In this bewildering night, the thick colorful smoke was gently rolling and tossing with the breeze, and everything in the surrounding area seemed silent and peaceful as always. But the faint killing intent shrouded in the darkness was silently indicating how terrible and dangerous the night actually was! 

The prolonged confrontation that Punk envisioned in his mind did not happen. Almost immediately after he completed all these arrangements to confuse the enemy, an obscure but very obvious shadow energy fluctuations came from the east of the smokey area. 

"Damn it!" 

 Punk cursed secretly in his heart. Even without seeing the system's analysis, he knew what the Assassin did. She had just used one of the signature skills of Assassins to escape into the Shadow Plane! 

The Plane of Shadow can be said to be the opposite of the Pheren Plane. If the colorful reality of Pheren was a positive expression of the reality, then the negative side of this reality was the gray and mysterious Shadow Plane. 

 The Assassin's ability to escape into the Shadow Plane was a skill that consumed a large amount of shadow energy; in exchange, it allowed the Assassin to enter the shadow plane temporarily. The length of this temporary situation was only about two seconds. Hence, the primary function of this skill was to avoid powerful attacks. However, now, the Assassin used this trick to confirm Punk and Kane's position! 

The smokescreen spell that Punk created obviously cannot spread into the Shadow Plane. So now the enemy could easily locate them inside the Shadow plane, and then the cover of this smoke would be completely meaningless! 

Sure enough, Punk vaguely felt some cold energy attached to him in the next instant. This was a tracking skill of the Assassin class called Shadow-attachment. With this skill's help, it was very easy to locate someone or something within a specific range; So finding them even with the thick smoke could be said to be a breeze! 

Although this was a relatively low-level tracking skill and only needed an apprentice-level dispeling spell to get rid of this tracking mark, Punk didn't believe for a second that the enemy would let him dispel it. 

Punk, whose position was now compromised, decisively ordered all the mana balls to explode immediately. And with bright blue flashes, the violent energy wave exploded in all directions. This terrifying mana explosion blew away all the smoke in that area at once, exposing the flat ground, which was now filled with potholes, and there was a faint energy vibration still present in the air!

As Punk himself, and Kane were at the center of such a big explosion, the energy tide was continuously impacting them, however, with their strong defensive means, both of them could resist these fairly easily. But what if they were replaced by a physically fragile Assassin, who specialized in concealment and speed? 

 Even though there was a very big chance that she was fully aware of the abnormal energy fluctuations of the mana balls and successfully evaded the explosion in time, she would still be hit by the energy shock-wave after, which won't feel that good. And the most important thing was that she could not continue to hide inside such a violent shock wave! 

"Got you!!!" 

Kane, who had been carefully sensing the area with his battle qi, instantly locked to a place where there was a sudden and very faint energy fluctuation, which obviously meant that some kind of unusual obstacles blocked his battle qi.

Suddenly, the suppressed battle qi burst out from every inch of Kane's body, and he charged straight to that area after activating a fighting skill. Kane ran with his full force, and accompanied by a sonic boom, Kane's figure became a blurry golden shadow and instantly reached the targeting area like a speeding bullet. 

"Boom!!!" 

A huge sound echoed in the night sky, and a wave of sharp wind mixed with crushed gravel swept away from the place where Kane was stabbed his Lance. Standing in the giant impact crater, Kane slightly shook his steel lance, which now, along with the armor on his body, became glowing red because of the air friction. 

If this blow hit the target, the enemy as an Assassin would have definitely become a paste of flesh and blood. 

But, The result was in front. Punk's vision clearly captured a graceful figure entangled in shadows, like an illusion, flashing away just before Kane's Lance hit. 

"You think you can still hide it? Now that I have found you. you can just forget about it!" 

As Punk said this, A sharp cold light flashed in his eyes, and with the help of the system, he keenly perceived the vague shadow fluctuations on the enemy's body again. He chanted a spell in a low voice and pointed the spell in his hand at the exposed Assassin! 

"Distorted Lightning," 

 With the assistance of the system, Punk had already constructed this spell as early as Kane had just rushed out. A cloud of etheric energy had just been summoned, and then it began to transform into lightning at an astonishing speed and lashed out as Punk pointed toward its target. While making harsh crackling sounds, a group of dazzling lightning, traveling at the speed of light, instantly arrived at the area where the Assassin was and covered her whole body. A large number of violent electrical discharges continuously blasted out from that area which left intricate black marks on the surrounding land! 

This spell's speed was almost the speed of light, but Punk's casting speed was not.  So, at the moment the Assassin noticed the bursting energy in Punk's hands, she dodged Kane and immediately escaped to the Shadow Plane disregarding the strain on her body. And with the help of this very powerful evasion method, she successfully avoided the fatal blow once again! 

"Something is wrong!" 

Punk frowned slightly. Even if the enemy managed to escape into the Shadow plane again to evade, when she comes out, she would still be targeted and attacked by Punk and Kane.

 So, when she fled into the Shadow plane to evade, except for delaying death for a short while, it would achieve nothing. Especially now that Punk and Kane were ready with their attacks, the enemy would not be able to avoid again when she reappears on the Main plane,  and if she dares to escape into the shadow plane for the third time, then there was not even a need to attack. 

Because, as a trainee-level Assassin, it was already very energy-consuming to enter the Plane of Shadow, then there was also the huge load on the body for using such skill multiple times in a short period of time. So, if she entered again, then, Punk and Kane would not need to continue fighting, as there was a very high chance that she would become unconscious. 

Because of this, when the enemy was facing his attack, it was more reasonable to choose severe injury, then at least there was still a glimmer of hope of escape.

"Something is absolutely not right. The enemy is not the kind of fledgling novice who will commit such low-level mistake and ruin her last chance of escape."

Thinking of this, Punk's decisively dissipated the second Distorted Lightning that he almost condensed and started to concentrate.

As a frequent user of prophecy spells, his intuition told him that it was not the Assassin, who was almost out of shadow energy, that was in danger now, but Kane and himself, who seemed to be winning! 

The gloomy dark clouds unknowingly hid the brightest moon, Gall. A cold breeze was blowing silently in the dark night. Suddenly, before the enemy even came out from the shadow, a huge sense of danger flooded every inch of Punk's mind!