ã€ŠShades Darksideã€‹


 Chapter 1

    ''There goes Mrs Figgs,''Shades thought, as he walked down the street, plastic bag in hand. The milk was low again. He thought he might as well have gotten some exercise and walked a few block to a store near him, sitting in front of a screen day and night can¡¯t be the best thing. He finally completed the company¡¯s app though, after two days straight. He wasn¡¯t the best in the business for nothing, he thought with pride, smiling slightly.

    His eyes drifted to the other side of the street, spotting some teenagers.

    Tomorrow¡¯s school¡­ His smile evaporated. Holidays ended that day and the life of a common pleb awaited him again. He promised his mother he¡¯d focus on his schoolwork and leave the other stuff for the holidays. She knew he¡¯d completely forget about school if his mind got started on another project.

    Not that he really needed to go to school. He was set for life with the earnings he made on every project, but socialising was apparently an important skill.

    Even still, he barely ''socialised'', sitting in the back of the class. The interests of everyone else wasn¡¯t very¡­interesting. Luckily his high school days ended this year. He¡¯d probably go travelling. He always wanted to see what the ¡°city of glass¡± looked like. Maybe go on a month- or two long trip on a boat. Maybe pick up a girl or two.

    His daydreams left him as he arrived as his apartment building, walking up the steps to the front door, he almost walked into his neighbour opening the door.

    ¡°Hey! Haven¡¯t seen you in a while.¡± He almost covered his eyes from the dazzling smile she gave him. Some would call her hot, he just called her irritating. Swiping her hair every two seconds, blinking her eyes as if she was going blind, acting as if a camera was behind her every second of the day. Then again, she was a model.

    ¡°Yeah, just busy with some work.¡± He said, still standing on the bottom step.

    ¡°Work?¡± She frowned. ¡°I thought school only starts tomorrow though??¡± She almost seemed panicked.

    ¡°It does. This was other work.¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡± She looked at him for a moment, before squeezing past, uncomfortably close. ¡°Well, I¡¯m off to the gym.¡± He only now noticed her workout clothes. Which was saying something, since a model with tights was pretty hard to miss. She seemed almost disappointed. He wasn¡¯t gay! He just preferred it if the girl had an IQ higher than the length of her selfie-stick¡­ Even if she did have a fantastic ass. He did not stare at her curves!

    He merely glanced.

    Putting the milk away, he fell into his bed. There was still a few hours before nightfall, but with the threat of boredom being the only foreseeable future, he just couldn¡¯t take it anymore! The stress got to him and he passed out on his bed. Either that or sleep deprivation. He preferred the former.

    <hr>

    ¡°And so we¡¯ll use this theorem to bleh out the bloop and measure the pow-wow in the meh-meh.¡±

    The teacher said, scientifically, with Shades mentally providing the necessary edits to his speech where needed. It wasn¡¯t that he didn¡¯t find the subject interesting, but he¡¯d already, accidentally, read the book last year¡­ Don¡¯t ask.

    His internal musings on the hypothetical reasons for the teacher¡¯s monotone speech was rudely interrupted by a flashing, golden spot in the corner of his vision. At first he ignored it, thinking it was a reflection of some idiot¡¯s mirror or watch. The fact that it stayed in one location and just flashed brighter and dimmer, cured him of that notion fairly quickly.

    He focused on it, trying to determine what it was. The moment he looked at it for more than a second, it expanded, taking up almost his entire field-of-view. It had a shimmering golden outline and looked like someone formed a wall with sunlight. Words started appearing, looking like floating smoke.

    Intelligence determined to be at optimum level for early activation.

    The moment his brain rebooted from the complete impossibility of the situation, he noticed that the smoky words changed. The golden, sunlight screen became smaller and looked to be separated into three blocks. Each block was filled with a single symbol, almost a stylized letter. Top was a big C. Left, a J. Right, an I.He blinked¡­

    Focussing on the C, his view was replaced with something that looked like a sun, with three planets slowly orbiting it. Each one was a different colour. Red, green and blue. As his attention went to each planet, they connected, with a smoky line, to a dark obscured field of space, like something was hidden.

    All the smoky lines connecting to the different things reminded Shades of an electronic circuit board.

    ¡®Practically looks like a game.¡¯ He thought. ¡®And if it was a game, those colours would probably mean something.¡¯ Thinking of a game he played the other day, he was guessing they were intelligence, dexterity and strength.

    All this was fanciful guessing and he was sure he was finally losing his mind, or dreaming, since no one else seemed to have a glowing wall of sunlight or a giant star floating in front of them. They didn¡¯t notice his, so he assumed they couldn¡¯t see it, but none of them looked like they were staring at something in the air either. More than usual at least. Shades shook his head. Since he wasn¡¯t panicking, he should still be in shock. Yeah, that was probably it.

    The star in the middle of the three orbiting planets caught his eye. It was flashing like that golden dot did in the corner of his vision.

    Focussing on that now, a warmth started spreading over his head, like he just started standing in the sun. It was actually quite a pleasant feeling, for the first few seconds. After that it slowly got hotter and hotter. Like pins-and-needles that just came out of a fire. He clenched his fists, not wanting to shout out and draw attention to himself. He winced as it became painful, like he forgot to turn the cold tap in a shower and the warm water was becoming scalding hot. He imagined steam coming out of his head and grit his teeth.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    All of a sudden the heat concentrated at one point at back of his head and drilled into his brain. He couldn¡¯t keep it in anymore and cried out as the pain became overwhelming. His vision became blurry and he fell out of his seat, clawing at the ground. It was as if his brain was vibrating with the heat and started to melt.

    It seemed to last forever, when in fact it was only barely a minute before the pain started receding. As he opened his eyes, blinking through the tears, he noticed a black scorch mark, about a foot thick around him, as if someone burned a circle into the floor.

    Everyone was watching him. They flinched when his eyes met theirs, some of them had hands covering their gaping mouths.

    ¡¯Wonderful¡­ There goes my chances at socialising.¡¯ He thought gloomily. ¡®Can I wake up now??¡¯ He asked whoever was listening. ¡¯This doesn¡¯t seem like a very fun dream.¡¯

    Everyone backed away as he slowly stood up.

    ¡°I need to use the bathroom.¡± He said. He barely recognised his hoarse voice, wincing at the pain that simply speaking caused. No one said anything as he went to the door, glancing at the teacher.

    ¡®At least that shut him up.¡¯ He barely stopped himself from giggling like a crazy lunatic but he didn¡¯t doubt there were at least a few who noticed his twitching lips.

    Once outside of the classroom, he ran to the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

    ¡®Only the girl bathroom has locks.¡¯ He thought, though he didn¡¯t particularly care just then.

    As he leaned against the door, he thought about what happened. It was the worst pain he¡¯d ever felt but now it was barely a headache, even that was fading. He did notice a slightly warm, fuzzy, if not downright pleasant feeling at the back of his head where the needle of lava stabbed into him. He gingerly touched it but didn¡¯t notice anything out of the ordinary.

    He walked over to the taps, sighing. Looking into the mirror, he realised why people flinched when looking into his eyes. They were a dark red.

    ¡®I¡¯m not a sith now, am I?¡¯ It looked like he basically joined the dark side. Why couldn¡¯t he have gotten glowing, light blue or white eyes? At least that would have given him a zen-like, wise look. Now it just looked like he wanted to kill everyone.

    He noticed the golden dot was flashing again. Focusing on it, he brought up another sun-screen.

    Congratulations.

    You have successfully activated your gene.

    Due to being the first in this world to do so, awarding 10D.

    Countdown until final immersion:

    3:19

    The countdown barely had three minutes left. Whatever it was, it was probably big. That other one said he had an early activation. Maybe everyone else would go through that as well? As least he wouldn¡¯t be the only freak then.

    Then again, what would a game be without monsters? Maybe that countdown was when they¡¯d invade or something? ¡®Immersion¡¯ didn¡¯t really say much. If monsters did invade, he should probably get the hang of this thing as fast as possible.

    ¡®It said I activated my gene and got rewarded. Maybe something changed?¡¯

    He willed the three boxes to appear ¨C which worked, surprisingly ¨C and went to his ¡®C¡¯ screen. He noticed the sun had turned a dark, dull, ruby red, slowly rotating. Tiny golden lights were orbiting that. He could barely count them, but they were few enough that he could see there were ten.

    ¡®So those are the 10D¡¯s I was rewarded.¡¯

    Concentrating on them didn¡¯t do anything, so he went to his three planets. Focusing on the blue one showed the same field of smoke, but this time he could barely make out more planets, smaller than the big three, like moons compared to actual planets.

    ¡®There seems to be a general theme here.¡¯ He thought.

    He couldn¡¯t see any details though, and the red and green planets showed the same fields of grey moons.

    Going back to the three boxes, he focused on the ¡®I¡¯ box. Doing so caused his hand to start heating up. He winced, assuming the general theme of burning to continue. He wasn¡¯t wrong. A thin red glowing outline of a circle, the size of a golf ball, seared into his hand. It felt like someone was cutting him with a red hot knife. It barely last a few seconds, after which the glow died down, becoming dull.

    He noticed the box didn¡¯t go away. After the mark was finished, the box connected to a hollow planet with nothing in it.

    ¡®Like a container.¡¯ He thought.

    He took out a pack of gum from his pocket and tried putting it in the hollow, smoky planet, hovering in front of him. His hand just passed through it, disturbing the smoke momentarily. He was stumped for a few seconds before glancing at his hand with the circle. He put the gum against his hand and imagined it swallowing the packet. He almost freaked out as dark red smoke poured out of his hand and pulled it in. He saw a smoky packet of gum appear in the planet in front of him.

    He smiled for the first time that day. He finally felt like he was getting somewhere.

    ¡®So, following the general idea of this being a game: C is Character and I is Inventory. What could J be?¡¯ He expected it to be a type of journal and wasn¡¯t disappointed.

    Focusing on that made it connect to a book, which materialised between his hands. It looked like it was made of dark grey smoke. Moving it with his hands just disturbed the smoke, so he imagined moving the pages. They turned but they stayed blank.

    ¡®Maybe you need to think of a topic?¡¯ He thought. He wondered what he¡¯d ask it, glancing at the timer in the main screen. It only showed about a minute left. He then thought of the small glowing lights orbiting his dark star and decided that was as good a place to start as any.

    He imagined the glowing lights in a questioning form and ¡®asked¡¯ the book what they were. Nothing else seemed to need his voice so he ¡®asked¡¯ it mentally.

    He smiled again as the book¡¯s smoky pages started turning, before stopping at a blank page where blood red words started forming. It made him wonder what was up with the dark theme ¨C he wasn¡¯t evil or murderous by any means ¨C before just shrugging and moving on.

    Dayle

    Dayle is energy which can be used to reach greater heights. It is bartered in exchange for knowledge over the mysterious.

    ¡®Knowledge over the mysterious? Bartered¡­ Is it a currency? Well that¡¯s not very informative.¡¯ Shades thought as he looked over what was said. Maybe he needed to be more specific? There was half a minute left as he quickly asked it how to use the Dayle.

    Instead of words, images seemed to blow over the smoky pages. It showed the glowing lights, like small stars, either flowing into a planet or orbiting one. He got the idea and went back to his Dayles orbiting his red star and tried to move them to one of his planets. It resisted, until he imagined moving them through one of the thin, barely visible lines connecting the planets to the star. A light flowed through one of the lines to the blue planet and started orbiting it. The light seemed to push back the smoke and revealed few of the desolate moons. When he tried moving the light to one of the moons to bring it to life, the light started becoming dimmer and the smoke started covering the moons again, causing the Dayle to move back to orbiting the planet, brightening it and making the smoke retreat again, revealing the moons.

    Shades was stumped for a few seconds, wondering what to do to keep the smoke back. He got another idea and just about to see if it would work, when he heard it.

    The screams.

 Chapter 2

    <u>Chapter 2</u>

    Shades looked at the timer.

    ¡®Guess it¡¯s time to face the music.¡¯ He thought as he walked over to the door. He would have liked to look through some things some more but he needed to know what was happening.

