Chapter 150: Chapter 150: Dancing Shadows
Chapter 150: Dancing Shadows
The abandoned warehouse smelled of rust and rotting wood.
Olmo stood in the center of the massive room. The leader of the Eclipse Shadows held a glowing communication crystal near his ear. His pale face contorted into a mask of pure rage. He listened to the frantic, static-filled screams echoing from the tiny gem.
"Commander Vok is dead," a terrified voice crackled through the crystal.
"The eastern flank has been destroyed to dust. The central bridge is gone. We cannot hold the hospital zone. They used physical forces to counter our Beasts! We cannot move on like this!"
The crystal went dead.
Olmo crushed the gem in his fist. The shattered dust slipped through his fingers and hit the concrete floor. He turned around to face his elite unit.
Thirty heavily armed Cult assassins crouched in the shadows of the warehouse. They wore skin-tight stealth suits and carried poisoned blades. They were the finest killers in the Church of the Eternal Eclipse.
"The invasion is failing," Olmo announced, his voice tight with fury.
"The Bastion has hidden monsters fighting for them. Our main forces are being slaughtered like helpless livestock."
A low murmur of panic rippled through the assassins.
"Silence," Olmo hissed, raising his hand.
"We are the Eclipse Shadows. We do not fight on frontlines and charge into open fire. We own the dark."
Olmo drew his jagged daggers. The blades dripped with a highly lethal neurotoxin.
"We will abandon the frontline support," Olmo commanded.
"The main avenues are blocked. The plaza is a death trap. We will move on our own. We will infiltrate the deep residential arcologies and slaughter the defenseless civilians. We will plunge this entire city into death and force the Vanguard to watch their families burn."
The assassins nodded in dark agreement. Their fear vanished, replaced by a thirsty desire for violent revenge.
They pulled their black masks over their faces. They dissolved into their stealth techniques, turning into faint silhouettes against the brick walls.
Olmo led the way. He took five silent steps toward the main exit.
Then, he froze.
The atmosphere inside the warehouse suddenly shifted. It was an unnatural change. Just moments ago, the distant booming of artillery and the faint screams of dying Cultists had echoed through the broken windows.
Now, there was a dead silence.
The ambient noise of the warzone completely vanished. The assassins stopped moving. They looked around in deep confusion.
"Why is it so quiet?" a young assassin whispered, his hands trembling slightly on his daggers.
"Did the fighting stop?"
"Do not move," Olmo ordered, scanning the rafters.
"Check the perimeter. Something is wrong."
Three assassins crept toward the front windows to peer into the alleyway.
SLAM!
Every single metal door and glass window in the massive building violently slammed shut simultaneously. The heavy steel deadbolts locked with a deafening, synchronized click.
The Cultists jumped backward. They drew their weapons and formed a tight defensive circle in the center of the room. They were completely trapped.
A shadow near the corner of the room began to stretch. The dark puddle crawled across the concrete floor like spilled ink. The ink rose into the air, taking the physical shape of a slender girl wearing a featureless white mask.
Nyx tilted her head, looking at the thirty terrified men.
"It leaves a terrible taste in my mouth dealing with these vermins," Nyx complained aloud, letting out a heavy sigh.
"But Captain has given his orders. I need to do what I am good at as always!"
Olmo narrowed his eyes. He analyzed her mana signature. She was alone.
Nyx ignored his deadly glare. She paced slowly across the room, casually examining her sharp fingernails.
"I wonder how Lucien is doing," Nyx whined, sounding genuinely annoyed.
"Why did Captain assign him with Reina though?! I thought we could do this together and all!"
"Kill her!" Olmo roared.
Four assassins launched themselves forward. They threw a volley of poisoned throwing knives directly at her face.
Nyx did not dodge. She snapped her fingers.
[Phantom Queen]
The overhead lights instantly shattered.
The warehouse was plunged into pitch-black darkness. The throwing knives hit the concrete wall, completely missing their target.
