Sam didn't wait for the shadow to make the first move, he slashed diagonally and the sword hit the shadow that just appeared squarely in the chest and a portion of the darkness that is surrounding him vanished creating a large grey patch.

But it is only one-hundredth of the whole darkness. So, Sam has a bitter battle ahead of him.

The two figures exchanged several sword moves, Sam's first move was due to the unpreparedness of the shadow and since then, it became hard for him to land a solid strike on the shadow.

As they were exchanging moves, Sam's skin was being blackened bit by bit. But with his whole body, it was very minute all that was blackened is half of the pinky toe.

But the darkness around him was also receiving damage and was being eroded bit by bit creating grey patches randomly all over the place.

The spirit didn't say anything at all. The eyes on the horizon are carefully inspecting Sam.

The battle is unlike the battle of cultivators, it is a pure swordsman battle without sword lights and sword rays. It is a battle of pure skill.

Since the start Sam didn't move much from his original position. He had used his moves to the bare minimum as he battled.

Even though he didn't cover a large portion of the area, the area within the range of the sword is completely in his control.

The shadow's moves are being read and he was becoming more and more proficient in stopping, at the same time, Sam's moves are also being read as he noticed that he wasn't able to do much damage.

Sam stopped receiving any damage when his left foot was completely blackened. The shadow could be seen becoming more and more restless.

At this moment, Sam made his first huge movement. He started attacking the shadow from all the sides, his speed was used to the extreme and in a second all the sides of the shadow have slashes.

A large amount of darkness was greyed out, leaving only one-fourth of it around the shadow.

"Human, you are the only one who forced me this far, but this is as far as you can go." The spirit said after a long silence.

The darkness around the shadow slowly disappeared and concentrated into the shadow's body. The sword became extremely bright and a dark aura was being emitted from it.

Sam also started concentrating all his remaining mental energy, his whole 'body' became dull and translucent and the true body of Sam outside was bleeding through the nose.

In a second, the bright and the dark sword collided fiercely and the whole space rippled due to the collision.

Sam crashed backward into the grey surroundings like a ragdoll and the shadow which was standing there was completely greyed out. The eyes looked at Sam who is barely conscious and there seemed to be a glint in them.

Sam was completely blackened. From a foot to his whole body everything was blackened except for a small portion at the forehead.

A small portion which is only as big as his eye was still in normal bright color.

"You are an interesting kid." The eyes disappeared and Sam's consciousness returned to his body.

When he opened his eyes, Sam felt his head spinning and there was blood all over his clothes which dripped down from his nose. His hand was holding the shadow sword and as he was in confused whether he had succeeded or not a voice boomed in his head.

"Human, you are not that bad, although you only have a fraction of ability of my master, you are not the worst one, you are better than an average cultivator.

I will stay with you for now. But don't think about wielding me in battles, my power is too much for you to bear, even a single swing will cost you a limb. Except you are in a desperate state don't use me and even then, I will be the one who is in control, or else you would die sooner or later."

Sam smiled at the sword spirit's words. He was extremely excited to see the capabilities of the sword, but as the sword said he is too weak to wield its power.

"Thank you, but I cannot carry you around, I will send you somewhere, don't resist." Sam sent the shadow sword into the divine dimension, where reaper and executioner are present. The sword circled around the other two and sent a voice to Sam.

"Boy, who made these two?"

"I made them myself? Why?"

"Hmm, you are not that bad. Although they are not as great as me, the materials and craftsmanship are not bad."

Sam didn't say anything and just chuckled. He has been unconscious for a whole day; he has many things to do.

At this moment, the remaining four teams of people from the remaining powers all got the news, the seer tower is in for a great business.

The lightning spear sect members are all dead.

Even though they expected this, the members are all shocked when they found out how they died. In all three battles, the lightning spear sect members all have the advantages in strength and in preparedness. The three targets are all training and more or less in a weakened state.

After all, they are not cultivating rather improving their skills, which will exhaust their energy. But the three attackers are killed.

When they saw the scenes, the ThunderBolt sect, which is the second closest to the thunder god temple's territory and also afraid that it would fall in the thunder god temple's hands, were already preparing to leave, but after seeing the battle they wanted to make some additional preparations.

But, even before them. Tran, Rid, and Sylvia are even in more hurry. Their time limit was about to be finished. They have to find a way to deal with them.

They left for their territory. The Beast Faction.

They went to the island where they received the orders and met the young man with the chain sickle.

They explained the battle and the results.

"Are you not confident?"

"There is a fifty-fifty chance for us to kill them, it would be difficult to catch them alive."

The man with the chain sickle frowned at these words and explained something before they left.

While these teams that are deployed are making preparations, some people are holding Sam's picture with gnashing teeth.

They all recognized Sam due to his signature black feather-coat.

They are none of other than the people who have tattoos on their backs in the Palace of inheritances. They couldn't forget the beatings they took from Sam. But the frustrating part is they cannot do anything about it.

They are all waiting. Waiting for the time to be right and reach a certain threshold and once they reach that level, they would hunt Sam. No matter, where he is.

The higher-ups of the Lightning spear sect received the news about the deaths of their elites and are now thinking on how to deal with Sam and his friends. Three Grand realm cultivators is a small price and they didn't expect them to bring back anything.

They sent them just for probing. But their results are not worth it, considering that there is no estimate on the battle prowess of the targets.

While, all over the world, various big-shots are trying to think of ways to deal with him, Sam is preparing for breakthrough.

He is preparing the shadow mouse number one as his fourth contract.

Since, the day he got the shadow mice, he has the thought of making a contract with one of them, but he decided to explore and find suitable beasts and in case he was in a situation where he couldn't find any, he decided to make a contract. In short, he always wanted to have one beast in reserve.

But now, the situations are a bit demanding and he need to breakthrough as soon as he can. The enemies will surely find him eventually and he would be in bitter battles. Aside from that, he also need the dark element and the shadow mouse has mutated dark element with shadow nature.

Another reason being the shadow sword having a special attack of shadow element, he this really is a great time to make a contract with shadow mouse.

So, he is now in the backyard of his residence with a large formation concealing them along with the beasts.

He made handsigns and formed a contract as four of them shared a bond. This time, there is no trouble of the beast being weak or any bloodline purification matters.

He closed his eyes and started checking his spiritual core. There is a new small sphere along with the wisp of light, the golden flame, wind tornado and the water.

The sphere is a fusion of two shades one half being plain black indicating the pure dark element and the other half being a bit smoky with black colour smoke indicating the shadow element. Now he has the dark element and it is time for him to learn a new topic that needs dark element.