    The moment he opened the door, the noise hit him first. People were running past him, trying to escape something he couldn¡¯t see. The swarm of bodies rushing past obstructed his view.

    Then the smell came. Like meat that had become rotten, but so much worse. Through the press of bodies, some even running into the bathroom to hide, he could finally see what the cause of all this was.

    ¡®Dogs.¡¯ He thought for a moment. ¡®Dead¡­dogs.¡¯ It sounded like it could come from a movie, ¡°The Hounds of Hell¡±. They looked more like wolves with no fur, decomposing flesh hanging off their bodies, bones visible and, for some reason, blood still leaking from veins that shouldn¡¯t be pumping blood anymore. Dark, red letters appeared above their heads.

    Corpse hound

    LVL 7

    They were fast. Dead muscles seemed to move them just fine and they were quickly picking off and dragging students back. The screams and chomping sounds indicated quite accurately what was happening. Shades glanced back at the bathroom, thinking he could maybe just wait there until the coast was clear, but noticed at least four students cowering in the back. Not one to sit well with others, he abandoned that idea.

    He had to think quickly. Go with the general throng of people and try not to get stomped underfoot or dragged back? Not too appealing. Classes? Ledges! Most classes had about half-a-metre wide ledge below their windows. Some students would sometimes sit on them during lunch times. He could maybe climb down them? Or find a drain nailed to one of walls outside and slide down one of those. It seemed a lot better than following everyone else and dying like them. Who knew what else awaited them in the lower floors? Much better to just get down from the outside.

    He nodded, mind made up, and went down the nearest side of the hallway, trying to avoid getting shoved over and trampled. The classes weren¡¯t spaced very far apart and just before he reached the stairs everyone else was taking, he ducked into an empty room. Closing the door behind him and locking it, he managed to catch a breath. Not for very long though, he needed to get to someplace safe and figure things out.

    Running over to the wide window, he was about to shove it open, when he saw the city outside. Buildings were on fire. Sirens and alarms blared everywhere. People were running around like ants. Gun shots were heard, along with screams, shouts and cries, like some kind of sick symphony of agony. Roars and howls could be heard, coming from things that definitely weren¡¯t dogs. Creatures were flying around, much bigger that any bird he¡¯d ever seen.

    Shades decided just to find a safe place for now, he could freak out later.

    He opened the window and climbed out onto the ledge. Heights, luckily, never bothered him. He could see the top of the building he lived in from here, if he could just reach it¡­ there was bound to be something in there he could use. Even if it was just a familiar place to lay low and figure out this system thing he was supposed to use.

    To his left was just more ledge. To his right was a gap, followed by the ledge of the next class.

    He went to see what ledge number one held. It was just barely wide enough that he didn¡¯t need to shuffle along. Hurrying over to the corner of the building, he saw another one on the floor below on the side of the building. If he had a rope and more courage than he could currently hold in both hands, he¡¯d break the window next to him, tie the rope to something, make like Indiana Jones and swing around to drop on the lower ledge.

    Unfortunately, at least one of those requirements were unavailable at this time. Try again later.

    He banged his fist against the window he was leaning against in frustration, and nearly pissed on the students running around below him when something banged back. As it was, he barely managed not to fall over the edge. Looking through the window, he could see someone looking back. Not someone, he corrected himself after a moment. Something.

    ¡®The dead students become zombies?!¡¯ It was the only conclusion he could come to as he stared at the half-eaten face. The only remaining milky-white orb stared back, slowly banging against the window, pressing its face against the glass, as if it could smell him. Shades imagined if its vocal cords weren¡¯t eaten, it would be moaning at him.

    Corpse

    lvl 1

    ¡®Of course! The zombie dogs make zombie people!!¡¯ He thought angrily. As if it couldn¡¯t get any worse, a mini-apocalypse was starting at his school. Shades almost chuckled. In what world was a zombie apocalypse considered mini? The one wherever the bastards who started this came from, apparently. ¡®Those Corpse Hounds that did this was only level seven? Or maybe it was a rule now that when you die, you¡¯d come back as a walking corpse.¡¯ Shade really hoped it was the latter. If it was the other case, he didn¡¯t want to think about what a level twenty or thirty monster could do.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    Since ledge number one was a bust, he hurried over to ledge number two. He had to jump over a few gaps before he reached the other side of the school. Luckily there wasn¡¯t a class on this side that didn¡¯t have a ledge under their wide windows. He wondered briefly why no one else thought of this, but thanked his lucky stars they didn¡¯t.

    There was an apartment building a few metres away from him. He doubted jumping from where he was, over through one of the windows was a very good idea. Chances were, he¡¯d cut himself to pieces on shards of glass. Or he¡¯d miss the jump, crash into the wall and join the corpses down below. Turning around, he had to think of something else.

    Just then, a nearby scream was heard and a window behind him shattered as a body went tumbling out, screaming all the way, until it crashed into the ground. Shades¡¯ eyes were torn away from the scene as he heard the crunching of broken glass.

    Zombies came tumbling out, some over the edge, others managed to fall onto the ledge, before slowly picking themselves up and shuffling towards him. There was gap between them but it was slowly closing. Shades glanced behind him. The building wasn¡¯t that far. Milky-white eyes, stared unblinkingly at him, jaws opening and closing, seeking a meal that¡¯d just fall out of some of their stomachs anyway.

    He¡¯d always wondered what it¡¯d be like, living in a zombie apocalypse. He didn¡¯t think it would be that bad, especially if the zombies were as slow as these ones. No rules? Just doing whatever you wanted, wrecking zombies like a boss¡­

    But watching your death slowly approaching, the nauseating stench of blood, sweat, vomit and faeces practically burning your nose hairs. The deafening noise of hundreds of screams. Watching the flesh slowly peeling off their faces. Faces of people you knew.

    Reality was an altogether different beast. And the aroma of this beast was not particularly pleasant.

    ¡°Fuck this.¡±

    Before he could change his mind, he turned around, got an extra few running steps, and sprinted to the edge. He lined up the window and jumped just as he reached the brink. Bracing himself with his jacket-covered arms.

    The crashing of glass and the tearing of curtains announced his success.

    Followed by curses as he picked out small glass shards from his arms and legs. He felt like he sprained his left hand. Luckily he wasn¡¯t a lefty. The adrenaline was coursing through his veins, numbing the pain, but he knew it wouldn¡¯t last long. He needed a place to rest before it ran its course and the pain made itself known. He had to keep moving, this place was too close to the school.

    ¡°No rest for the wicked.¡± He got up and searched the place for anything he could use. Unfortunately, it didn¡¯t look like anyone lived here. The rooms were all bare. He cursed again. He could really use a knife or at least something sharp.

    ¡®Should¡¯ve checked in the classroom for something. Dammit!¡¯ There was bound to be something in one the students¡¯ bags. Too late for that now though. These apartments had a normal turning lock on the inside so he didn¡¯t need a key. Opening it slowly, he cautiously checked the hall, trying and failing to keep his breathing under control. The sounds outside were slightly muted and his breathing sounded loud in the quiet hallway. It didn¡¯t look like anyone lived in this place, or else everyone was out or at work.

    So far it didn¡¯t look like the monsters roamed too far from the places they started, he didn¡¯t notice any of the hounds leaving the school grounds, nor any monsters in the streets, just the sounds they made.

    Going to the back of the apartment building, he found the fire escape. Climbing down to the ground below, not noticing any monsters in the immediate area, he took his first breath of air. It felt like hours but this entire thing probably only started about twenty minutes ago. As his adrenaline started leaving his system, his wounds started hurting more and more. Picking up the pace, he jogged over to a side-ally, wincing every second step as his sprained wrist shook and the wounds on his legs just became worse.

    The alley opened up into an open street, no cars were moving but it was full of people running around, as he had seen from the school. The chaos seemed much worse now. He saw some zombies here and there but most of them originated and started spreading out from the school. Soon this place would be overrun with them as people blocked the very roads and streets they were trying to get out of. He saw less and less zombies as he moved further away from the school¡­ right up until one almost chewed his face off.

    Letting out a manly shriek in surprise, he just barely managed to push it onto the person next to him.

    ¡®Every man for himself buddy!¡¯ He thought as he tried to ignore the guy¡¯s yell of pain when the thing took out a chunk of its shoulder, which wasn¡¯t very hard as the shouts and cries of everyone else drowned it out pretty quickly.

    ¡®Wait¡­ zombies don¡¯t move that fast!¡¯ He looked around and only then noticed another point of origin for the walking corpses. Ahead and off to the side was a large thirty story building with a company name on it in giant letters. The undead were falling out of the windows and pouring out of the big front door, shattered glass lay everywhere. Again, he didn¡¯t see what caused the zombies, but they didn¡¯t leave the building. Only the zombies did.

    ¡®There¡¯s a pattern here.¡¯ He thought. At least it didn¡¯t seem like the hounds were responsible for creating the zombies, further evidence for his theory that you¡¯d turn undead when you died. Something else to ask the book when he found some time for himself. Running, half-limping now, in the opposite direction of the building, he found another side-alley that exited near his apartment.

    Coming out onto the still-bustling street, he stared at his building for a moment. After a minute of nothing coming out, he figured it was safe enough. Dashing across the road, he ran up the stairs, ignoring shouts and questions about what was going on, and barged into his room, locking the door behind him. He closed his eyes, leaning against the door while breathing heavily, trying to calm his racing heart.

    He was safe. For the moment at least.

 Chapter 3

    <u>Chapter 3</u>

    He was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

    It was about an hour after Shades had arrived at his place. He managed to bind his wounds with some strips of bandages he¡¯d found in a first-aid kit. He knew his mom made him buy one for a reason. Most of the cuts were shallow, with one or two on his arms and legs that were deep enough to have caused him some trouble if he hadn¡¯t found something to bind them with in time. His hand was swollen pretty badly but apparently it would be a lot better by tomorrow with all the creams he¡¯d lathered onto it and pills he drank. A few of them were painkillers, making him wonderfully numb.

    Now he was just resting, trying not to move too much and aggravate his wounds further. He kept thinking about everything that had happened, kept getting flashes of the atrocities he saw. The half-eaten faces. The blood. That guy he shoved a zombie onto. He basically killed that person, didn¡¯t he? He knew it would get a lot worse. If those hounds and zombies were only level seven and one, there were sure to be things a hundred times worse. He was shaking so badly from pain, shock and nausea that when the painkillers finally kicked in, he almost fell asleep from the relief.

    Soon the monotony of the muted screams outside and the welcome numbness provided by the painkillers caused him to practically pass as the exhaustion caught up to him and his frantically beating heart finally slowed down to a reasonable level.

    It was a few hours later when he woke up. This system thing came with a clock it seemed, as it slowly ticked away with misty numbers in the corner of his vision. It was nearing midnight, only a few minutes to go. It looked like he slept away half the day. The fact that he was still alive at least, showed that his place of residence wasn¡¯t overwhelmed just yet.

    He look at the misty, grey dot in the corner of his vision, bringing up his ¡®menu¡¯, as he had started calling it. He sat staring at the three options for a few seconds, wandering what his next step should be, before remembering where he left off in the bathroom, playing with his golden orbs. He went to his three planets and looked at the single orbiting light. Following his earlier idea, he moved another light to his blue planet, illuminating a few more orbs. Next he moved his first light to a moon. As if being brought to life, the moon began to have a healthy white glow and started orbiting the blue planet.

    Something strange then happened to Shades. He received something, not unlike a memory, more an impression really. As if he had a newly discovered limb and was very slowly starting to learn how to move it. On instinct, he thought of that constantly warm feeling in his head and starting moving it through his body. He imagined it form a small ball in his hand. Slowly, dark smoke, like mist, starting pooling in his hand. It took all his concentration as it formed a ball, about the size of his fist, looking almost like liquid, dripping dark smoke. His other hand easily passed through it though, dispersing the smoke, before it reformed.

    He then started trying to make it harder. He compressed it further and further until it was the size of a small marble. It became darker and denser. This time his hand found resistance. It wasn¡¯t much but he had to press a lot harder than before. He tried forming more smoke but the heat in his head starting reaching unbearable levels and his concentration started lagging, as if his newly discovered limb was tired and out of energy. His smoke started dispersing and he lay his arm back down.

