensed your attack, kid. I’m shocked you wield shadow magic, but you’ve had it for less than a month. Your shadow magic can’t match mine!” the shadow taunted, lunging toward the bed.
A bulge lay under the blanket. Edel tore it off, grabbing the object. “Is this the dragon soul Thorne spoke of… huh?”
It was a small pot, one Debbie had brought to the ruins, later picked up by the Valkyrie and given to Green. After hiding the dragon egg in the golden toilet, the pot was placed on the bed as a decoy. Quite the storied pot.
“Surprised?” Ye Chui sneered.
“Clang!”
Edel hurled the pot to the ground, vanishing completely into the darkness.
His voice echoed around Ye Chui. “You killed those eight! Bilith and I underestimated you. You’re strong, but in the dark, this is my battlefield. You’re dead. Thanks to Thorne’s gift, my shadow magic is at its peak, haha…”
Ye Chui, unimpressed, glanced at his magic book’s map. His white dot stood in the palace’s center, while Edel’s red dot circled him.
Clear as day.
He could cast spells via the map, a trick learned during his duel with Riken. With a “whoosh,” he fired a [Spatial Blade].
“Splat!” The sound of a blade cutting flesh.
Edel cried out in pain from the darkness.
“You… how did you hit me? Luck, it must be luck!” he shouted, defiant.
Another “splat.”
Edel yelped again, then roared, “Argh!”
“Splat.”
“How are you doing this!” he bellowed, blood dripping to the floor as he moved toward the door.
“Green, watch out,” Ye Chui called to Green at the entrance.
Green, steadying himself against the decayed doorframe, watched Ye Chui’s fight in awe. Ye Chui hit Edel in the shadows with [Spatial Blade], a spell he’d only recently awakened, yet used with such precision!
What a remarkable kid!
Green felt a twinge of envy.
Heeding Ye Chui’s warning, Green saw the shadow’s glinting blade extend toward him.
Death loomed again.
But he didn’t want to die. He wanted to fight like Ye Chui. The battles he once despised didn’t seem so bad now. A surge of survival and acceptance welled up.
In that moment, his magic book glowed.
Green felt it: a new spell awakened in response to his will.
[Spatial Blade]
Edel screamed as an arm holding a dagger flew off, followed by a bloodied body tumbling from the shadows to Green’s feet.
As Ye Chui warned Green of Edel’s charge, he fired a [Spatial Blade] at Edel’s back. Simultaneously, Green, in a moment of crisis, awakened and cast his own [Spatial Blade], severing Edel’s arm.
[Spatial Blade] was lethal, like a razor-thin blade. Edel, hit by Ye Chui’s four blades via the map, wasn’t struck fatally but was left bloodied and mangled. Green’s blade took his arm.
Yet these wounds didn’t immediately kill him.
On the ground, Edel’s voice trembled with disbelief. “How… this can’t be…”
“Nothing’s impossible,” Ye Chui said, approaching cautiously to finish him. But he and Green froze, looking outside.
Rustle, rustle. The sound of a body dragged across the ground, mixed with faint groans.
Clown Debbie was pulling Bilith by the leg, step by step. Bilith was near death, his face pale, aged beyond recognition, missing teeth, groaning, blood-soaked, his mana nearly drained by Debbie.
“Debbie?” Ye Chui tensed, unsure how much of her consciousness remained while fused with the Mad Clown.
“Heh heh~~”
With a eerie giggle, the girl’s gleaming eyes fixed on Ye Chui…
