NOVEL NEXT Chapter 217: Episode 217
Marcus thrust himself forward, escaping the millions of shadow lances that Gluttony mimicked and was hurling towards him. Beads of sweat swept his face, but he couldn't give up, not now, and ever. Not even a monstrosity such as Gluttony stood between the perfect balance of life and death.
Gluttony had completely devoured the entire country of Japan, though thankfully, before that could happen, Marcus evacuated the millions of people living in Japan. Many died, and many are still yet to be identified, but that didn't matter now, since those dead ones aren't going to come to life, and the ones who live can easily die with a snap of a finger.
Marcus summoned his Obilivon Lance, putting as much power as possible into it, and darted it towards the stationary Gluttony. Gluttony didn't move; it just blankly stared down at Marcus as he took the hit.
After the explosion settled, Gluttony was felt unscathed, and Marcus was running out of time. He contemplated his next course of action, but the thought that appeared in his head immediately dissipated, as he knew that if he let his inner self out, the world might as well be doomed.
I can't let Shade out. No matter what happens, that cannot occur. Marcus thought, as the only idea that popped in his head, regressed to nothingness.
"What is it going to be, mortal?" Gluttony asked, displeased by Marcus's performance. "You know I'm running out of patience. I may not play this game with you anymore if you don't entertain me."
"Fuck," Marcus whispered. "What should I do? I don't know what to do. What can I do? I... I don't have a choice. It's either him or him. What the fuck."
Marcus took a deep breath and exhaled. He let the nervousness and the fear exhale from his system. He was now calmer and composed and decided to let Shade play in his second debut.
"Well... I guess I am left with no other choice." Marcus whispered.
His body convulsed unnaturally, an unknown shade of the darkest black covered his entire body, and he closed his eyes. Then, in the next instant, he opened them, which were filled with darkness, nothing but midnight black darkness. Maybe even darker.
All of his injuries, everything healed so fast, as if they had never occurred before. His Circle of Pillars had three diagonal lines and ten vertical lines, showcasing how he was now a triple-evolved, EX-rank Adventurer, and about as powerful as The Nornir when it came to Earth.
Marcus, now Shade, rose through the settling haze with a stillness that felt impossibly deliberate. The air thickened, as if the atmosphere itself feared approaching him.
Darkness rippled off his body in slow waves, each undulation casting distortions across the battlefield. Gluttony's colossal form loomed ahead, yet for the first time since the fight began, the primordial sin took a single step back.
Shade smiled. It was a quiet, serpentine curve of the lips that carried no warmth, only inevitability.
"You were able to push him enough to make me come out," Shade said, voice layered with an echo like two beings speaking at once. "Marcus was constrained by morality; however, I couldn't give a fuck about those who died and how. So, pushing him this far means you are strong. Which I like."
Gluttony's shadow swelled, a mass of writhing black tendrils boiling at his feet. Yet those shadows did not belong to him; Shade had seized them.
Twisted them. Weaponized them. They bent toward Shade like devotees witnessing the return of a sovereign.
"Interesting," Gluttony's voice boomed. His voice rumbled across the wasteland, creating craters in the dust. "So this is what you are when the leash snaps."
Shade didn't respond with words. Instead, he vanished. No movement. No transition. One instant, there was distance, and the next, his hand was pressed against Gluttony's throat, an act that seemed absurd, given their size difference, yet Gluttony's head jerked sideways from the force.
A punch followed. Then a second. Then an onslaught so rapid the sounds fused into a single thunderclap. Gluttony skidded across the desolate plain, carving trenches through the dead earth before finally halting.
He rose slowly, patting the cracked portion of his obsidian-like torso. The blows themselves had not damaged him, but Shade's darkness lingered on the surface, eating away at the material in thin, hungry lines.
He stared down at the corrosive black marks. "Ah," he said. "You are capable of wounding me."
Shade stepped forward, walking rather than teleporting. The ground flattened, shadows fanned out beneath his feet, and the sky dimmed by several degrees, as if touched by a premature eclipse.
"Capable?" Shade asked. "You misunderstand. I am simply calibrating."
The shadows responded to him like a living organism, because they were. Spears of darkness erupted around him, coiling and twisting like serpents anticipating permission to strike.
Gluttony's grin widened. "Show me, then. Show me what Marcus fears."
Shade did. Darkness detonated outward in a dome. The sphere consumed light, color, and sound. Within that absolute void, Shade's silhouette multiplied, ten, then a hundred, then countless replicas, each as solid as the original. They descended upon Gluttony like a starved pack.
Claws of shadow tore through him, not physically, but metaphysically, ripping at essence rather than flesh. Gluttony staggered, swatting entire legions aside, but each one he destroyed reformed on impact with the ground.
"You attack what I am," Gluttony growled, even as half his body dissolved into the void. "But I am hunger. I am infinite."
"And hunger," Shade answered, manifesting behind him, "is easiest to starve."
He plunged a hand into Gluttony's back. Not physically. His arm phased through matter, bypassing the body entirely. Shade seized the mass of memories, identities, and stolen echoes Gluttony had devoured over millennia. And he crushed them.
Gluttony dropped to one knee, roaring as stolen lives flickered out of existence within him. The layers of souls he had consumed shrieked simultaneously, an orchestra of agony dissolving in moments.