    He went back to his three planets and saw something interesting. Something he hadn¡¯t noticed before. The blue planet was barely glowing, as if its power had diminished. The moon, however, looked like it was disintegrating, slowly, from one side to the other, pieces flaking off. Those pieces moved to the blue planet and joined it, meshed with it, slowly adding the moon¡¯s mass to the planet.

    Now curious, he sent two lights each to the green and red planets. He first activated a moon on the green one. Once it started orbiting it, he gained more insights, ways on different uses for this power. He felt inside his body and controlled an energy that seemed dormant. Now cycling the smoke throughout his body, instead of moving it outside, he became lighter. Faster. Time seemed to move slower. He waved a hand in front of his face, a smoky mist trailing it. He played with his new-found speed some more, making forms in the air with his finger. It didn¡¯t last long, about half a minute, and the speed left him.

    ¡®So the blue is for control outside my body, while the green is for control inside.¡¯

    Wondering what the red one would do, he brought an orbiting moon to life there. Unfortunately, this time he didn¡¯t notice any difference. No new thoughts entered his head, no new way of control. At least, not as far as he knew. But the planet¡¯s light was dimming and the moon started disintegrating and joined it anyway. Curious, but not knowing what else to do about it, he mentally shrugged and turned his thoughts to the book.

    Just then a sound erupted in his mind, like a trumpet call and a bell at the same time.

    The dot, in the corner of his vision, was glowing golden. Focusing on it brought a message to display in front of him.

    First day of the immersion protocol survived.

    Journal now fully unlocked.

    Companion unlocked.

    ¡®That sounds useful.¡¯ He thought, dismissing the message. He still had no idea what was going on though.

    He went to his main screen. His eyes widened when he saw a fourth option now, instead of the normal three. Below the others was a spherical, black ball, like an egg.

    As he focused on it, the black smoke, it was made out of, started rotating, seemingly drawing in the darkness of the room. Minutes passed until the darkness stopped flowing into it. Faster and faster it went, until it reached a point where the smoke seemed to fly off of it, dispersing immediately once it became detached from the main body. It became smaller as pieces left it, gaining features. An arm. A leg. The tiny details of a hand.

    Eventually, the spinning stopped.

    Standing in front of Shades, on a small cloud of black smoke, was a small girl. She was about the size of his hand, with perfect elfin features. Her long, pointy ears poked through her midnight hair. Even that was like a tranquil, everlasting waterfall made of smoke. Her skin was dark grey. She was wearing what looked to be black glass, which only covered the necessary parts, leaving everything else bare.If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    Her closed eyes suddenly opened, slightly shocking Shades, and revealing the only things about her that weren¡¯t dark. Her eyes were the same blood red, ruby colour as Shades¡¯. These were slightly glowing, however.

    She looked around briefly, before observing Shades.

    ¡°Greetings master.¡± She finally said, her ethereal voice strangely soothing to his ears. She then waited, staring at him, before raising a delicate, questioning eyebrow at his gobsmacked face.

    ¡°Who¡­what¡­are you?¡± He managed to stumble out.

    ¡°I am your shadow companion. Your faithful and loyal servant, to do with as you wish.¡± She said, kneeling.

    He slowly sat up, completely forgetting that his wounds were still supposed to be sore for at least a few days. After a few seconds of staring, he finally managed to drag his thoughts back into order. He became slightly uncomfortable with her kneeling figure.

    ¡°You can get up.¡± He said, frowning. ¡°And you¡¯re not a servant. That thing said companion, right?¡±

    Shades saw a look of surprise cross her features momentarily, before she smoothly stood.

    He watched her as she floated on her small cloud down to the bed. When she reached it, the cloud disappeared and she resumed her observations of him.

    ¡°Do you have a name?¡± He asked after a moment of staring between them.

    She shook her head, her hair leaving trails in the air.

    ¡°Would you like one?¡± He asked.

    She smiled, bowing her head.

    ¡°Whatever master wishes.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s drop this master thing, alright?¡± He said. ¡°It looks like you¡¯re stuck with me for the foreseeable future, so¡­ call me Shades. And you¡¯ll be¡­¡± He paused, trying to think of something that would be appropriate. ¡°Melaena.¡± He said. He remembered it from an old Latin class. Apparently it belonged to a nymph. He thought it fit.

    She seemed to like it, grinning, showing off her strangely silver teeth. Two of them were sharp, like a vampire¡¯s.

    Shades shivered slightly.

    ¡®Great. Shadowy powers, red eyes. Now I¡¯ve even got a dark, little, adorable, shadow, minion girl that looks like a mini vampire from hell. Aren¡¯t we just a friendly looking bunch?¡¯

    ¡°What can you tell me about yourself?¡± He doubted she knew anything since, technically, she was just born.

    ¡°Only what information I was given.¡± She replied, surprising him.

    ¡°Given? By who?¡±

    ¡°I do not know.¡± She looked down, as if disappointed in herself, before returning to staring at him. ¡°I will grow as you do. To help you on your path of survival and eventual victory over the other champions.¡±

    ¡°Other champions?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± She nodded. ¡°A few select individuals of this world was given a power by their benefactor. One they must grow, in order to win.¡±

    ¡°Who are these benefactors?¡± He asked. ¡°And what do we have to win?¡±

    ¡°Powerful beings in command of certain elements. I do not know who our benefactor is, but he or she created me and gave you your powers. I do not know what we have to win.¡± She shrugged. ¡°Nor how long it will take.¡± She looked down again, disappointed.

    ¡°What do you mean by growing as I do?¡± He wondered.

    ¡°As you grow more powerful, so will I. But I do not know how.¡± She looked down again.

    ¡®This is getting ridiculous.¡¯

    He carefully picked her up, to her wide-eyed shock, and put her down on his knee. Her skin felt oddly warm.

    ¡°Alright, enough of that.¡± He said. ¡°We¡¯re friends now Mel. Partners in crime, or some such. I know even less than you, so no feeling down if you don¡¯t know or can¡¯t do enough. You¡¯re not my slave or servant. We¡¯re supposed to learn together right?¡± He gave her a grin, which she returned.

    ¡°Right!¡±

    ¡°Fist-bump!¡± He put his fist in front of her¡­ which she just looked at, confused. ¡°Oh, right. You bump it with your fist.¡± He explained.

    ¡°But why?¡± She continued looking at it.

    ¡°Uhh¡­¡± Came his intelligent reply. ¡°I don¡¯t really know. People just do it when they¡¯re happy I guess.¡± He shrugged. ¡°You¡¯ll learn these things as we go along.¡±

    ¡°Alright.¡± She still looked confused, but bumped his fist with her tiny one anyway.

    Shades leaned against his headboard, growing thoughtful. She¡¯d given him a lot to think about. A lot of his questions still went unanswered, however. Who were these benefactors that had all this power? Why did they turn Earth into a hell-hole? Did they do this to other planets as well? Was he going to meet them? Who were these other champions? How many were there? Did he have to fight them? It sounded like he had to fight them. Why was Melaena only given some information?

    His eyes sought her out when he thought of her. She was floating around, poking some things, picking others up to look closer at them. He smiled at her child-like curiosity. Well, technically she was only born a few minutes ago.

    Thinking of the egg she came in, made him think of the other things in this ¡®system¡¯. He thought of the three planets and what they meant. Blue and green each gave him the knowledge to use this power in different ways, so he figured red had to be about it as well.

    ¡®Blue, in games, usually represents mana.¡¯ He thought. ¡®And I could control the mist outside of my body, sort of like a spell. Green is usually stamina which, in this case, increases my speed, so that kind of fits. Red would be health, but it started depleting the moment I activated a moon. What could¡¯ve used it?¡¯ He wondered, fiddling with his bandages.

    It came to him then, and he practically heard the lightbulb go off in his head, as he stared at the ¡®wound¡¯ he¡¯d received on his arm when he jumped through the window. Tearing off the bandage, he felt the smooth skin where the cut used to be. It would¡¯ve taken at least a few weeks for one that big to heal normally.

    Excited, he jumped off his bed and rushed over to the kitchen, a curious Melaena floating in his wake.

    He grabbed a knife and pricked his finger. Immediately, black mist started rising from it. ¡®Leaking¡¯ would be a more fitting word. Opening his planetary panel, he watched as his red planet started releasing small red embers, as if it was a red hot coal. These tiny sparks would then get drawn into the red star. He felt slight pins-and-needles as the wound slowly sealed itself up. He guessed the painkillers would have numbed the feeling so he didn¡¯t notice it the first time.

    He called the mist outside of his body, around his hand, not giving it any form, causing it to look like it was on fire, in a misty sort of way. He watched his blue planet as he did this, and sure-enough, it started releasing blue embers, like he was burning up its energy. Forming it into a ball, he compressed it. He noticed it came easier this time. As he did this, the planet started sparking like crazy, releasing more embers the harder he pushed against the ball and the more mist he called into his hand.

    Next was the green one. Circulating the power throughout his body, he watched as the same happened to the green planet. Circulating power faster increased his speed and slowed down time further as well as burned up more energy.

    ¡®So they¡¯re like wells! The brighter the glow, the more energy they have!¡¯

    He smiled widely, happy to have finally figured out what more of this stuff meant.

    ¡®Would I find out more ways of using these abilities, the more powerful I become?¡¯ He practically bounced on his feet, eager to explore.

    His eyes caught Mel, staring curiously at the red star and glowing planets.

    ¡°You can see it too??¡± He blurted out.

    ¡°Of course. It is right in front of us.¡± She said, as if wondering why he would ask such a stupid question, pointing at the smoky planets, floating in the middle of the kitchen.

    ¡°It¡¯s just, no one else could see it before.¡±

    ¡°Obviously. Only you and your companions can see your own interface.¡± She said, before her eyes widened and she grinned sheepishly. ¡°Apologies. With these memories of mine, certain pieces of information feel obvious, as if everyone should know them.¡±

    ¡°Nah, no worries.¡± He said, shaking his head. ¡°Do the other champions have these interfaces too?¡±

    She shrugged. ¡°I do not know, but I would assume so. If something feels obvious or resembling common knowledge, it is likely because many know of it.¡±

    Shades nodded and his thoughts wondered again, trying to remember where he left off. His roaming eyes looked at the window as something that was nagging him since he woke up finally came to the forefront of his mind.

    Where did all the noise go?

    Day 1

 Chapter 4

    <u>Chapter 4</u>

    He rushed over to the kitchen window, which opened into the main street.

    ¡®Well at least I know why the screaming stopped.¡¯

    It was quite an unnatural sight. The zombies just stood there. The entire street was full of them, with not a single living human anywhere in sight. The moonlight illuminated the sea of standing corpses like some horror movie. They didn¡¯t breathe or groan like they did in the movies, nor did they just shamble along aimlessly. They just¡­ swayed, from side to side. Like tall stalks of grass swaying in the wind.

    It kind of made sense, Shades thought. He never really knew why they had to breathe or make any sounds in the movies, or even how they could in the first place. If people shot out their lungs, it¡¯s not like they ever slowed down or choked on their blood or lack of air.

    Wanting to test something, Shades opened his window carefully. Taking a fork, he threw it to the other side of the street, as far down the road as he could. It was like a wave, moving outwards, as all the zombies closest to the landing fork stopped swaying. It was eerie as they all just stood there.

    It took about two minutes before they resumed their swaying.

    ¡®So they first stop to listen?¡¯

    He bet if he threw something else, they¡¯d all rush over to it.

    He carefully closed the window again and went back to his room. He sat on his bed, Mel joined him, standing on his knee again. She seemed a bit more comfortable being close to him after he picked her up.

