The moon shining brightly in the night sky, oozing its light, appeared to be hiding behind the clouds. The darkness, which was not looking that frightening due to the moonlight, suddenly started showing its true self. The shadows that had been hidden suddenly awakened from their slumber.
A strange silence descended on the area. The bug noises that disturbed everyone's sleep could not be heard. As if scared of someone, The change did not go unnoticed by the sharp senses of the Lizardman, but they were not able to understand what was happening.
Unknown to them, a shadowy figure appeared at a place not far from them. A lizard could be seen there resting with its back on the tree's roots. The only place dry in this area filled with swamps, he was constantly tortured by the mosquitoes.
These mosquitoes have evolved specially to drink the blood of the Draconic species, so neither their thick skin nor scales could save them from them; he needed to buzz them away constantly. A torch could be seen burning near him. It was tied to a long wooden stick with its bottom stuck in the mud.
The torch's flame was dancing in the cold wind passing by when suddenly, a cold gust extinguished the flame. The Lizardman, with an irritated expression, looked at it. He approached it and wanted to light it again, but unknown to him, a shadowy figure could be seen looking at him from the top of the branch.
The Lizardman only heard a 'shhh' sound before his surroundings became too silent. He could not hear the sound of the wind or the sound of the water. He stood up, looking around to discover something but couldn't sense anything. He suddenly felt a sense that something was not right.
He opened his mouth and tried to warn others around him, but only air appeared out of his mouth; there was no sound. His eyes widened in surprise. Its body shook, and its legs were ready to rush out, but before his mind could command its legs, a shadow appeared behind him.
It held his head with one hand while the other moved across his throat, As if something had just moved past it. The next moment, the reptilian brought his hand close to the throat to check. He felt a burning pain before a cut appeared there, and its body lost its power. He was about to fall with his face facing the water, but a hand appeared and held his hair, stopping his body from falling.
It was not out of kindness; another hand appeared and injected a sharp needle into the humanoid Beast's body. A light-golden-colored substance could be seen appearing on the container of the device. The device then disappeared, and a knife took its place. "Its eyes are valuable; I should not forget them," a cold voice said. After a while, a corpse fell into the water.
A black liquid was secreted from the place where ones its reptilian eyes resided. Those eyes could be seen being stored inside a jar filled with liquid. The jar then disappeared the next moment, and so did the shadow. What was left was the corpse of the reptilian with a strange Dagger shining red on its head.
Multiple flesh-eating, ferocious fish appeared and took care of the corpse, leaving behind a skeleton. A shadow appeared from behind the trees resembling the Beast that had just passed. It had a black-colored body made up of energy and a strange violet-colored fire burning in place of his eyes.
It looked at its hands raised before it and then at its complete body. The strange flame inside its eyes moved slightly before it regained its calm. He then looked at the skeleton. That thing looked very familiar yet distinct. The shadow approached it and crushed it into pieces before releasing a shard.
It then looked at the direction in which the shadowy figure had moved and started following it. Similar incidents occurred in other places. The ones that were deeper into the swamp didn't notice that the ones that had moved to the border region had disappeared.
A shadowy figure looked at him. Nothing could be seen, but from how he looked, it appeared as if he could see something others couldn't. "Come out." A cold voice echoed in the area. Soon, strange shadow creatures appeared. They all looked similar to the Lizardman; the only change was that they were made up of Shadow Energy.
"Line up," The shadowy figure commanded. The shadows lined up, and twenty of them could be seen. Fifteen resembled the infantry unit, while the Last five were mounted on a Shadow Beast resembling a raptor.
These Beasts were stronger than their previous selves but changed when he turned them into shadow soldiers. They looked like they were absorbing something from the environment that was making these changes. They were becoming more real; he could feel that some strange mutation was occurring in them.
Still, even when he should have felt happy about it, Rishi was getting more cynical. The only thing he hated was things getting out of his control. Many thoughts clouded his mind. Is someone using him to achieve something? Was this due to being in this strange realm? He was not sure about any of them.
He took a deep breath, clearing his thoughts. His eyes opened, revealing a bright violet light. "It has nothing to do with me; I would leave this place. I should use everything I have to achieve my goals. With them, I would have greater chances to succeed."
He trained them for some time, and another weird thing happened: they suddenly became disciplined. Listening to his commands like a well-trained army, Rishi didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "It's better to see where this takes me; I would escape if this all turns into a mess."
"I don't plan to bring any one of them with me other than Nimo. So do what you want, bastards; just follow my command. If I saw you not obeying me, I would destroy you at the same moment. I don't know who is controlling all this behind the scenes, nor do I care," He said as he started moving toward the deeper region.
Multiple Shadows followed behind him. Soon he reached the area guarded by an Elite Lizardman. He looked even stronger than the previous one; he had ten Lizardman soldiers around him. They have created a small camp where they are resting.
Rishi explained to the Shadows behind him how to ambush their opponents before approaching the captain, saying, "Let's see how capable you guys are", He cast the large-area 'silence' spell and turned into a Shadow Bat.
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