Everyone quickly formed up as the shade approached. Amos stood protectively next to Petrov, I paired with River, and Adia stood back-to-back with Parker.

River planted her staff firmly on the concrete below her, and I saw a fiery spiderweb-like series of lines dense with mana form under her feet.

A net-like sphere made of flames began to form around us, with a radius of about twenty yards.

I could sense intense mana fluctuations in the air, almost comparable to the weight of Alex’s sorcery back in Daybreak.

But there was a key difference between sorcerers, who used chants, and mages and magicians, who did not. Sorcerers could use their chants to control ambient mana, allowing them to have incredible effects over longer periods of time, because, after an initial large investment of mana, most chants could sustain themselves through ambient mana.

Since River was not a sorcerer, and she was using what was clearly a mana-intensive spell, she would run out of mana very quickly.

This was when Petrov stepped in, pointing his wand at River and funneling his own mana into River’s body. Essentially, he was serving as a mana battery for River’s spell.

It was a spell that required External Unattributed Mana Affinity. Technically, I could have learned this spell as well, but I had successfully argued that my mana would be more useful applied elsewhere.

I wasn’t interested in playing support in this battle.

With Petrov’s support, the sphere that surrounded us grew brighter and denser, with the holes in the net growing smaller and smaller, and the flames grew brighter.

Parker was mumbling something as well, and I felt my body lighten, and my senses sharpen.

With Mana Sensing, I watched as the highly concentrated bundle of mana in humanoid form that had been traveling through the earth, abruptly spun and tried to leave the perimeter that River had formed around us.

There was something different about these flames surrounding us. There was no heat emanating from them. They consumed the ambient mana around them, and they devoured the shade’s mana as he tried to leave the cage that River had created. The shade quickly recoiled.

The spell was called, fittingly enough, Demon’s Cage. While I had been making amulets last night, Lord Ignatius had provided River with the perfect spell for trapping a shade. River had practiced all night perfecting her new spell. And of course, Lord Ignatius had also provided Petrov with the appropriate supplementary spell—Mana Transfusion.

To my surprise, the shade traveled directly up, reaching the surface, making no move to approach us.

Rather than hide in the spiritual plane, the shade chose to manifest for us. It looked like a three-dimensional shadow, but with much greater detail and definition. Its body was skinnier and taller than a normal human, with particularly spindly arms and legs. Its hands were small, but its fingers extended into blades.

Eyes and a nose were noticeably missing on the shade’s face, leaving a horrifying absence in its place.

Its clothes were shreds of even darker shadows that waved dramatically about in nonexistent wind.

“You have come…” The shade spoke to us in a raspy voice, as though its vocal cords were scraping against a pile of nails. “to kill me?”

During our briefing, Lord Ignatius had made it clear that shades were sentient. He said the shade would know that on its eighth day here, it would be strengthened. Hence, it would flee any life-and-death battle.

But for some reason, I had never expected it the shade to speak to us, to try to reason with us.

“ha-hi-ha” it was an unnerving, unnatural laugh from the shade, that echoed strangely all around us.

“Go,” Adia said, sharply.

Petrov made a minute gesture with his hands, temporarily pausing his constant flow of mana towards River.

Three ghostly sparrows emanating an intense cold flew in a v formation towards the shade. Their wings were a translucent white, and their bodies were etched with patterns reminiscent of snowflakes.

While the Devil’s Cage above us remained rigid and in place, I could feel the part of the sphere that was below us shrink up towards us, sealing off the underground from the shade.

The shade moved, almost fast enough to make me think he teleported. One moment, he was standing almost twenty yards away, close enough to touch the fiery cage surrounding all of us.

The next moment, he appeared next to Petrov, his long fingers slicing through Petrov’s robes with ease.

Petrov backpedaled, but he was nowhere near as fast as the shade.

The shade reached towards Petrov’s heart, and I watched as Petrov’s amulet activated.

I had spent most of the night crafting E-rank Soul Shield Amulets. There were several things that were capable of blocking soul-based attacks. Personal Mana Shields worked, too. But Personal Mana Shields were very complicated, and would have taken much longer to create. Also, an E-rank Personal Mana Shield couldn’t defend as efficiently against soul attacks compared to these Soul Shield Amulets that I had created.

Of course, in this case, a D-rank creature was attacking an E-rank defensive token.

The moment the shade’s claws touched the amulet, there was a resounding crack as the amulet’s stored energy ran out.

But the slight delay in the shade’s movements had been enough for Amos to strike.

Amos’ sword sliced off the shade’s arm, and the shade reared in shock.

Once again, Lord Ignatius showed his wisdom. Amos’s new sword—Soul Slicer—directly attacked the soul. Although I couldn’t see it, I knew that the shade’s soul existed throughout its form, dwelling in the mana surrounding it.