    ¡°We can¡¯t stay here too long.¡± He said, thinking out loud. ¡°Since none of the street lights are on and my fridge doesn¡¯t work, I¡¯m assuming the power¡¯s dead.¡± He didn¡¯t turn on his apartment¡¯s lights at first, not wanting to attract anything, but after seeing how dark it was outside, and not hearing the usual hum of the fridge, it made sense that the power was down everywhere. Who¡¯d want to work at the power stations in a time like this? ¡°Since there¡¯s no power, the pumps won¡¯t work. No pumps means no water. Besides, I doubt I have enough food here to last me more than a few weeks.¡± He looked at Mel, playing with a tiny smoky ball in her hands. ¡°Do you eat anything?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± She nodded. ¡°But I doubt my method of sustenance is equal to yours.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean?¡±

    ¡°At this stage, I require only one feeding per cycle.¡±

    That sounded slightly ominous.

    ¡°Feeding? Cycle? And what do you mean by, ¡®at this stage¡¯?¡± A small shiver crawled down his spine.

    ¡°Blood.¡± He knew it! Those teeth weren¡¯t just for show! ¡°A cycle¡¯s length is determined by the passage of the moon. When it is shining its brightest, one cycle would have passed.¡± He nodded. ¡°Shadowlings only need one feeding to survive. As we grow in power, the more blood I will require. But that is only to survive. I will still starve and grow weaker, the more time passes.¡±

    ¡°Can it be any blood?¡± He didn¡¯t particularly like the idea of killing other humans if he didn¡¯t need to, just yet.

    ¡°It must be fresh, but yes. My body can break down the blood of any creature.¡± She explained.

    ¡°So once a month, at the minimum, we¡¯ll need to get you some blood.¡± He scratched his chin. ¡°I don¡¯t think a zombie¡¯s blood would be very fresh. If they even have any left. Do you know how much you need?¡±

    ¡°Until I¡¯m full?¡± She shrugged.

    Getting up, he went to the kitchen window. Looking up at the moon, he saw it was indeed a full one.

    ¡°Hmm¡­¡± He grabbed a chair, Mel joining him, looking curious. ¡°This isn¡¯t actually a bad thing. You can have some of mine now. It shouldn¡¯t be too much at this stage, then we¡¯ll at least know what your appetite is like, if nothing else.¡±

    She hesitated for a moment, before nodding. ¡°If you think it is needed.¡±

    He held out the side of his finger, which she took. She closed her eyes and her fangs became longer just before she bit into it. He barely felt anything, the area around her bite becoming slightly warm. Thin, dark lines spread across her cheeks, going down her neck as she took what looked like a few mouthfuls. It wasn¡¯t much, she was only barely taller than his hand, after all.

    When she finished, the lines slowly disappeared, as her eyes opened. They shined brighter momentarily, before they resumed their normal glow. She licked her lips and let go of his finger, stepping back. The small bite marks leaked a little mist, sealing up.

    ¡°Thank you.¡± She nodded. ¡°It is the only blood I¡¯ve tasted, but it was very enjoyable.¡±

    He nodded back awkwardly. It wasn¡¯t everyday someone sucked on his blood. Even if it was his idea.

    ¡°It tasted good?¡± He wondered.

    ¡°Yes. I¡¯d imagine your different types of food, has different flavours?¡± She raised an eyebrow.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

    ¡°Yeah¡­¡±

    ¡®Another one of those obvious things I guess.¡¯

    Shaking his head, he sat back and thought about what he should do now, making a mental list of his goals as he said them out loud. Before he started, the journal appeared off to the side. Its pages opened and writing started appearing.

    Goals:

    ¡®Well that¡¯s helpful¡­ Is that what it meant by the journal now being fully unlocked?¡¯

    ¡°So the most important thing is getting stronger. If the champions are gonna be fighting against each other, they¡¯ll want to get stronger too. To do that, I¡¯m assuming I¡¯ll have to kill monsters?¡± Mel nodded. ¡°Practising with the power also helps.¡± He added. ¡°I guess we¡¯ll figure everything out as we go along.¡±

    Goals:

    1. Get stronger

    Grabbing one of the few cans of food he had left and a bottle of water from the still-cold fridge, he set about practising his abilities for the rest of the night. Mel watched him for a few minutes, before growing bored started exploring his apartment.

    The sun was peeking through his window when he finally stopped. His abilities burned up more energy, the brighter it got.

    He found out a bunch of things in the seven or so hours.

    The moons would start breaking up the moment they were orbiting the planets, adding their mass to the planets, which in-turn, allowed them to hold more energy. Using the energy in a planet didn¡¯t actually cause that energy to disappear or get burned up. The ¡®embers¡¯ it shed got transferred to the red star. After a few moments, the energy got transferred from the star back to the planets, refilling them, like a seesaw, energy passing from one thing to the other. The more energy and passed through the smoky lines connecting everything, the easier it became and the faster they moved, basically increasing his regeneration speed. Like the resistance in a copper wire was lowered allowing the electricity pass through it more easily.

    While playing around with the lights, he saw that if he made the lights enter a planet instead of orbiting them, that light would get altered and become a red orb instead of a golden one. Like he was refining minerals. That red orb would then go to his big red star and merge with it, increasing the star¡¯s size. He didn¡¯t really know what this achieved just yet, but figured it was important.

    ¡°And last but not least.¡± He said, pacing randomly throughout the house, as the floating journal continued taking notes of all his discoveries. ¡°The more I use a certain power, the easier it gets to use it and the more potent it becomes, increasing in efficiency.¡±

    All of his improvements were only very slight increases. It was only about seven hours since he started and he only had ten Dayles after all. He¡¯d need more Dayles and to train a lot more before he would see any significant gains. He smiled to himself. At least he had a much better grasp of how the system worked now.

    When he asked the journal what all the dark misty stuff actually was, it surprisingly had a pretty straightforward answer.

    ¡®Dark Etherea.¡¯ He thought, as he summoned some of it into his hand, forming a small coin and flicking it between his fingers. It left dark trails as it went this way and that. He could actually form it into any shape and maintaining that shape wasn¡¯t very hard. It was the size and density that made the most difference. Something the size of a small marble with the strength of glass wasn¡¯t too difficult but making it as big and strong as a glass basketball was almost beyond him. Even making that small marble as strong as iron was impossible at this point, which he found out, when he tried to make a knife.

    For some reason, if he made something breakable, like giving it the density of glass, and it ¡®broke¡¯, he got a big dip in his reserves, but reforming it manually was fairly simple. He could also only keep something¡¯s shape about two metres away from him. If it reached past that point, the Etherea dispersed, returning to him. If he wanted something long-range, he¡¯d have to use ordinary guns. For now at least.

    ¡°Maybe the size of my sun affects my range?¡± He wondered.

    He couldn¡¯t test it, he¡¯d already run out of Dayle, but it seemed like that could be what improving his sun did. It could also be related to Mel. Making her more powerful, the bigger it got. Unfortunately, only one Dayle didn¡¯t really make much of a difference.

    He thought about asking his journal, but just then he noticed the sun shining brightly through his window and decided to take a break.

    ¡°Hey Mel?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± She answered, right above him. She was inspecting one of his ceiling lights. Peering into the blurry glass as if trying to understand some profound mystery.

    ¡°Can other people see you too? Or are you like my interface?¡±

    ¡°No, others can see me.¡± She floated down to him, abandoning her pursuit of otherworldly knowledge. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be much of a companion if I couldn¡¯t affect the world around me.¡± She explained. ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°I was just thinking. If we found survivors, we wouldn¡¯t want to scare them off or have them attack us if they see you. You¡¯re not exactly the most normal-looking.¡± He said dryly.

    She smiled amusingly, lifting an eyebrow.

    ¡°Have you forgotten about your eyes? I doubt they are any more human than mine.¡±

    She had become a lot more comfortable around him once she realised that he didn¡¯t really care how she spoke or acted. She still spoke with an ethereal accent though, which he liked about her. He had a sneaking suspicion that she knew, but doubted it since she was still practically a new-born.

    ¡°Hmm.¡±

    He had actually. He went over to his bedroom mirror. Sure enough, his blood red eyes stared back at him.

    ¡°You have a point.¡± He said as Mel sat on his shoulder. He could always wear glasses, but it would be slightly suspicious if he wore them indoors, where he was likely to find other people. If he could survive by staying indoors, others could to. Besides, his eyesight had improved but not to the point where he could where sun-glasses when it was already dark.

    ¡°Why did my eyesight improve anyway?¡± He wondered.

    Mel shrugged.

    ¡°Maybe as you grow stronger, other things improve too?¡±

    ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s probably it.¡± He gave one last look in the mirror before leaving.

    Was he always that pale?

    ¡®Staying indoors all that time couldn¡¯t have been good for my health.¡¯ He thought as he remembered how little time he spent outside, before everything went ass over teakettle.

    He went to grab a bag to put some provisions in, but glancing at his hand as he picked one up, made him remember the storage space he had. He had forgotten about it since all the excitement started. He grabbed as much food as he could ¨C which was depressingly little, he hadn¡¯t gone shopping in a while ¨C as well as anything he could use as a weapon.

    He figured his Etherea would become his main weapon, but until he was strong enough, normal things would have to do. He reminded himself so improve as fast as possible. He somehow doubted those hounds would much care if he stabbed them with a butter knife.

    ¡®I¡¯ve got enough food and water to last me a few days, so better weapons should be my priority for now.¡¯ He thought as he glanced one last time at his small apartment.

    He had a long, sharpened stick in one hand ¨C which used to be a broom ¨C and a happy, evil-looking fairy on his shoulder.

    ¡®What could go wrong?¡¯ He thought as he opened the door, trying not to make a noise.

    His efforts were in vain however, as he came face to decaying-face of, what used to be, his sexy next door neighbour.

 Chapter 5

    <u>Chapter 5</u>

    They stood in front of each other. Shades, not daring to breath. Ex-sexy-chick just staring straight ahead. He thought about quickly shutting the door, but assumed since one zombie made it up here, that others would have too and shutting the door would alert all of them. Simply quietly opening it seemed to have alerted her as she was standing right outside of it.

    ¡®Right, so she should just walk away after a few minutes¡­¡¯ He barely dared to blink, sweat rolling off of him. ¡®If they could smell, I¡¯d be dead by now.¡¯ He thought, relieved.

    Right up until she slowly started shuffling up to his door.

    ¡®Shit, shit, shit! They can smell?! No, impossible, they don¡¯t even breathe! Could they sense living meat or something?? Dammit! I should¡¯ve thrown a piece of raw meat instead of a freaking fork!¡¯ His thoughts ran wildly as he slowly backed into his kitchen, she-corpse about half a metre in front of him. He could see Mel still sitting on his shoulder, but she didn¡¯t seem to be doing anything.

    ¡®Ok, ok. Chill. It¡¯s not charging me or anything yet, maybe investigating what opened the door? Or whatever¡¯s making the breathing noises right in front of it? Or the sound of sweat dripping on the floor? Or does it have my scent?!¡¯ His thoughts spiralled again before he brought them under control. He still had his sharpened stick in one hand, and since no other zombie wandered into his apartment, he figured this one was the only one who heard.

    Trying to get out of its face, he angled off the side towards his room. The thing went forwards a few shuffling steps, before slowly turning in his direction.

    It felt like an hour, at least, but eventually they were both in his room. His legs bumped against his mattress. ¡®Do or die.¡¯ He thought. Not seeing any other choice, he pointed the stick at one of its eyes, gripped it with both hands, took a deep breath, and thrust.

    Luckily his trembling hands didn¡¯t mess up his aim, and his stick went through its right eye, far enough to puncture the brain.

    It froze, its mouth slightly open. If it didn¡¯t look so dead, he thought it would¡¯ve looked shocked.

    Barely a few seconds passed when the wound started glowing a dull yellow.

    ¡®Shit, what now¡­¡¯

    Not long after that, it started turning into dust, starting from the hole in its head where its eye used to be, flowing outwards. It barely took a few seconds before only a small dust pile and a tiny, floating golden orb remained.

    The orb flew into him and, knowing what he would find, he opened his character interface and saw the golden Dayle orbiting around his star.

    ¡®Well that answers the question of where I¡¯d find more of those.¡¯ He only got one, which wasn¡¯t really enough to make a difference. ¡®It is a level one Corpse so I guess it makes sense.¡¯ He thought. Maybe the level showed how much orbs he¡¯d get? He have to take down something with a higher level to be sure.

