[Vol. 8] Chapter 138: The Humble Humbold
With a flash of the sword, the girl, now a shadow, reappeared more than ten meters behind the "tentacle monster."
Her old, dark short sword didn’t even have a drop of dirty blood on it. Meanwhile, the monster’s endless shouting suddenly stopped.
"Ugh… Don’t think this means you’ve already…"
From a wound that no one knew was there, a black shadow began to spread out like a fast-moving virus. Before the monster could even finish its sentence, the dark energy had already covered its stiff, unmoving body.
It looked like bones being thrown into strong acid. Its sharp, twisted body fell apart quickly, piece by piece, like a tower of blocks collapsing. It melted away and was completely gone, vanished into the deep darkness.
Nothing was left.
"Shhh!"
There was no time to even look back at the result of her sword strike. Miss Shadow didn’t hesitate, she quickly split the divine weapon back into one long and one short sword, raised her hand, and sheathed both. The scary aura around her, the darkness that had covered the forest, and the deep shadow in her beautiful eyes all disappeared in an instant.
Only now did she finally stumble a few steps forward and fall to one knee, clearly exhausted. Her face was pale, and she was breathing heavily.
“Huff… Huff… I didn’t think it would still take this much effort…”
Just as the enemy had said earlier, the Primordial Artifact was incredibly powerful. But the world has balance, cause and effect are always connected. If a normal person wants to use this kind of power that goes beyond reason, they must pay a heavy price.
If that strange and mysterious monster hadn’t been so dangerous and weird, maybe even reaching a truly mythical level. If there had been any other way to win, she would never have used this hidden power.
Using this move didn’t just end the battle. It would leave her weak for many days, at least ten. She would be in a special, powerless state. So while it did hurt the enemy, it also hurt herself a lot.
But if she didn’t use it, she would have died. So really, there was no choice at all.
This creature clearly didn’t belong in the trial at all. Maybe it wasn’t that strong in the eyes of the goddess, but for the candidates inside this [Gate of Ghosts], if any of them had met that thing, they almost surely would have died. The goddess would never create a trial that was impossible to pass, and she would never allow pointless killing.
Something strange was going on…
She felt a bit sorry for letting Her Highness Violet down, but she had no choice. She had to leave the trial and return to the real world. Her own safety wasn’t important, but the strange things happening here had to be reported to that important person immediately.
The Shadow Guard girl took a deep breath, stood up, and looked up at the sky.
"I will—"
“Clap~ Clap~ Clap~”
Just as she was about to speak the emergency exit phrase that the Redemption Saintess had taught them before the trial. A slow, steady clapping sound suddenly came from deep inside the forest, cutting off her words halfway.
"!?"
Miss Shadow immediately stopped, turned around, and drew her sword without hesitation.
When she saw who was coming, her eyes narrowed.
"Impossible… you should already be dead."
What she saw next was something she simply could not believe.
It was still the same strange figure covered in sharp tentacles. Just moments ago, it had been completely destroyed by Miss Shadow's dark power, nothing was left behind.
But now, it slowly walked out again from the bushes deep in the forest. Some of its tentacles even changed shape to look like human hands, and it clapped its hands to show approval to the girl.
"Very good, very good~ As expected from one of the top targets of this operation. I didn’t think that behind your legendary-level strength, you were hiding such a powerful secret move. If you were allowed to grow under the protection of your goddess and truly master that divine weapon, you would become a huge threat to our kind."
Hearing the slightly different voice and tone from before, the girl frowned a little. But she quickly understood what was going on.
"I see now… So there’s more than one of you? No wonder you could attack different trial participants at the same time. What are you people, really?"
It seemed like the strength she had shown earlier had earned the creature's respect. Or maybe this new "tentacle monster" simply had a different personality than the one she had just killed. It politely bowed to the girl, copying human manners.
"Nice to meet you, Miss Shadow. What you’re seeing now is one of the 'Illusory Beings' from the great will of our Lord, the [Lord of the Void]. We follow the will of the 'Primordial Will' as we travel through worlds, looking for twisted, broken places to purify. We are called the 'World Sustainers'."
"As for me… haha, your goddess is calling for chosen heroes, right? You can think of me as one of the heroes chosen by the Primordial Will. But make no mistake, our master is far greater than your god. That’s why I am allowed to appear here."
"All Illusory Beings come from our great [Lord of the Void]. We are united, organized, and efficient. We don’t even use names, just simple numbers. Like the one you saw earlier, it was simply called [6273]."
"But I’m honored to be one of the chosen. I was given a special title. So if you like, Miss Shadow, you can call me, ‘The Humble Humbold’."
"......"
After hearing this polite and smooth introduction, Miss Shadow’s already pale face became even more serious.
Everything pointed to one thing. This new enemy, who called themself the [Humble Humbold], was much more dangerous than the last Illusory Being.
He was not only smarter and trickier, but also far stronger in pure power.
Far, far stronger.
He was stronger than her. Much stronger than the previous one. And the special title he held probably meant there was a huge, terrifying difference in rank.
Even though this gap wasn’t as huge as the difference she felt when facing Her Highness Violet or that strange Miss Xiao Guang. It was still like looking up at a tall mountain, something she couldn’t reach. If she were at full strength and used the [Blade of Shadow: Phantom Edge], she might have had a small chance. But now...
Miss Shadow understood clearly. If this creature had been hiding nearby all this time without being noticed, then it could have easily killed her whenever it wanted.
Now, it had shown itself on purpose, probably because it had some unknown plan.
To leave the trial space, she would need to say the exit phrase out loud, and there would be a short delay. But based on Humbold’s power, they would never give her the chance.
So trying to escape would only lead to death. Her only hope was to use his pride and hidden plan against him. To take the risk and draw the Blade of Shadow once more...
A desperate final battle.