(Chapter 8) The Shadow Guardians.

Different hues of dried blood painted the make-shift spear that I had made long ago.

The rope connecting the handle and the blade had been frayed and worn out. It had over-lived its usefulness so I discarded it and used my fire magic to create and intense heat. Then I fused the two parts of my spear together.

It was still a poor weapon but I had spent so much time with it that I had grown fond of the spear. It was MY weapon.

I had done this when I was still on the platform of that odd shadow guardian. Now I was on the rope bridge steadily making my way to the next plateau.

A few hours passed.

I sighed in relief as I saw the next plateau. After my…..awakening, I was not in the mood for spending 5 days on another stupid rope bridge.

I climbed the stairs up to the top and saw a small desolate landscape, without any hint of life and littered with rocks.

In the middle of the area was a full body suit of armor……..Oh! It was coming to life!

Shadows flickered in-between the gaps of the suit of armor and then the armor moved…..

“Welcome to my domain, I am the 96th guardian of Heavens Dungeon and the 4th of the 5 Shadow Guardian. You must have defeated my younger brother, Echo, to arrive here.

“Come child, I haven’t had a good fight in ages! I The Shadow Knight will honor you with a battle!”

What an idiot, he must be the valorous knight type. I hated grand and over-bearing characters like this guy. They reminded me too much of those pompous Gods in Heaven that my old man had to suck up too.

I was already getting agitated, I could feel my blood thirst leaking out of me…Ah……I am going to devour this idiot…..Kill..

Wha? No, stop! Get a grip Muzumi, calm down….okay…okay I am fine, just gotta keep my emotions in check

Let’s stay relaxed…….ah…..much better….

I charged at the Knight leaving a small red blur caused by the blood mist behind me. I appeared in front of the Knight by closing the distance of 50 meters in just a few seconds. Then I swung my spear aiming for in-between the gaps of the knight’s armor!

-Clang!-

The knight had a sword in his hand. I hadn’t noticed it before but it must have been sheathed behind his back. The speed of the knight was fast and he had stopped my blow with very quick movements. This might end up being a difficult battle!

I pushed myself away from the knight and slowly began circling around him, he mirrored my movements and also began circling. We were both trying to find each other’s openings within our stances.

“You fight like a warrior, child….how interesting.”

I clicked my tongue in irritation, this stupid arrogant knight and his chatty mouth. I am going to shut him up!

We both charged at each other and started swinging our weapons, the knight used a very weird martial arts that seemed to focus on heavy blows. This martial arts would be very strong against a larger opponent like some monster but with my small child body…..I had a big advantage!

His strikes seemed to sacrifice a lot of speed for strength, although his defense and parrying were on point and it was very hard for me to find an opening, it was similarly difficult for him to hit me.

With quick movements, I was able to dodge his seemingly sluggish attacks.

I was a little disappointed. If this knight broadened his vision as a warrior and utilized more of his speed in his attacks, he would be much more dangerous…

After a few minutes of intense skirmishing, I was able to figure out how to win.

The strongest weapon in my arsenal is the combination of both my martial arts and my magic!

I still hadn’t used any magic, I would get close to him and then strike him with it! I already knew the weakness of these shadow creatures too. They seemed to recover from direct blows, the only way to kill them was to rip them into pieces!

It was a shallow and unimaginative strategy, but one that was both tried and tested as being extremely successful.

Then, I finally saw an opportunity.While the knight was thrusting his blade at me, I purposely let myself get clipped by one of his blows and then twisted towards his body!

I was now in touching distance, I focused my entire mana pool into my finger tips and willed all of my mana into magic!

“Death Frost!”

A deathly chill exploded out of my hand and instantly covered the body of the knight, the entire suit of armor and the shadow creature inside were both instantly frozen!

Then, with a casual blow I obliterated the frozen shadow knight into tiny pieces.

This sort of magic looked incredibly strong, but I had to be within touching range while being very focused to use it and for it to be effective. Also, to achieve the effect I wanted I had to exhaust almost all of my entire mana pool!

But, I didn’t care in the slightest about using so much mana, I would do anything to win!

Additionally, my Blood Mist would regenerate the mana at a much faster pace than meditation. By the time I would reach the next plateau, I would already be fully recharged.

I felt regretful about destroying the knight’s sword in the process. It would have been a good upgrade from my spear as it was both a well-forged weapon and I was a martial artist that trained in the way of the sword.

Without wasting any time, I walked towards the next rope bridge. Confident that my injuries would heal and my mana would recover on the way to the next guardian thanks to the blood mist.

-10 Days Later-

“Ha……ha……..ha……….”

I was breathing heavily while sitting on the ground the recent battle had almost been the death of me!

I sat there, recalling the events of the last 10 days while letting my blood mist heal my injuries….

The battle after the Knight had been difficult, it was against a giant Shadow snake-like creature, it had spared no time on introductions and immediately engaged me in combat.

