Shadow Weaver: Sole Heir Of The Night

Boom

The clenched fist of a three-legged half spider half man creature hit Enzo squarely in his gut, forcefully sending a rush of air from his lungs, forcing him to the ground.

'Why is it so strong?'

Squirming on the ground, Enzo created distance between himself and the creature by falling into a shadow and appearing far away.

At this point, they were deep inside the forest, far away from the crashed crawler.

Enzo had deliberately drawn their battle away from the crash so as not to bring harm to his team. In hindsight, this was not a good idea, as it left him alone to face this thing that was way stronger than him.

Was it a wise decision? Not really, but he'd do it again though.

"Annoying." Enzo inclined his back against a rock on the floor as he steadied his gaze at the beast in front of him.

'This is no ordinary terror, it's not even a second generation.'

Mother Venom Milk could give birth to a variety of monsters, including but not limited to poison serpents, giant lizards, chitinous crabs, and spiders.

Basically the bottom feeders of society.

However, none of them typically looked like this. It was all too similar to Mother Venom Milk herself.

Standing up to his feet with great difficulty, Enzo gritted his teeth and huffed twice, drawing the attention of the creature.

"Come on, bug, I don't have all day!" Enzo mocked, his hands dancing in the wind as he seemed to manipulate the shadows around him.

As they converged, the area suddenly became dark, the shadows stretching, covering the area with gloom and cascading shadow light.

Shadow Manipulation—this was the innate skill of night creatures. It was the skill Enzo had the least experience in using, but it was also the one closest to his nature.

Woosh

Woosh

Two tentacles flew from within the shadows and struck at where the creature was, forcing it to move.

The moment it landed, however, it was struck again by another set of tentacles made entirely from woven shadows. This continued for several minutes, stressing the creature to no end.

Several hits landed, leaving massive gashes in its body. However, as time went on, the hits seemed to reduce in frequency, causing Enzo to sweat.

"It's learning," he muttered, a feeling of dread overtook him.

Back at the crash site

"What do you mean you don't know where he is?!" Raven's voice sounded in the middle of the forest, the look in her eyes filled with a sense of urgency.

The last thing she remembered was Enzo looking at her in panic as the crawler was sent into the ground by an irresistible force. After that, she was woken up by Savage Wolf.

"Zeke has already gone out to look for him. Help me carry Iceberg while I take John and Windfall," Savage Wolf said.

The three from Snowfall were severely injured; they needed some kind of healing. If not, they might just lose their lives.

"No," Raven responded surprisingly, standing up with no care for the three on the ground.

Without second thoughts, she materialized white and black ball from nothing and wrapped herself around her dual polarity orbs lifting herself into the sky.

It seemed like she was going to look for Enzo.

"Hey!! Don't leave!!"

"Come back!!"

Savage Wolf called out, clearly startled by Raven's decision. She was risking the lives of her teammates with this act.

At the same time, a figure bathed in flames shot through the sky, making circles around the area and slowly increasing his radius.

Enzo's ability wouldn't let him move that far when being pursued, so he was definitely somewhere around here. He just needed to spot signs of fighting so he could go help.

However, despite moving around for 10 minutes straight, he found no traces of a battle—talk less of Enzo.

Enzo's Shadow Step made it so that it was hard to track movements, since he could be in one place one minute and somewhere else the next.

But Zeke was determined.

Slowly expanding his search while going lower to the point where his flames could touch the trees.

Soon enough, he started hearing the sounds of battle, but no one was in sight. He smelt the tinge of blood, but without a speck of redness on the leaves.

However, when he crossed a particular area, he was forced to freeze.

"My flames are being suppressed?" Zeke thought to himself.

The Sky was a high-level warrior race; their abilities were hard to suppress in the same level.

He could vaguely remember Enzo mocking him about how his flames could never illuminate where he cast his shadows.

Focusing his gaze, Zeke looked around the spot which he floated above, intently searching…

"Hmp!!" Somewhere in the forest, Enzo cleaned out a trail of blood from his nose with his cloak.

In front of him, the creature had two fist indents in its chest, blood gushing out like water from a fountain.

Several deep cuts and two life-threatening wounds—that was the damage Enzo had caused to the creature at this point, and it wasn't exchanged for nothing.

Enzo had a broken heel and two cracked ribs. His breathing had been affected, and his movement too.

Fighting against this thing was harder than he thought.

As Enzo finished wiping his nose, he finally came to the decision that he couldn't do this alone and was about to run, using the Void Coffin's guardian as a buffer.

As he was going to do so, however, a blazing figure sudden shot out of the forest seemingly coming out of nowhere, sending a flying kick directly at the dismorphed mouth of the creature.

It screeched in pain as its face was engulfed in a special fire that didn't seem to want to go out.

"Zeke." Enzo saw this and nodded, his focus reignited as he walked through a shadow and joined Zeke's onslaught against the creature.

The two of them worked seamlessly, striking at its weakest points while bathing it in flames.

5 minutes later.

[You have slain a demon spawn — Son of Poison]

[Siphoning starlight]

[You have received an Echo]

Slotting his drill into the head of the creature, Enzo drilled into its brain, killing it instantly.

"Hmm." Enzo took a step back and sighed, looking down at his chest where a red plate of armor stood firmly.

Just now, he had risked it all to take down that thing with the belief that the Red Scales Echo would save him.

Thankfully, it was just strong enough.

"That was intense," Zeke muttered as his flames dialed down. He looked over at Enzo.

Truthfully, this was the worst state he had seen Enzo in since they became friends. He had so many injuries that weren't even healing.

"Yes, but it's not over yet. We still need to make sure everyone is safe," Enzo muttered, his mind going straight to Raven.

She was the least affected one of those in the crawler. He was expecting her to recover before Zeke… the fact that she wasn't here was concerning, to say the least.

"No need, we're fine."

Before Zeke could speak, Savage Wolf's voice sounded, followed by one of the instructors as they walked through the bushes and appeared in view.

"Ah?" Enzo frowned deeply, then calmed down seeing the look on their faces.

It seemed like they had gotten some huge successes.

"That girlfriend of yours is crazy," Savage Wolf muttered as they walked back to the crawler.

In the distance, two orbs the size of crawlers could be seen flying through the forest, smashing against a crab-like creature, and Mother Venom Milk.

When she had said no to Savage Wolf, she meant that she had a better idea, as she, in the next second, began to rain down carnage on the battlefield.

This created space for one of the instructors to do a quick aid assessment of the three students, healing them with spare drugs, then going to help Enzo.

Working together, they were able to turn the tides against Mother Venom Milk and her minions.

Eventually, Master Seth was able to kill Mother Venom Milk and arrive back at the crawler with her body.

"Wrap her up. Those forest people will pay top dollar for her," Master Seth laughed as he slowly approached Raven.

"As expected of the Twin Star and Great Star, you are really talents," Master Seth laughed.

The two of them were prophesied for greatness, however being great and being prophesied as great were two different things.

"We helped," Zeke pouted, his gaze panning to the dead corpse of the offspring.

Clearly, that thing was going to grow up to be just as powerful, if not more powerful, than Mother Venom Milk.

His participation in killing it was deserving of some praise.

"Yes, yes," Master Seth laughed loudly.

These kids didn't know what they had done here today, but they would very soon, and it would utterly shock them.