By cutting off the shade’s arm, Amos was actually severing a part of the shade’s soul.

This was why Dawnbreaker’s trio struggled to fight the shade. No matter how powerful they were, if they didn’t have weapons or spells that could damage souls, then they could not threaten the shade.

There were four sparrows, now, approaching the shade, and the shade vanished again in a blur of movement.

The shade appeared just a few feet away from me. This time, the shade directly rammed its fist into River’s chest, dissolving the effects of her Soul Shield Amulet in a single blow.

To River’s credit, she never stopped fueling the Devil’s Cage.

As the shade struck River, I put twenty points into Agility, and drew my new sword from my sheath.

Using the Vampiric Blade against a shade would be suicide. The Vampiric Blade had no effects on the soul, or mana, and so the blade would barely damage the shade.

Lord Ignatius had generously provided me with a new weapon: Ghostbiter. It was the sister sword to Soul Slicer, made by the same blacksmith.

I stabbed my sword at the shade’s chest.

The shade had moved fast enough to avoid me hitting its core, and instead, I could feel my sword thrumming as it devoured fragments of its soul.

At the same time, Petrov’s flock of swallows finally reached the shade.

The swallows flew through the shade, and as they did, they tore gaping holes in the shade’s body.

Every time the swallows passed through the shade’s body, they grew smaller, and less cold. But at the same time, the power emanating from the shade decreased.

It felt vaguely unfair, fighting a war of resources against the shade.

But it was also something of a guessing game.

The situation wasn’t unfair, because we weren’t actually winning.

I had made eight amulets, over the course of the night. The question of distribution was hotly discussed.

Two for River, since she was controlling the Devil’s Cage.

Two for Petrov, since he had the spell that had the capacity to deal the most damage to the shade, and he was supporting River.

One for Amos, Adia, Parker, and myself.

All of a sudden, I felt the mana around the shade compress, and then explode.

It was Soul Explosion, the signature spell of a shade, and the single greatest drawback to trapping your team in a cage with a shade. In retrospect, Soul Explosion was probably why the shade had laughed when it first found us.

Soul Explosion permanently expends the user’s soul, in order to directly attack any nearby souls. In terms of a character sheet, it was the same thing as permanently reducing your stats by a set amount.

With a sudden crack, the six remaining amulets were used up, leaving all of us defenseless against the shade’s attacks.

Immediately following the Soul Explosion, the shade tried to close on River, but I was already in its way.

The shade refused to come into contact with my blade, dodging with incredible speed, trying to circle around me, but I was faster.

I made a few light jabs, forcing the shade to keep its distance from River.

Meanwhile, the first of Petrov’s sparrows had reformed. It flew towards the shade, placing itself between the shade and Adia.

I followed Samantha’s suggestion, pressing my offensive, pushing the shade back against the fiery sphere which was gradually shrinking towards us.

“Jarek! Positions!”

Just as Adia called, the shade moved. As I had pressed my advantage, I had put more and more distance between myself and River.

The shade barreled directly towards River—I blocked its path with my sword, slicing off one of its legs, surely costing it a sizable amount of its soul.

But the shade disregarded my attack, flying forward, ignoring its missing leg, and sinking its claws into River’s chest.

As the shade moved passed me, I poured every available ounce of mana into Agility.

Once again, just like when I had fled from Dawnbreaker, I felt like a veil had been lifted. It was like the feeling when you've been swimming for a long time, and you finally climb out into open air.

As I charged towards River, I watched in slow motion as the shade’s long claws reached through River’s body and pulled at something intangible.

I could see the flaming sphere around us fade in slow motion, the mana diffusing and spreading into the atmosphere at a leisurely pace.

I could see Petrov’s flock of birds—three, now—flying through the air towards the shade, so slowly.

I heard River’s last, sudden gasp, as the shade held her limp body in the air and feasted on the mana from her corpse.

Then I struck, not once, but a dozen times, in the blink of an eye.

I had almost 100 Agility. That didn’t just mean I was quick on my feet—it meant my attack speed was through the roof.

I followed Samantha’s carefully calculated strikes—attacking the thickest strands of mana that flew out of the shade’s core first.

The core was the darkest part of the shade, visually, or, with my Mana Sensing, it was the part that shone the most brightly.

With dozens of strikes in under a second, I was able to completely isolate the core. Then, I stabbed my sword directly into the core, shattering it into scattered flakes of mana.

Congratulations! You have slain North America’s Zone Lord. +20 free Stat Points.

You have unlocked Schema Missions.

You have one available mission:

Zone Offense: Slay another Zone Lord on Earth. Reward: 1 pick from the Schema Treasury (C-rank).

You have gained an Infinite Tower Token.

Level up!

Level up!