I was very used to fighting against formidable enemies though. Every single battle here in the Heavens Dungeon had been against an enemy that was capable of taking my life. Yet I was confident that unless I fought something that was unbelievably stronger than me, something so strong that I had absolutely no chance, I would still be able to win. The giant snake had a weakness that it mostly relied on charging attacks to deal any real damage. If I took care while being near its head and tail I would be able to fight it.

I then used hellfire to strike at the snake, and it had reacted splendidly. It seemed very afraid of fire like any normal beast. From that knowledge, I slowly cornered it and then dealt a killing blow by severing its body in two pieces from exerting my mana into body strengthening magic.

The 98th guardian had been a lot harder to defeat. It was a giant shadow dragon. I had originally been afraid as I knew that I had absolutely no chance if the shadow dragon was as strong as a real dragon…

Back in hell, I had tried challenging a zombie dragon, and those only had about 40% of the power of a real one, and I had almost died….I was 16 at the time.

But after a few attacks from the dragon I was able to estimate that the shadow dragon…..was not even 2% as strong as a real dragon. From the knowledge in my past life, I knew that all dragons had a core within them, and that striking the core would instantly kill them.

Sure enough, I had managed to get close to the shadow dragon after a while of battling and when I did I condensed hellfire into my right hand.

Condensed hellfire had the ability to cause explosions when used, using this property I focused my mana and aimed the hellfire directly at the core of the dragon, which lay in the center of its chest!

Sure enough, the core was destroyed and the shadow dragon slowly crumbled into nothingness.

The 99th guardian had given me more difficulties than any other guardian though…

So far, he had been the strongest one in the entire dungeon.

The 99th guardian was a shadow man, he was neither tall nor short, and held a shadow blade in his hands.

Without exchanging any words, we immediately engaged in combat. His speed and strength were on par with me using my strongest continuous form of body strengthening magic. He also could use an extremely advanced form of martial arts. His attacks were complex and fast, and his defense was also incredibly formidable. He utilized many feints and all parts of his body while fighting. But the most surprising thing was….That he could also use magic!

Some sort of Shadow-flame and Shadow-Frost magic had come assaulting me. I wasn’t able to rip his body apart under these conditions and I was slowly racking up more and more injuries until I finally decided to risk it and borrow power from the blood mist.

During the battle I gave in slightly to my urge to devour and the blood mist began thickening and swirling all around me.

My strength and the pace at which I was recovering from injuries and absorbing mana had greatly increased!

Then the fight had gotten extremely bloody, we both had the same recovery rate and he could also continue casting magic over and over again.

The battle had gone on for hours.

But then, my slight advantage in strength due to the blood mist began showing as I started attacking recklessly and overpowered the shadow….

I somehow managed to push the shadow onto the ground and slash its body into many pieces.

While it was crumbling, it finally talked.

“My name is Large Echo, the first lieutenant of the Shadow legion and the oldest of the Echo Brothers…….My youngest brother………Echo……….he followed me in my footsteps and learned the Echo Arts……but my other brother….ha……he was a dreamer……he wanted to live as a dragon slayer……and go on many adventures…………and rescue many people………ah…….what is this nightmare……..and will……………will it ever end?”

Now, thinking back on the battle I realized that whoever was the final guardian, and the next enemy, was probably the leader of this Shadow Legion.

This lieutenant had already pushed me so far, I don’t think I would be able to fight this leader at my current power.

I needed some sort of triumph card…Hmmm…

An idea came to me.

Could I……Could I possibly?

Yes, my mana was now very large, maybe just for one spell, I would be able to use the Death Arts.

Death magic was very violent in nature and using it without absorbing another soul was considered impossible but, there was a secret not known by many people.

If one would be able to cultivate enough spiritual energy and grow their mana pool large enough, you could use some Death magic briefly if you had knowledge of it.

The repercussions on using the Death magic would be very high though. Death magic was involved in soul manipulation and willing the soul to create magic. Forcing your own non-reinforced soul to use death magic would result in extreme fatigue.Also, you probably couldn’t use any of the higher tier Death Arts, but the death Arts were extremely powerful!

Only just the Third Death Art, was death magic that could make your worldly needs no more, Soul Sustain!

The Death Art I had in mind though was…..Death Art 6, Soul crackle.

It shouldn’t be too difficult, using my mana to create a soul tearing lighting attack that also contained a spiritual attack within, this was Soul crackle!

“Yes, perhaps, with this I will be able to win against this leader of the shadow legion.”

Having found an answer to my problems and now recovered from most of my injuries, I got up onto my feet and started walking towards the bridge in the distance.

As I got closer though, I was pleasantly surprised, the bridge this time wasn’t a rope bridge…..It was made from steel!

“It seems as If the final battle draws close…”

-Yuzu here, hope your excited for the Final Battle inside Heavens Dungeon next chapter! Also marking the end of the first Arc in my story, The Heavens Dungeon Arc. Thank You very much for reading <3