    He got some confidence at how easy that was and, sparing one last glance at the dust pile, walked back to his front door. He berated himself for not even thinking of using his speed.

    ¡°Any reason why you didn¡¯t help me out there?¡± He whispered to the Shadowling, now practically lounging on his shoulder.

    ¡°You had it quite in hand.¡± She whispered back, waving her hand dismissively. ¡°It was only level one after all.¡±

    He just sighed, grateful that she knew to speak quietly at least.

    Peaking around the corner, he spotted one to his right, near the stairs going up, and two more to his left at the stairs going down. These ones didn¡¯t stand still, they moved about aimlessly, bumping into things. He wondered briefly why these ones weren¡¯t also just standing still but decided to move on for now, just one more thing to figure out as he went along.

    He was about to head to the two on the left, confident he could take them out, so he could leave the building and find some actual weapons, before he had an idea. One he wanted to kick himself for thinking, but couldn¡¯t deny the desperate times.

    He looked back at the stairs leading upwards. And the apartments that could have some valuable stuff he could use. They were practically begging him to loot them! He mentally groaned. His inner gamer was rearing its head. Onwards! It shouted, untold treasure awaits!

    He thought of the walking orbs, waiting for him to collect them.

    ¡®Might as well get some easy orbs while it¡¯s still relatively safe to get them, and experiment with my powers some more.¡¯ He thought, walking slowly to the zombie guarding the other stairs.

    Using the same tactic, he thrust the makeshift-spear into its eye before it reacted to his presence. He barely waited for it to crumble into dust before moving on up the stairs.

    On the next floor, he found five of them, relatively close together. He also saw two doors open with a few shadows walking around inside. ¡®Time to test this speed of mine.¡¯ He supposed, channelling the power inside him, speeding himself up. The previously slow-moving corpses now seemed to walk through sludge. Shades could keep up this speed for about half a minute. He didn¡¯t want to burn himself out in case something happened so he kept it at that speed for now.

    Hurrying forward, it was almost too easy as he stabbed them one after the other. Soon only five small piles of dust remained. Grimacing, he looked down at his broken spear-point. He got a little over-zealous with the last one and the point broke off against its skull.

    ¡°Well that didn¡¯t last very long.¡± He mumbled. He took out the only sharp knife he had and looked at his blunt spear. It was a pretty cheap knife and wouldn¡¯t last very long before it became blunt if he kept sharpening the wood. He¡¯d rather only use it for emergencies. He looked at Mel, wondering if she had any ideas, when he saw that she¡¯d somehow caught a fly and was playing with it. She flicked it from one hand to the other a few times, before spearing it with a claw. Shades blinked. A sharp, black, Etherea claw.

    ¡°How¡¯d you do that?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± She looked up from where she was, floating by his side. ¡°Do what?¡±

    ¡°With the claws? How¡¯d you make it sharp?¡±

    ¡°This?¡± She raised a hand and formed sharp claws on her fingers. ¡°It is one of the natural forms of Etherea.¡± She said before looking thoughtful. ¡°I assume you will unlock the forms as you progress and become stronger but I don¡¯t really know.¡±Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    ¡°Hmm¡­ Maybe the new journal could explain it.¡± He wondered.

    Opening it, he mentally thought about how to unlock his natural forms of Etherea. Instead of a written answer, he once again received intuitive knowledge. It was as if the system uploaded information into his brain, knowing what he wanted. This time it was a lot easier to understand.

    ¡°So apparently, if I upgrade a certain power ---enough times, I¡¯ll start knowing how to use that power in different ways. Only you have natural forms.¡± He told her.

    At the moment he had about the mass of two moons on each of his planets. The first moon for each, basically unlocked that planet¡¯s power.

    ¡®So¡­ Level one?¡¯ He thought.

    The journal started adding to its pages.

    Manipulation: 1

    Circulation: 1

    Restoration: 1

    ¡®Yeah, that¡¯s about right.¡¯ He thought.

    Focussing on Manipulation for now, he started adding Dayle to the blue planet¡¯s moons. After about five moons got converted, he felt more knowledge enter his head. He was starting to get used the sensation.

    Now, instead of needing to rely on something¡¯s density and thinness for it to be sharp, he could form a different type of Etherea energy. One that was naturally razor sharp. Like an Etherea blade.

    This energy was a lot more expensive to form but there was barely any resistance as he formed five claws on his hand and cut through the wooden wall of the hallway like it was wet paper. He brought his hand closer, observing this new energy. It looked almost exactly the same as the previous one, except it was constantly in motion, like running liquid. At the moment it looked rough and uneven and he could only form shapes about an inch long so chose claws, following Mel¡¯s example. But he knew that as he became better at using it and kept upgrading his Manipulation, it would become more refined and cut through harder objects a lot easier.

    Manipulation: 2

    Circulation: 1

    Restoration: 1

    ¡°Hey Mel?¡±

    ¡°Hmm?¡± She hummed, looking over at him, seeing his grin.

    ¡°Want to play a game?¡± He said, forming his claws. There was still about seven stories left before they reached the roof of the building.

    She returned his grin and ¡®extended¡¯ her own claws.

    <hr>

    The sun was reaching its highest point in the sky when they finally reached the bottom of the building, nearing the front doors.

    Shades laughed, seeing Mel¡¯s expression.

    ¡°It was hardly fair.¡± She pouted. ¡°I¡¯m still a Shadowling. Look how small I am!¡± She floated right in front of him, extending her arms above her head. From her toes to her fingertips, she was barely taller than the length of his face. ¡°We¡¯ll see who wins once I¡¯m your height.¡± She crossed her arms, turning around.

    Shades blinked, surprised.

    ¡°You¡¯ll grow bigger?¡±

    ¡°Well, of course.¡± She said, turning back to him. ¡°The more powerful I become, the more I¡¯ll grow. You didn¡¯t think I was called a Shadow-ling for nothing did you?¡± She grinned.

    ¡°Well, no¡­ I sort of assumed you¡¯d grow a bit I guess, just not that big. You¡¯d look properly frightening at the size of a normal human.¡± He scratched his chin, looking thoughtful. He didn¡¯t see her sad look at his possible disappointment. ¡°To be expected of course. Can¡¯t have the companion of the mighty Shades look anything but frightening.¡± He puffed his chest with pride, looking off into the distance, imagining his greatness. He also didn¡¯t see her grateful smile as she sat on his shoulder.

    ¡°Hey, can I get some food?¡± She said, poking his neck to get his thoughts back to the here-and-now.

    Absent-mindedly he just waved her on. ¡°Yeah sure, take whenever you want.¡± His healing regenerated his blood fairly quickly so he didn¡¯t really mind when she took a few sips.

    When she didn¡¯t see his finger, she just shrugged and bit into his neck.

    They had cleared each floor, competing to see who could take out the most walkers, relatively easily. Checking each apartment for anything useful took up most of their time. They didn¡¯t find something they didn¡¯t already have enough of. Mostly food and water. They did find a lot of sharp objects he could¡¯ve used as weapons, but since he didn¡¯t really have a need of something sharp anymore, they just left them, taking one or two for emergencies. They didn¡¯t find any survivors, the building was still somewhat new and each apartment was pretty expensive.

    They found some doors broken down and saw that there were bloody trails leading into the rooms. Shades guessed that the people were trying to escape but led the walkers to their door. Since they now knew that there were people in there, they broke down the doors to get to them. He was grateful that no one decided to break down his door to try and escape from them, or that they didn¡¯t hear him when he was practising his powers that first night. All of this must have happened that first day when he was asleep.

    There were many zombies on the roof for some reason. Shades assumed that people trying to escape, led them there since the streets were full of them, trapping themselves in the process. He couldn¡¯t see much from up there, just the nearby streets. He stayed in an apartment district, so buildings just as tall as the one he was standing on surrounded him. He thought about jumping from one building to the next but decided to first be sure of his strength before trying something as crazy as that, or when he had no other choice.

    Shades opened his c-screen and saw at least thirty or so orbs circling his star. He decided to bring his other two planets to level two as well. The green one made it possible to increase his strength as well as his speed. The red allowed him to focus his healing. He could now heal a hole in his hand in under ten seconds if he delayed everything else. He knew, because he actually cut a hole in his hand to check¡­ It was for research purposes!

    All of that took about a third of his orbs. The rest he dumped into his star, hoping that a lot, all at once, would finally show him what actually happened.

    He finally noticed something as he did so. Mel grew bigger. And, he assumed, more powerful. Now she was about a few inches taller than his hand.

    ¡®But she said that she¡¯d grow stronger as I did. The star couldn¡¯t just be an indication of her power could it? Did something change in me too then?¡¯ Since he didn¡¯t see any difference in his powers, he thought it may be physical.

    He started jumping up and down and running around, and immediately noticed a change. He felt stronger, faster, his eyesight and hearing improved, practically everything about him.

    ¡®The star is me!¡¯ He realized. ¡®That¡¯s why it¡¯s in the centre with the planets orbiting it. That¡¯s why it looks like the most important piece!¡¯

    He whooped, glad at finally figuring it out.

    ¡°Hey Mel! Come check this¡­out¡­¡± The words stuck in his throat when he saw his reflection in one of the entrance¡¯s decorative mirrors.

    ¡°Oh¡­¡±

    Now, he knew that he definitely wasn¡¯t that pale when last he checked.

    He looked as if he hadn¡¯t been in the sun for months. His hair was darker and his ears slightly pointier. Was he imagining it or did his teeth feel sharper?

    ¡°Hey, are you alright?¡±

    He looked at Mel and realised he was hyperventilating.

    Panicking, not knowing what else to do, and knowing how much it calmed him down, she bit into his neck again.

    It seemed to work and his breathing slowly went back to normal.

    ¡°What¡¯s wrong?¡± She asked steadily, at least knowing he was fine.

    He rubbed his eyes, looking tired.

    ¡°Sorry.¡± He sighed. ¡°Wondering about it, and seeing it for real are two slightly different things.¡±

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± She looked up at him confused.

    ¡°I¡¯m turning into the same race as you, Mel. Our powers are similar. The stronger I make you, the more I physically change. Soon¡­ I probably won¡¯t even be human anymore. If I¡¯m not something else already.¡± He looked down.

    She stared at him for a moment, not really knowing what to say.

    ¡°Well¡­¡± She hesitated, looking sad. ¡°If you don¡¯t-¡°

    ¡°No.¡± He looked up sharply, knowing where this was going. ¡°We¡¯re not going to stop.¡± He stated, pointing at the front doors. ¡°The world is changing and we need to change with it if we want to survive. People are going to start coming after us, Mel.¡± He walked up to the doors. The zombies outside hadn¡¯t noticed them yet. ¡°We¡¯re going to compete in something, or be tested somehow, and I¡¯m guessing the results of failure won¡¯t be pleasant. These zombies are only stepping stones. Fodder. There¡¯ll be bigger monsters to face, worse demons to vanquish.¡± He had a determined glint in his eyes. The zombies outside seemed to have noticed something, some of them started shuffling towards the entrance doors as Shades made no effort in keeping his voice quiet. ¡°When that benefactor of ours finally shows themselves and tells us that it¡¯s our time to face the music, or if someone else shows up and demands our blood¡­ Do or die, we¡¯ll have to be ready. If I¡¯m not human anymore¡­ then that¡¯s fine.¡± He pointed his fist at her, grinning. ¡°At least I won¡¯t be alone, eh Mel?¡±

    She grinned, her eyes shining, and bumped his fist with hers.

    ¡°Of course!¡±

 Chapter 6

    <u>Chapter 6</u>

    His claws severed the skeleton¡¯s spine, followed by the six behind it in quick succession. They were in one of the monster dens, clearing it out. This one was filled with skeletons. They were surprisingly strong and fast, but in the end, just bones and severing their spines dropped them into a pile fairly easily.

