Chapter 142: An Unexpected Savior
Evan was caught somewhat off guard by this sudden discovery.
He didn’t notice the clothes right away, what struck him first was the girl herself. This was the first time since arriving here that he’d seen another person. A living person. Not one of those creatures.
It was unexpected, but thinking back to the strange phenomenon that had pulled him into this place, was it possible it had affected other people as well?
Evan had asked Seraphine about the cause behind that phenomenon, and she’d told him that the entrances into this sealed space, separated from the original world, were normally shut, and couldn’t be opened unless someone had an extremely high affinity with space, or unless the requirements imposed by the creator of these isolated dimensions were met.
It was obvious that something, or someone, had triggered a reaction from one of those entrances, which had ultimately swallowed him whole.
Seraphine had told him he was probably connected to the phenomenon somehow, though she wasn’t entirely sure how or why.
That said, she hadn’t told him whether the phenomenon had affected only him or others as well, which made sense, given their situation.
Now, seeing a living person here, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it. Relieved not to be alone in this hellhole? Or indifferent, since these people had no connection to him?
Looking through Shadow’s eyes from his elevated position overlooking the battlefield, Evan could immediately tell that the girl had gotten herself into trouble after using mana.
While debating whether to help or not, he couldn’t help but notice the particular clothes she was wearing, and recognized them immediately, they were the same uniform worn by students of the Academy of the Awakened.
He knew it well; after all, it was the same outfit Percival had worn when he’d left. And there was the emblem on the chest too, unmistakable.
’I was pretty far from the royal capital, so if even Academy students ended up here, that means whatever this phenomenon is reached all the way there, maybe even further,’ he thought, and finally gave the order for Shadow to step in.
Whether the girl lived or died meant nothing to him personally, but one thing was clear: she was a potential source of information. She might be able to tell him more about the state of the outside world.
Shadow didn’t hesitate upon receiving the order. He was already here hunting Forsaken, so with a target right in front of him, there was no reason to hold back.
He immediately released his domain, which in an instant blanketed the entire area.
The change was noticed right away by the Forsaken.
Shadow, however, paid them no mind.
With his usual calm demeanor, he summoned his army of Creatures of Death.
Dozens of shadows across the battlefield began stretching and writhing before slowly rising from the ground.
One after another, they took shape.
Some were humanoid. Others resembled beasts.
A few even looked eerily similar to the Forsaken themselves.
In no time, the field was filled with a new, numerous, and powerful group joining the hunt, except this time, the prey was the Forsaken themselves.
Sensing the concentrated mana radiating from these newly appeared beings, the Forsaken didn’t back down and threw themselves into the fight without hesitation.
The battle erupted into a chaos of shadows and claws.
Shadow’s creatures charged at the Forsaken without hesitation, driven by a predatory instinct that seemed even fiercer than that of their counterparts.
One humanoid figure, formed entirely from pure darkness darted forward, sinking blade-sharp fingers into a Forsaken’s chest before it could react, tearing out something that resembled a pulsing core of pale light.
Not far off, a shadow-beast of unnatural proportions slammed into two Forsaken at once, crushing them with sheer impact alone, while other figures, the ones bearing closer resemblance to the Forsaken themselves, matched their enemies’ same feral, mindless desperation, biting and clawing with no apparent order, pure instinct against pure instinct.
The battlefield quickly dissolved into a whirlwind of colliding bodies, snow kicked up with every impact, and screams, if they could even be called that, mixing with the snarls of Shadow’s creatures and the guttural sounds of the Forsaken.
But the battle, intense as it was, didn’t go unnoticed.
The high concentration of mana now saturating the entire area, released both by Shadow’s domain and by the clash itself, began drawing in more. Not far away, the snow started cracking open in new spots. First one, then another, then several at once.
New Forsaken were emerging.
Lirien, who had already noticed the change, watched this sudden battle between the strange creatures and the new arrivals, utterly confused and shocked.
"What are those things?" she muttered, her voice weak and trembling, from the cold, from her injuries, but also from the strange aura these beings were giving off.
Since arriving here, she’d only ever seen the Forsaken, strange things drawn to mana that had been nightmare enough on their own. But if those creatures had been the nightmare, then what were these new arrivals?
She couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d jumped straight from the frying pan into the fire, and that only deepened her despair. As much as she’d already accepted death, this shift had given her an inexplicable flicker of hope, but now, seeing what these new beings actually were, she felt even that small hope starting to slip away.
Within seconds, the battle turned chaotic, and soon more Forsaken joined the fray.
Watching things spiral further out of control, Lirien couldn’t help but wonder if this was actually a good opportunity to make a run for it.
So that’s what she decided to do, despite how badly hurt she was, she still had a sliver of strength left to move.
But just as she pushed herself up, bracing against a nearby tree for support, ready to take a step away from all of this, a chill ran down her spine, and the hair on the back of her neck stood on end.
Right as she wondered whether she’d been noticed by one side or the other, the air around her seemed to tremble, and before she could process what was happening, a visible change swept through everything around her.
The nearby shadows shuddered violently, as if provoked by something.
She looked down and realized her own shadow had trembled too.
That moment of distraction kept her from noticing a nearby Forsaken, which, seeing an easy and distracted target, didn’t hold back and lunged straight at her.
Just as she turned her head and caught sight of the incoming claw, her shadow seemed to move on its own, and a chain shot out from it instantly, impaling the Forsaken clean through the chest.
’What?’
Lirien stared, confused by the sight, especially since the Forsaken that had been hit seemed to freeze in place.
But then she noticed something else.
That Forsaken wasn’t the only one, several others across the area now had strange, dark chains driven straight through their chests.
