Sluggishly, Brock’s eyes glanced to the right of him. Despite his blurred vision, what he could see was clear to him. The shadow was bulging and shifting, and a protrusion was rapidly reaching up from out of it. What… the…?

In seconds, that protrusion twisted into a tentacle of black and flashed through the air, slamming into the side of the oncoming fist with enough force that it hurt Brock’s ears. The force of the impact dispelled the appendage instantaneously, but still, it was enough to divert the blow, if only by a few inches.

Brock let out a relieved breath as the sandstone beside his head exploded into storm of sand and debris. Shards of the stuff slashed at his ruined face and dust clumped his blood. Flares of pain registered in his mind, but compared to the constant drone of agony that consumed him, it was barely noticeable.

The Demon’s face was brought close to his own as the momentum in the attack brought him forward, and Brock saw anger within his expression. It was clear as day. He tried to gulp but failed miserably.

“…Who dares?!” Up this close, Brock could somewhat read the man’s lips and intuit the rest. With bloodshot eyes, the Demon glanced around, eying every crevice and section of the area. Brock felt the shadow beneath him squirm.

From beside Brock’s leg, a wicked spike of black shot up and attempted to skewer the Demon. Needless to say, it failed. Compared to the reaction speed of its target, the attack might have well as moved at a snail’s pace.

The monster’s arm whipped around and snatched the spike out of the air. In a quick move, he spun it around and plunged its tip into Brock’s thigh, his eyes never leaving the surroundings. It elicited a pained wheeze from the injured man, and the spike quickly puffed into a black mist. A gaping hole was left behind.

He glanced at the bleeding hole in his leg. That… really hurt…

As his blurred eyes distinguished the mist wisping up past him, he remembered that he knew only one person that commonly had access to his shadow. Mio… you fucking idiot…

He tried to wheeze out his thoughts, to tell the woman to flee before she herself was killed for trying to save him. He was apparently an ‘Error’, something that could be studied and examined, while she was only human. Mio had no research value, and something that had no value alive was better off dead. He knew that was the Demon’s mentality. He could see it in those slitted eyes.

Wait…

Brock briefly glanced at the foreign aura wafting up from his shadow, and as he witnessed the overpowering being furiously searching for her in every direction, Brock realised something. Mio was entirely undetectable to him. Even the E Grade monster standing before him was unable to sense the woman lurking in the shadows.

In the brief moment the Demon looked away and spun around to examine that which was behind him again, Brock saw a pale, tender arm reach out of the shadow and tap the ground. For a second, Brock thought it was some kind of form of communication. Then the entire area around them began to roil and seethe and he glanced up at the canopy above him.

All around them, in every direction, was shadow. Mio’s aura now wafted up from everywhere.

Even with his tinnitus consumed hearing, Brock could pick out the raw fury in the snarl that reverberated across the desert region. An aura washed over him the next moment, and he swore he felt his brain bleed. It wasn’t even directed at him, yet the raw power left him spasming uncontrollably despite his unresponsive nerves.

His body quickly adjusted, however, and Brock managed to calm his body to only slight twitches. The roiling shadows flickered and shifted weakly, but Mio remained her control over them. Whoever this man was, he had power, but lacked the unique ability to disrupt Techniques like Brock had. And that was to Mio’s advantage.

Then, as his headache increased in intensity severalfold and bloody tears welled in his eyes, hundreds of dark tentacles rose up from the canopy-cast shadow. Time seemed to freeze, the tentacles and the red-tinged man remaining unmoving, then they blurred into motion. Tentacles carved through the air toward him, only to be briskly avoided or outright destroyed with but a swipe.

Occasionally as he danced around them, spikes rose up from the ground and scratched at the ivory combat robe he wore, but he moved quickly enough that they never found purchase. And with the flowing, yet durable material those robes seemed to be made of, Brock doubted that they would have had much of an effect even if they had found purchase.

As time drew on, and this dance between shadows continued, Brock realised something. Mio wasn’t trying to fight that Demon to save him. She was trying to distract him.

While he admitted he was borderline blind at this point, Brock still felt it each and every time those slitted yellow eyes fell upon him. And he had felt those resulting chills and goosebumps several times already, meaning he was keeping a close eye on him. Despite himself, Brock didn’t begrudge him that.

You’d have to be a special kind of dickhead to not realise the obvious ploy at hand.

And so, he waited, doing his best to survey the battle of colours and shapes that flashed by in his questionable vision. Around him, the rising strands of aura were getting thinner – weaker - as Mio consumed her aura to fuel her desperate onslaught. Brock knew that each second she spent creating tentacles was a few more kilometres she wouldn’t be able to teleport them for their escape.

A tangle of tentacles swept in from the side, two high and one low as they attempted to knock the being off balance. A snort carrying the weight of his derision and frustration echoed outward, and his foot stomped down onto the sand. A jagged monolith of ice shards formed out from his toes, splintering the shadows and rendering them to mist.

One last tentacle cut in from behind, aiming to catch him by surprise.

His foot broke free from the ice and he twisted around, a clawed hand glowing azure and billowing with icy mists. He snatched the final tentacle within his grasp and the shadowy appendage iced over. Quickly, it shattered, falling to frosted, black chunks. Brock didn’t even know if what he thought he saw was possible, but he tried to gulp anyway. An Augment of Ice… a tier above like Gor’eth’s…

Still, the shadows roiled and bulged beneath the both of them, but no more tentacles rose up and attacked. From the wisps of aura, Brock could tell Mio hadn’t yet fallen below the 65% mark, and he felt his panic begin to rise as the being roared in fury and stalked back towards him, taking the respite as a chance to finish what he came here to do and get out.