    It¡¯s been over a week since they left the safety of the apartment building. In that time something else was discovered about the system. After twenty four hours, starting from level one, going up, that level would no longer give them any Dayle. At first, Shades thought that as they grew stronger, the lower level enemies would no longer mean anything, but after the fourth day, level four monsters didn¡¯t drop any Dayle anymore and he noticed the pattern. At least, as he had thought, the level showed the amount of Dayle that would drop.

    Unfortunately, the more moons he activated, the more Dayle it took to activate the next row of them. The shroud covering the field of moons behind each of the planets, needed more Dayle orbiting the planets to push it further back to reveal more moons. Currently, he had five Dayles orbiting his green planet, so he needed five Dayles to activate a single moon for that planet. It just grew harder and harder to progress as he levelled up his planets, but since the enemies he faced dropped more and more Dayles, it was technically a consistent increase in strength as long as he stayed ahead of the timer and kept clearing out monster dens.

    He didn¡¯t have a level himself that he could use to base his strength off of, but he could roughly guess how he¡¯d match up against the different levelled enemies. Each type of opponent had different strengths. Some of them being faster, stronger or smarter.

    Shades had noticed, however, that all of them were undead. Whether they were zombies, skeletons, mummies, corpse hounds or even undead ogres, they all had to be beheaded or have their spines severed. He somehow doubted that it was only undead all over the world. Whoever made this system couldn¡¯t be that boring¡­ He hoped at least.

    Manipulation: 5

    Circulation: 5

    Restoration: 5

    He looked at his planetary levels and was pleased with his progress. He levelled everything equally as they all played a major role in his development and each were important. Every level gave something new, none of them very big developments, but each an increase in his overall survivability and resourcefulness. Some of them only made improvements on previous gains, while others gave variations of the same ability.

    Level four Circulation, for example, allowed him to become lighter, while level five allowed him to become heavier. Level three Manipulation made his normal Etherea like acid, to everything except him and Mel, while his fifth level made his blade-like energy burn and well as cut. So far only the fifth level in Restoration changed that ability, making it restore his stamina as well as heal him.

    Having cleared out the building, starting from the bottom, he and Mel stood on the roof. She reached to just below his knee at the moment. The monsters still haven¡¯t left their dens, so the only stuff outside were normal zombies and undead wild animals. He even found some mutated undead animals, strangely enough. The birds, though he didn¡¯t know what could have killed them, were bigger and now ate meat instead of seeds and insects. He even saw teeth in one of them, when he caught it, it was like a cross between a bat and a pigeon. They were only level one Corpse Birds, even though not all of them looked the same. They flew around in swarms, like bees, so even though they were such a low level, the amount of them still caused a problem. At least they ate zombies too, strangely enough, cleaning up the streets slowly but surely. Maybe the infected flesh had turned them?

    Mel grabbed a hold of him as he took a running jump, decreasing his weight and enhancing his speed, and leapt to the tall glass building next to him. It was the same one he saw that first day and knew it was a den. Crashing through one of the tall glass windows, he rolled to his feet. The shards of glass barely scratched his toughened skin through his clothes.

    He landed somewhere in the middle of the building, so decided to work his way down then up. Once he reached the roof he could call it a night and jump to the next building the following day.

    He cautiously continued on, Mel floating beside him. They could both perfectly see in the dark so the lights being out wasn¡¯t much of an issue.

    ¡°That crash must¡¯ve attracted something, so stay frosty.¡± He whispered.

    ¡°Frosty?¡± She asked. She had learned not to take everything too seriously as Shades slowly taught her human terms.

    ¡°Stay alert.¡± He answered.

    A few minutes later they still hadn¡¯t found anything. Shades was starting to get worried. He knew this was a den, the sounds he heard coming out of it couldn¡¯t mean anything else. If whatever was in here didn¡¯t show themselves by now, it either meant they were still searching for the two of them or¡­Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    A low hiss was heard behind them. The hair on Shades¡¯ neck was practically jumping out of him.

    ¡­they were waiting for something.

    He slowly turned and finally saw what this den¡¯s monster was.

    A barely-visible distortion in the air slowly revealed itself to be what they were looking for.

    Ekimmara

    lvl 20

    Shades breathed in deeply.

    ¡®Shiiiit.¡¯

    It was the highest level he¡¯d seen yet, and was smart enough to creep up on him. If these things surrounded him, he was going to be in trouble.

    Luckily there only seemed to be one. He¡¯d need to end this quickly before others showed up.

    It hadn¡¯t done anything yet and seemed to be eyeing him up and down, dismissing Mel entirely. Assessing him. It stood a few feet taller than him and looked like a giant bat with no wings. Leathery red skin covered its long bone-thin limbs, along with extended razor-sharp black claws adorning its hands and feet.

    Suddenly, it practically blurred past him, leaving him with five deep claw marks on his shoulder. The only reason he still had his head was because of the constant slight circulation of power coursing through him, speeding him up just enough to dodge it, if only barely.

    It crouched on all fours a few metres away from him, hissing menacingly, getting ready for another leap.

    ¡°Go high Mel, look for a gap.¡±

    He sped himself up, matching its speed, and rushed it as Mel flew up above them. He formed his own claws as he closed in, going for its legs. It leaped to his right before jumping at his face again. Rolling underneath it, getting another small slice on his cheek, he managed to get a shallow cut on one of its trailing feet, eliciting a pained hiss as the spot blackened and started flaking. Shades was surprised at the intense result of a shallow cut. It was too, apparently, as it looked at its foot. Its distraction was barely a second, but at the speeds they were moving, that cost it its life as a black blur flashed past it. Mel severed its neck, given the small opening she needed when it looked down as its wound.

    ¡°Nice Mel.¡± They fist-bumped as its neck started blackening and it turned to ash.

    ¡°Why was this different than the others?¡± She asked, pointing at the pile of ash. ¡°The burn of your Etherea was a lot more effective than usual.¡±

    The journal received information about anything he killed, filling its pages like a type of bestiary. The more monsters he killed, the more information he¡¯d get. It gave him some pretty interesting stuff to read sometimes, details and lore of whatever he killed.

    ¡°So that¡¯s why.¡± He muttered, grinning as he mentally read over what the book said about this one.

    He explained further as Mel raised a questioning eyebrow.

    ¡°It¡¯s a type of vampire. Apparently there¡¯s a whole bunch of different types of vampires. An Ekimmara is a primitive one that doesn¡¯t have a human form. All vampires are weak to sunlight and fire, and since the Ekimmara is one of the weakest types, our burn effect, even at our low level is still pretty effective.¡±

    ¡°So that¡¯s why it waited for us.¡± She said. ¡°To get as close to the middle of the floor as possible, away from the sunlight.¡±

    Several hisses followed her statement.

    Turning, they saw about five more of them. These ones were smaller.

    Fledgling Ekimmara

    lvl 15

    ¡°We have their weakness.¡± He said, forming his claws again. ¡°If that wasn¡¯t the only adult Ekimmara then there¡¯s probably only one per floor along with a few of these guys. Let¡¯s clear this place out before it gets dark, they¡¯re much stronger then.¡± He blurred forward, a trail of Dark Etherea in his wake.

    Shades and Mel were sitting on the edge of the roof, watching the sun set.

    ¡°That place was a gold mine.¡± He said, checking out his interface and all the orbiting Dayle. ¡°We were lucky we had their weakness though. Their speed is nothing to sniff at and apparently they have pretty good healing.¡± He laughed a little. ¡°Let¡¯s not just jump into the side of a den like that next time, yeah?¡±

    ¡°Hey, it was your idea.¡± Mel said, poking his side, which had practically become a habit by this point. ¡°I said we should wait for sunrise and go in cautiously.¡±

    ¡°Nobody has time to wait for sunrise.¡± He said, fending her off and distributing his Dayle. He had enough to upgrade all his powers.

    They were all now level six. Unfortunately, they just gave him boosts in previous abilities. Mel at least grew a few inches, he noticed, as she sat on his knee. He found it interesting how the bright star didn¡¯t give off any light to his surroundings. It wasn¡¯t technically a sun, but it still looked like one.

    ¡°So where to next?¡± She asked.

    He absently put his hand on her head.

    ¡®So warm.¡¯ He thought, fascinated by the strangeness of her ethereal hair, but still focusing on his different interfaces.

    ¡°I only need to eat once a day now and with the increase in my storage space, we have enough food to last us a few more weeks.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Keep hunting, I guess, work our way north. It¡¯s as good a direction as any.¡± He thought of the few groups of survivors he¡¯d seen. He avoided them as much as possible, he didn¡¯t need to test how resistant his skin was to gunfire just yet, which was how he found some of them in the first place, firing away at anything that moved. He thought they were idiots for attracting even more of the walkers, but didn¡¯t go out of his way to let them know of the fact.

    Some of them were hiding out in some of the buildings. Shades sometimes saw a light every now and then at night in some of the buildings¡¯ windows. He guessed they must¡¯ve realised that the actual monsters didn¡¯t leave their dens. He didn¡¯t think barricading themselves from the walkers and waiting for help was the best idea however. They were safe from everything but themselves.

    Food wouldn¡¯t last forever. Sanitation was probably becoming an issue by now. They¡¯d fight over the scraps.

    He didn¡¯t really know what they could do. Start farming out in the wilderness before the food ran out? If birds turned into undead carnivores, other things probably did too. How would people survive? Only a very small number got special abilities. How would the average person live in this new world?

    Such thoughts filled his mind as he lay back and stared up at the stars.

    Day 9

 Chapter 7

    <u>Chapter 7</u>

    One cycle has passed.

    Release of environment started.

    He frowned. ¡°Environment¡¯s been released? What are they talking about? The environment¡¯s already released.¡± He looked at Mel, confused, then glanced at the swarm of birds flocking through a street, getting their daily meal.

    A roar was then heard, coming from a few blocks away from where they were sitting atop a random building. Another high-pitched one was heard to his left, and when one was heard in front of them, Shades could finally see what they meant.

    ¡°Well¡­ This isn¡¯t what I expected when I woke up today.¡±

    It seemed the monsters could now roam freely, Shades mused, as he watched a hulking brute of an undead ogre stomp out onto the street in front of him, crashing through some large double doors in the process. Two more followed it out and together the three of them lumbered down the street, lazily squashing any nearby zombies with their giant clubs.

    They had continued their progress north, not in any particular hurry to get anywhere, simply staying ahead of the days, ensuring they didn¡¯t fall behind the growing strength of the monsters.

    Shades couldn¡¯t get any Dayle from monsters below level thirty anymore and was worried at first that he wouldn¡¯t be able to find any of them in his area. Fortunately, the further north they went, the higher in level the monsters became. Except the zombies. They all just stayed level one.

    He stepped off the roof. Landing lightly on the ground far below, he casually walked towards the three big brutes, yawning slightly.

    He picked up a small pebble, tossing it up and down. He tried to roll it between his fingers like a coin but it dropped after only a few seconds, eliciting a snort beside him.

    ¡°You should practise that some more.¡± She said, grinning.

    ¡°You try doing that with a small pebble.¡± He muttered, glancing at Mel next to him. She was a few inches below his shoulder at this point.

    She smirked. Picking up another small pebble, she did the same as him, without dropping it this time. He frowned.

    ¡°Yours is flatter, it¡¯s hardly fair.¡±

    ¡°Your fault for not specifying conditions. Don¡¯t be such a baby.¡± She floated in front of him, patting his face.

    Unfortunately she went just out reach before he could grab her, leaving only dissipating darkness between his fingers.

    ¡°One of these days¡­¡± He mumbled.

    A roar interrupted their playful banter. Shades looked up at the undead ogre, grimacing at the smell.

    ¡°Hygiene.¡± He said, waving a hand in front of him. ¡°Is it too much to ask?¡±

    It didn¡¯t pause in bewilderment or surprise at the puny human in front of it showing no fear, no undead did, but Shades imagined it would be funny if it actually did happen one day. He stopped wondering how a decaying body could even roar in the first place a long time ago.

    Chuckling at that image, he bent down and picked up another small pebble from the road.

    Time slowed to a crawl as he did so, bringing the ogre that was slowly lifting its massive club to an almost standstill.