The assassins stopped dead in their tracks, their eyes frantically trying to adjust to the sudden lack of light.
Then, the floor began to move.
The shadows cast by the machinery and the crates peeled upward. They morphed into towering, faceless horrors with jagged, physical maws. The monsters did not make a single sound.
A low-level assassin stepped backward in the dark. He felt a cold grip wrap around his ankle.
He looked down. His own shadow was holding his leg.
"Help!" the assassin shrieked.
The floor turned into liquid darkness. The assassin was violently dragged downward. He sank into the concrete up to his waist.
A faceless horror lunged from the ceiling and clamped its massive jaws directly over his torso.
CRUNCH!
Blood sprayed across the dark room. The monster chewed loudly, physically eating the assassin alive. The man’s agonizing screams were muffled as he was dragged entirely into the floor.
Total chaos erupted. The Eclipse Shadows realized they were not the hunters. They were the prey.
The monsters swarmed the Cultists. Assassins stabbed wildly into the dark, but their normal blades passed harmlessly through the shadowy bodies.
The horrors ripped arms from sockets. They bit through skulls. The sickening sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bones filled the quiet warehouse.
Olmo watched his elite unit get devoured in seconds. He refused to die like a cornered rat.
Olmo ignited his mana core. He channeled his ultimate hidden power into his dual daggers.
[Embryo of Penetration]
His blades glowed with a blinding silver light. The unique Embryo allowed his weapons to ignore physical defenses and pierce the true conceptual core of any target.
A massive shadow horror lunged at Olmo from the left.
Olmo spun on his heel and thrust his dagger forward. The glowing silver blade pierced directly through the monster’s chest. The Embryo shattered the magic binding the creature together. The horror let out a silent shriek and dissolved into harmless mist.
"I will not be eaten!" Olmo screamed, his eyes wide with manic desperation.
He was incredibly fast. He moved through the dark like a spinning blade, cutting down three more shadow monsters in rapid succession.
His piercing strikes were a natural counter to the summoned beasts. He carved a bloody path through the carnage, his eyes locked onto the faint silhouette of the masked girl standing near the back wall.
"Die!" Olmo roared, leaping into the air to bring both daggers down on her head.
Nyx did not flinch. She did not draw her weapons. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched him fly through the air.
Olmo was strong, but fighting overwhelming numbers was mathematically impossible.
Four massive shadow hands erupted from the brick wall behind him. The hands snatched Olmo’s ankles mid-air, completely halting his momentum. He slammed into the floor face-first.
Olmo scrambled to his feet, slashing frantically with his silver daggers. He severed two of the hands, but ten more erupted from the floorboards.
They grabbed his wrists. They grabbed his neck. They grabbed his waist.
"No!" Olmo shrieked, dropping his weapons as the sheer weight of the shadows pinned him to the ground.
A towering faceless horror emerged from the floor directly in front of him. Its jaw unhinged, revealing rows of spinning, jagged teeth.
The monsters piled onto the Cult leader. The shadows engulfed him entirely like a dark tidal wave.
Olmo screamed in unimaginable agony as the horrors began to literally eat him alive from the outside in. The piercing silver daggers lay uselessly on the concrete.
Seconds later, Olmo was gone.
The dark wave receded into the floor. The warehouse fell perfectly silent once again. The thirty elite assassins had been erased from existence.
Not a single drop of blood remained on the concrete. The shadows had licked the floor clean.
The broken overhead lights flickered faintly, casting a dim glow over the empty room.
Nyx sighed. She walked over to Olmo’s discarded silver daggers and kicked one across the floor out of sheer boredom.
She tapped her earpiece.
"Industrial zone is clear, Captain," Nyx reported, her tone shifting back to crisp professionalism. "Their stealth unit has been devoured."
"Good work, Nyx," Draven’s voice replied evenly.
"Hold the perimeter."
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