Brock’s chest shuddered as he took in a quick breath. His body was healing, slowly but surely. It still wouldn’t be quick enough. Did Mio… give up?

No. She’s still in my shadow…

The distance was shrunk between him and his captor. From the prior ten meters to only five. Before quickly becoming thr-

From the space in front of him, Brock witnessed a veritable surge of misty aura, blowing upward like a geyser. The Demon seemed to sense it too, as his eyes widened for a brief second. Then, with a powerful gust of wind and an explosion of loose sands, a mass of shadows exploded upwards, forming a dark wall woven of thorned tentacles.

Immediately, a clawed hand punctured through it, and from the way the man’s breath caught, Brock could tell he expected the wall to dissipate with a single blow. That caught breath quickly turned into a growl as another aura signature appeared on the battlefield.

That of Mio’s.

To Brock’s left, she rose up from the shadows, before collecting his bleeding and broken form in her arms and pulling him down into the darkness. Another hand finally swiped through the bastion of shadow after his brief confusion faded, creating intense winds that almost seemed to slash at Brock’s face. It carried a frosty cold that chilled his skin stiff.

As his shadow climbed up over his head and he looked ahead, he met two slitted, yellow eyes, almost radiant in their fury. They pierced past the veil of blackened mist that resulted from Mio’s broken wall and stared into his very soul.

“Remember the name Zin fucking Keene. I’ll find you,” Brock made out what appeared to be a grin, revealing sharp fangs. It carried no joy or humour, but instead pure rage, “And I’ll tear that wretch limb from fucking limb.”

It was clear to him that he was speaking of Mio. He felt oh so tired as they fell into the darkness.

**

Mio’s heart pounded in her chest, threatening to break past her ribcage and drift out into the shadow realm that surrounded them. Wrapped in her arms was Brock, and his sorry state made anger and frustration seethe within her gut.

The man’s limbs were twisted and broken, his face caved inward to the point that she was amazed that he was still conscious, let alone alive. A hole had punctured cleanly through one of his thighs, revealing the blackness of the void through the other side of it. She felt a pang of guilt as she glanced through it. That one was her fault.

She felt his blood dripping onto her arms, and she watched it float away as they fell. It was dark like oil.

Around them, the darkness shifted and swam, or perhaps they were the ones that were swimming. She didn’t truly understand the realm her power gave her access to, although she was learning more about it with every use. Only months ago, she had realised she could store items in here, and a month later that she could store herself in here, outside of teleportation, that is. Though that did require a shadow to anchor herself to.

Despite that growing understanding, she had no idea where she was taking the two of them. She felt her aura depleting massively as each second flew by and constituted another stretch of distance. In her panic, she hadn’t really thought to focus upon any specific place, and instead instinctively reached out for the furthest location from where they were currently.

They could end up in Japan, or somewhere entirely opposite that, she had no idea. Either way, and despite Brock’s clearly critical condition, she knew they needed to get moving the moment they warped to their destination. According to Ari Ahnjong’s sister, that being had possessed some method to track Brock, meaning he probably also had some way to follow her teleportation.

And if he warped atop them while she was treating Brock’s wounds, well they may as well just kill themselves for him. Fortunately, the aura of the man in her arms remained steadfast, and while it was weakened, it wasn’t weakening at a significant pace. She still had time before things got serious.

Mio glanced at his caved head. She had no idea how, but they did.

Suddenly, the shadows gave way to blue skies and lush fields as they fell upwards and out of the shadow realm. Brock lurched in her arms, his weight somewhat heavy but within the capability of her Strength, and he spewed blackened blood out onto the ground. She couldn’t exactly tell where it came from, only that it exited from three different points in his face.

As she witnessed the strangely familiar fields and snowy tipped mountain peaks looming in the distance, Mio’s legs trembled, and she finally fell to her knees. Gently, she laid Brock to rest along the ground, and stopped herself from collapsing atop him as her consciousness waned.

Her eyes, wide and wet, glanced around them. Two lines of tears trailed down her cheeks. This… was where I had been taken from before the System came…

Gritting her teeth, she dispelled the thought and focused, darkness closing in on her sight.

With a practiced hand, she reached into the pouch hanging from the belt at her waist and yanked out a single berry. It appeared similar to a blueberry, although possessed rippled lines of a lighter azure across its skin. Promptly, she threw it into her mouth and swallowed. Her aura surged to safe levels only a few seconds later.

Auraberry, as they had been so aptly named by the System, were originally found in abundance growing inside the domain of a particularly territorial group of beasts. They had spotted other instances of its growth, though the former was the largest case. Of course, upon realising their power, the beasts were promptly slain, and the berry bushes were taken and replanted.

Of course, other such fruit and vegetable plants had been found, ones that produced things other than Treasures, as well as various different herbs. With all possessing a variety of effects, many believed they would pave the way to fantasy-esque alchemy, as often seen in films and stories. The current book she was reading, in fact, featured such alchemy.

She wouldn’t mind trying it out sometime, as she rather enjoyed the idea of it. She knew Brock’s friend, Harry, would be a prime choice for it.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Brock sputtered beneath her, blackened blood dribbling from his face and body in spurts and streams. The man hadn’t seemed to have used too much aura – though she had no idea how he even could - but Mio still feed him an Auraberry just in case. Hopefully, it would keep his aura strong, and keep him alive.

Grimly, she eyed his wounds. She had a medical kit stored in her shadow - all shadow scouts did - but she held extreme doubt that it would help. Even if it could, she had no idea where to even start. As far as she knew, Vitality would heal the injuries with time, though that required her to keep him alive until it could take the reins in her stead.

As she scooped him up in her arms and began moving, she wondered just how she was supposed to do that.