    ¡°He lines up the shot.¡± He narrated, aiming the small pebble between his fingers at the monster¡¯s still open mouth. ¡°The crowd stills as they wait with baited breath. Will Team Shades finally be able to bring home the gold? That is the question on everyone mind today Bobby.¡± He glanced at the hungry-looking corpse standing next to him, having wondered closer as he and Mel chatted. Suddenly his finger blurred as he flicked the pebble with blinding speed.

    Unfortunately, the small stone bounced off one of the thing¡¯s rotten teeth and blew a hole through its mouldy cheek. He stood there for a few slow-moving seconds, his hand still outstretched.

    ¡°Not a word!¡± He pointed at Mel, who looked as if she was barely keeping from bursting into laughter. Shades knew because her face was suspiciously expressionless with a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth.

    She looked affronted for a moment, before floating to the zombie next to them, making as if she was holding a microphone in her hands.

    ¡°I agree Bobby.¡± She looked sad. ¡°Team Shades has once again dropped the ball in the moment of truth. How will they ever regain their top spot in the rankings with this shoddy performance we¡¯ve been seeing?¡±

    ¡°Yeah whatever, it was an unlucky shot.¡± He waved at her angrily, walking over to the ogre, forming a long claw on one of his fingers.

    He jumped onto its shoulders and stabbed his claw into its thick skin at the base of its neck.

    His stamina ¨C as he¡¯d come to call it ¨C was only almost three-quarters full now, with the amount of it he burned up to reach the speeds they were moving. These ogres were fairly slow, their level being a high forty-something only because of their incredibly resistant skin and extreme strength. Against someone of Shades¡¯ speed and sharp Etherea claws, however, they were barely a nuisance.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    He could form other Blade Etherea shapes, but he was more used to claws, having used them the longest, and getting up close and personal wasn¡¯t too much of a problem with their speed. He still practised other blade shapes and powers. Couldn¡¯t always rely on just one ability.

    Thinking of another ability he needed to practice, he crouched, preparing himself. Suddenly activating his speed, he spun in a circle. Like a cyclone releasing debris, small black objects flew out, slicing into the zombies around him at incredible speeds.

    Stopping his spinning, he looked at his handiwork, grimacing. Two zombies were still standing out of the five he¡¯d aimed at. Not bothering to finish off the last two, his sharp eyes found the objects and he went to collect them.

    He looked over the five throwing daggers as he palmed them. Satisfied that they were still sharp, he reabsorbed them into his storage space.

    A couple weeks ago, they¡¯d explored a weapon shop and, still looking for a way to take out enemies at range just in case he couldn¡¯t get close enough for some reason, he took a few guns here and there and found a few crates full of ammo, throwing stars and daggers, along with various other melee weapons. While thinking of what he needed, that he could fit into his storage space, he found a surprisingly convenient feature of his inventory. While he had been upgrading his physical abilities, his inventory apparently counted alongside it. Instead of physically becoming a bigger hollow storage planet, like he thought would happen if he upgraded his inventory, the objects that he put in there just became smaller. Soon enough his inventory technically became the size of a small room with the amount of stuff he could fit in there, so he took a few guns that he thought would be useful and all the crates of throwing weapons.

    Unfortunately, as the level of monsters he fought increased, so did their resistances, so guns didn¡¯t really work on them anymore, the bullets simply not penetrating deep enough to have much of an effect. The sharp throwing weapons still worked well though, the speed he threw them at working wonderfully, turning them into deadly, sharp projectiles. He could also materialise any object in his inventory instantly, saving him from needing to carry around stuff in case he needed them immediately.

    He grimaced, looking at the still walking corpses. He needed to work on his aim.

    ¡°Come on Mel, let¡¯s keep moving¡± He called.

    He went to the side of a tall building next to him on the street and prepared to jump up to the roof. He lessened his mass when jumping to increase his lift off and raised it dramatically once he left the ground to significantly decrease the effect wind resistance had him. So instead of blowing through the air like a leaf, he shot through it like a cannonball. It took some practice on his timing before he stopped crashing into buildings and streets, without the use of his speed to help him at least, but it was incredibly useful for his mobility.

    ¡°Hey, Shades.¡± Mel stopped him before he left. ¡°Since the monsters are leaving their dens, shouldn¡¯t we move at street level?¡± She asked. ¡°Then we can take them down for easy Dayle along the way, instead of needing to clear dens.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not a bad idea.¡± He said, after thinking about it for a moment. ¡°Let¡¯s not take our time with them though, we need to stay ahead alright?¡±

    She nodded and they set off down the street at a pace they could keep for the rest of the day, mostly ignoring the zombies around them but taking out any group of normal monsters that was worth it.

    ¡°Eleven!¡± He whooped. ¡°Try and beat that!¡± He looked to Mel standing next to him. She rolled her eyes, taking another short blade from the small group that was embedded into the ground between them.

    The sun was just starting to set and they had just been about to look for a place to hold up for the night, when they found an interesting monster type, one they hadn¡¯t seen before.

    Corpse Caller

    Lvl 55

    It was on its own, but they assumed its den was probably nearby. Normally they encountered groups of different types of monsters. Sometimes they would find a group later on that was the same type as a group previously but just a higher level. The type would be random, only the general theme of everything being undead stayed the same.

    This one caught their eye as it was the only one of its type that they could see. It acted like some sort of sentry. When they came near enough to it, it stopped moving, turned to them, kneeled down, and embedded its hands into the ground like roots. A few seconds later a small rumble was felt and tens of skeletons started bursting out of the ground. They ranged between levels twenty and thirty. They also dropped Dayle for some reason. Shades just assumed that because the one who summoned, or ¡®called¡¯, them was a high enough level, the things it summoned still dropped Dayle, even if their level wasn¡¯t technically high enough to drop anymore.

    Shades and Mel both grew excited at the thought that they could farm this monster and just keep killing its minions for easy Dayle. Unfortunately, the drops started dwindling until nothing happened when the minions were killed anymore.

    They then just decided to play a game while waiting for it to get dark and see who could take out the most skeletons with a single throw. There were so many of the things bursting out of the ground, showing why its level was so high even if its minions¡¯ was so low, that the trick was to just aim at the most grouped up lot and let it fly.

    That was Shades¡¯ plan anyway. Mel seemed to have a different idea and held the blade at an angle, took aim, and threw it somehow that the blade moved slower but curved, taking out more of them before its momentum left it.

    ¡°Hm.¡± She sniffed, tilting her head up and folding her arms, seemingly satisfied. She looked at him challengingly. ¡°I counted nineteen.¡± She smiled.

    Shades couldn¡¯t help but chuckle and shook his head. Sighing, he took another blade and tried to emulate what Mel had done. His went a little too high and bounced off the sixth skeleton¡¯s skull. Frowning, he tried again, getting roughly the same results. He sighed again, defeated. Taking another blade and handing it to Mel, he lifted his eyebrows questioningly, hopeful. Mel laughed, taking it.

    ¡°Fine.¡± She said to his silent question.

    Grinning, she showed him how to do it, giving him pointers on how to hold and aim so it didn¡¯t curve at the wrong angle.

    Trying again, he got better results. Still not as good as Mel¡¯s performance, but he was getting there. Laughing happily, he rubbed Mel¡¯s head. She grinned back.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s take care of this thing and call it a day.¡± He said.

    Slicing off its two root-like arms made the skeletons fall into piles of bones. After dispatching the Caller, Shades jumped to the roof of a building with Mel floating up after him.

    They settled into a comfortable position, Mel on his lap as usual, staring up at his planetary screen as he assigned the day¡¯s Dayle.

    Manipulation: 9

    Circulation: 9

    Restoration: 9

    He let out a breath.

    ¡°Finally. It took almost a week for them to reach the next level this time.¡± He said quietly.

    ¡°A few more moons than last time as well.¡± Mel noted.

    He nodded, rubbing her head absently. It had become a habit it seemed, but Mel didn¡¯t appear to mind.

    ¡°Just more improvements on previous abilities too.¡± He frowned. ¡°The last big change was at the fifth level. Maybe the next will be at the tenth?¡± He wondered.

    ¡°Nothing we can do but wait and see.¡± She said.

    Turning around she hugged him, biting softly into his neck, getting her meal for the day. The bigger she got, the longer she could go without blood, but the more she needed when she did drink. They just alleviated her thirst every night anyway. Shades didn¡¯t mind how much she took. His blood regenerated almost as fast as she drank from him.

    The soothing effect of her bite soon had him relaxed and, closing his eyes, he sat back and gradually fell asleep, Mel still holding onto him.

    Day 30

 Chapter 8

    <u>Chapter 8</u>

    Opening his eyes, Shades watched the dawn rays of the sun beginning to peak over the horizon. It was one of his favourite times of the day, the rising and setting of the sun. It made him think of new beginnings and an end to old roads.

    Tilting his eyes downwards, his vision was filled with Mel¡¯s ethereal hair.

    ¡®She really is very beautiful.¡¯ He thought.

    He hadn¡¯t been numb to the changes of her body. She was almost up to his shoulder in length, about the size of a sixteen year old. She was already the most beautiful girl he¡¯d ever seen.

    He thought about what she meant to him in the grand scheme of things. He knew if he¡¯d been alone in this new world, he¡¯d likely go crazy with all the horrors he¡¯d seen. He had become numb to most of it already, but he didn¡¯t think anyone could go through all of that without being scarred in some way.

    He thought about looking for his mother at first, before remembering that she was on the other side of world on business. If she hadn¡¯t made it to some place safe already, he doubted arriving there in a few months would make any difference. She was away on business a lot and with him living on his own most of the time, the thought of losing her didn¡¯t hit him as hard as it would to a lot of others.

    He rubbed Mel¡¯s head again softly, his thoughts turning back to her. He had made the decision of not thinking of her in a sexual or romantic light of any kind before she was at least looked his age. It was becoming increasingly difficult with his teenage hormones getting in the way, what with her being half naked all the time, but it didn¡¯t really feel right thinking like that about someone who looked like they could be his little sister.

    Forcing his thoughts away from that avenue and into safer waters, he thought about what they would be doing today. He assumed they would just be continuing on their current path until something happened to change their plans. The big changes in the system had happened after the first day and the first month, so maybe the next change would be after the next month or even year? They¡¯d just have to wait and see, getting stronger as they went along.

    Preparing dungeon areas.

    Time until completion and world distribution:

    167:59:57

    He blinked, surprised at the notification that just appeared in front of him. He quickly did the calculations in his mind.

    ¡®A week.¡¯ He concluded. ¡®At least this time the message was pretty clear. If they meant the dens and common monsters when they talked about the environment, then the dungeon areas could be bonus areas where extra rewards or loot or whatever could be gained.¡¯

    He decided it could be worth the look if they ever encountered one.

    Mel started stirring on his chest. Slowly waking up, she blinking owlishly at the screen floating in front of her.

    ¡°We¡¯ve got a week until those dungeons start appearing.¡± He said. ¡°What do you think? Could be worth a look.¡±

    ¡°Sure.¡± She shrugged. She didn¡¯t say anything else as she yawned, showing off her impressive fangs, and settled back in, continuing to lie on him. It reminded him of someone who didn¡¯t want to get out of bed. The thought made him grin.

    ¡°C¡¯mon, Mel. Time to get up.¡±

    She groaned, not moving.

    ¡°Warm.¡± She mumbled.

    He sighed, thinking of how he could get them up and moving. He didn¡¯t want to stay in one place for too long, especially with the monsters now able to roam freely and the level clock they were constantly up against.

    Having an idea of how he could get her going, he tried to manoeuvre her body, endeavouring not to think about the warmth and feel of the skin of the scantily clad girl on top of him. Eventually he got her into position, despite her mumbled protests.

    ¡°Have a bite, then we¡¯ve got to go.¡± He said as he positioned her mouth over the side of his neck.

    That caused her to open her eyes and she happily bit into his neck as she held on to him sleepily. She still managed to take her time, but Shades didn¡¯t particularly mind as they both enjoyed the relaxing sensation.

    She finally got up once she had her fill.

    ¡°Thanks for breakfast.¡± She said, grinning.

    He shook his head, smiling to himself, and walked over to the edge of the roof. Stretching his arms, he gazed over the city, or what was left of it. They had almost reached the edge of the border of the city, after a month of travelling. They could see a forest off in the distance, from where they were standing. They¡¯d probably reach it in a few days. It would go on for miles, before opening up into farmlands and lakes, where they got their food and water from. That would then go on until it reached the sea, which separated the massive island continent they were on from the rest of the world.

    Mountains and rivers dotted the island. Shades couldn¡¯t remember but he thought there was even a small, dormant volcano somewhere on it as well.

    If they followed the same semi-relaxed pace they¡¯d been moving at, they would probably arrive at the end of the island in the next few months. Once there, he wanted to take a boat ¨C if there were still boats working by then ¨C and continue travelling north. The last time he spoke to his mother, just before all this started, she was somewhere in that direction.

    ¡°Alright, Mel.¡± They did their habitual fist-bump at the start of a new day. ¡°Let¡¯s get moving.¡±

    Sarah looked behind her, worried. They were hurrying as quietly as they could through alleys, avoiding any suspicious looking buildings or sounds that didn¡¯t come from a human.

    They were a group of seventeen people, ranging from their twenties to forties. They all lived in the same apartment building and had agreed to group up.

    They had started off with thirty-four.

    Most of them had been taken by zombies, while others had fallen to random monsters that lived in the buildings. They had fairly quickly decided to check out a building thoroughly before everyone entered it.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    The guy in front, their impromptu leader, motioned for everyone to stay still and quiet while he checked out the street that their alley opened into, gripping an axe that he picked up tightly.

    Sarah didn¡¯t know where they were going. She didn¡¯t think anyone really did, they just had to keep moving. They had stayed in the building for as long as they could until the food and water started dwindling. One of them had suggested they go out to find another place with more food and water. Most of the people disagreed, fearing what was out there, but they quickly came around when they noticed the problems they faced.

    Some stayed behind, too scared to leave, while the rest took what they could. The guy who suggested it in the first place died only a few days later. By then they had gone too far to turn back.

    Their immediate destination was a supermarket not too far away, where they could hopefully stock up on much-needed supplies. They just had to get there.

    The guy in the lead, Jake she thought his name was, came back. They huddled around him.

    ¡°What have you got James?¡± A guy his age asked.

    ¡®James.¡¯ She corrected herself.

    ¡°A few walkers between us and the next alley, the rest are further away, but I think we can do it.¡± He whispered. ¡°Didn¡¯t spot any of those monsters.¡± Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. ¡°If we¡¯re quiet and quick enough, we¡¯ll make it.¡±

    They all looked at each other. Some determination, but mostly weariness and constant dread filled their eyes. They all nodded, however. They knew that staying in the same place would mean their death.

    They quietly crept to the end of the alley and looked around once they reached it.

    ¡°Alright guys, you know the drill. Let¡¯s go.¡± James whispered, motioning for them to follow him.

    Quickly and as quietly as seventeen people could, they hurried to other side, avoiding the zombies as much as they could. They picked up their speed when some of the corpses slowly started shuffling in their direction.

    They almost breathed sighs of relief when, only a few seconds later, they reached the other side of the street and the beginning of an alley, without incident. They saw a few more zombies in the alley though, and with the ones on the street shuffling after them, they couldn¡¯t turn back.

    Jake strode in front and, swinging the axe, chopped the first one in the head, splitting it vertically open. Ripping it out, he moved on to next, everyone hurriedly following behind him, still doing their best to not make too much noise.

    Four zombies later, they reached the end of that alley and, without stopping, ran straight over the next street into the supermarket¡¯s two large glass doors. Shutting them behind them, they smiled in relief over the fact that they finally made it.

    Sarah was first relieved then worried when she looked around.

    ¡°Guys?¡± She called. ¡°There aren¡¯t any zombies in here.¡± She pointed to the eerily silent shops and large empty halls.

    ¡°Well I, for one, am thankful.¡± A middle-aged woman stated. ¡°We can hold here and stock up on some supplies.¡±

    The people nodded and started moving off in search of the food stores.

    ¡°I¡¯ve got a bad feeling about this.¡± Sarah mumbled as she slowly walked after them, looking around nervously. A few of them had the same idea as her and cautiously followed after the main group.

    It wasn¡¯t long before they reached what they were looking for. A large store that sold general items along with food, water and other accessories. Everyone split up and went through the aisles, taking shopping carts and grabbing what they could off the shelves.

    Sarah went to the far right of the store where the clothes were kept, glancing down each aisle to see if she could find something that she could use.

    Walking down the middle of a pair of shelves, she suddenly gasped, stopping and staring at a giant hole in the floor in front of her. It was almost two metres wide and went deep enough that she couldn¡¯t see the bottom in the dim light of the mall.

    ¡®What could¡¯ve caused that?¡¯ She wondered, slightly panicking.

    Just then, a low rumbled was heard. The ground started shaking a little as if a tank was rolling past.

    She saw what caused the disruption barely moments later as a huge white worm-like creature, with bones protruding from its decaying skin, burst of the ground a few aisles from her. It released an ear-piercing shriek, rising a few metres from the ground before diving back down. Screams of pain and shrieks of panic accompanied it abrupt entrance and exit.

    A few moments later, it burst out again, causing more screams to erupt from the people she came with.

    Darting out of the aisle, she ran to the front of the store and finally saw the damage it caused. The top half of a person lay across an overturned shelf. Rubble from the floor was strewn across the surface. It erupted from the ground again and grabbed the middle-aged woman screaming back into the depths.

    The rest of the group ran from the store into the main hallway of the mall, hoping to escape it, but it just burst from the ground again, swallowing another person whole. Sarah was close enough to see the rows of razor sharp teeth in its gaping round maw.

    The horrific scene caused her to freeze up. It surged out of the ground in front of her and angled its lipless mouth in her direction. She knew it was going to come down on top of her but she couldn¡¯t move her limbs. The blood drained from her face and her legs trembled as she saw it approaching. She closed her eyes and waited for the end to finally come.

    Just then, a crash was heard above her. Opening her eyes, she saw a black blur fly through the shattered roof window and collided with the worm creature, causing it to smash into the ground a few metres away from her. It still wriggled around furiously and tried to roll over, shrieking all the while.

    Something burst out of its head though, sending bits of flesh and bone flying everywhere and splattering on the ground around her.

    ¡°Damn. Probably not my best idea.¡± It seemed to say.

    Coming out of the shock she was in at still being alive and the sudden turn of events, Sarah saw a man climb out of the hole in its head. He was covered in blood and was wiping pieces of flesh from his arms.

    ¡°Mel, remind me never to try that again.¡± He said, looking up.

    Sarah did as well and noticed a half-naked, dark grey girl come floating down from the hole in the ceiling. She looked to be trailing black smoke as she flew over to the man that now stood on top of the worm.

    She blinked when she saw it starting to disintegrate into dust when the stranger jumped down from where he was standing.

    Her mouth was still stuck on the ground when the stranger walked closer and she was finally able to see what he looked like. He looked to be trailing smoke himself, or was that the disintegrating pieces of flesh from the monster? She couldn¡¯t tell. He had midnight black hair and wore all black clothes with a dark grey long overcoat. He didn¡¯t look scared of what was happening at all. Didn¡¯t have that paranoid, weary, dread-filled look. His skin was past the point of pale and had a grey colour as well. His most noteworthy feature, however, was his eyes. Those blood red orbs stared into her very soul, giving her a shiver down her spine.

    It- He stopped about a metre away.

    ¡°Are you okay?¡± He asked.

    ¡°Ye-yes.¡± She managed to stammer out after a second.

    He nodded, looking around at the debris and choas the monster¡¯s passage caused. Sarah also now noticed the rest of her group picking themselves up, groaning at the bruises, cuts, and broken bones they received from this encounter.

    ¡°A tip for next time.¡± His words caused her attention to return to the person in front of her. ¡°Where zombies aren¡¯t, the monsters are.¡± He pointed at the pile of dust behind him.

    Then he was gone. He jumped through the hole in the ceiling before she could respond and return from wherever he came as fast as he arrived.

    ¡®That¡¯s it?¡¯ She wondered.

    ¡°Who was that?¡± Jerry walked up to her, binding a cut on his arm with a strip of clothing, staring at the pile of dust, just as she was.

    She shook her head, still reeling after everything that happened. Still coming to terms with the fact that she was still alive.

    Turning around, she looked at the last eight members of her group, helping each other out with their wounds, a soft sigh escaping her lips at those they lost.

    ¡°Come on.¡± She motioned to Jerry. ¡°We better get a move on.¡±

    Shades sat on the corner of a building overlooking the supermarket, watching as the small group of survivors hurried between the alleys, continuing on their way.

    ¡°That was nice of you.¡± Mel said, lifting a curious eyebrow as she floated next to him.

    ¡°Hmm.¡± He shrugged. ¡°Can¡¯t help everyone, but might as well have given them a hand while we waited for them.¡±

    He looked back at the mall, hearing the distinct shrieks and rumbles of the Corpse Tunnelers. He dusted his hands off, standing up.

    ¡°Let¡¯s finish what we came here to do and continue on our way.¡±

    Day 53

 Chapter 9

    <u>Chapter 9</u>

    ¡°What do you think?¡± Shades asked, staring at the cave entrance.

    Mel floated closer and inspected the opening a little more.

    ¡°Can¡¯t see anything from here. We¡¯ll need to go in.¡± She replied after a moment. ¡°It curves a little up ahead.¡±

    They had reached the edge of the forest the previous night, which also happened to be the final night of the countdown. That morning they came across a cave-like entrance. They didn¡¯t know if it was a dungeon, not thinking they¡¯d find one so soon, but they couldn¡¯t just ignore it. Even it was just a normal den, it could still net them some Dayle.

    ¡°Alright. Let¡¯s check it out.¡± He decided, cautiously moving through the entrance, deeper into the cave. Mel stayed slightly behind him, as had become her custom.

    It curved a few times, jagged pillars of stone holding it up. Eventually the pair found what they assumed they were supposed to be looking for.

    The roof of the cave stretched upwards to accommodate huge, stone doors. Tall stone pillars flanked either side of them. Intricate markings and engravings covered them, seeming almost ancient. There was a small round slab in the middle of them, slightly bigger than his hand. Not seeing any door handle, he pressed his hand against the round stone and felt it shift. Pushing harder caused it to press inwards with a grating noise.

    It clicked after a few inches and something heavy seemed to be released with muted thud. The doors trembled, dust falling from them after centuries of apparent disuse. With a loud stone-on-stone grating noise, the doors slowly opened, like the maw of a giant, beckoning them into its gullet. A strong draft accompanied the opening before subsiding after a moment.

    ¡°That¡¯s not ominous at all.¡± Shades muttered. ¡°If this doesn¡¯t shout ¡®dungeon¡¯ at the top of its metaphorical lungs, I don¡¯t know what does.¡±

    They continued forward slowly, ready for anything.

    They were only a few metres past the doors when a boom was heard. Shades nearly jumped out of skin, cursing.

    Looking behind them, they saw only a solid stone wall where the doors once stood. Feeling down the middle, Shades couldn¡¯t find where the doors joined. It was completely solid.

    ¡°Guess we''re not getting out this way.¡± He said.

    ¡°Onwards then.¡± Mel stated, pointing deeper into large tunnel.

    Wary for any traps, they continued their journey deeper into the dungeon.

    It was a few minutes further in when a low rumble was heard. Shades couldn¡¯t feel the ground shaking. It was more a vibration through the air.

    ¡°Boy.¡± A voice suddenly said.

    The pair spun around, searching for any enemies or anywhere the voice could have come from.

    ¡°Why¡­have you come?¡± It had a strangely deep and tired tune to it. It reverberated through the tunnel, coming from everywhere at once, as if the dungeon was talking to him.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± Shades called.

    ¡°You walk¡­to your doom.¡± It said, ominously.

    Realising that there were no physical enemies, they continued walking further down the tunnel.

    ¡°Who are you?¡± He asked again, but there was no reply.

    Another few minutes passed them by when they came to a large chamber. He could see a narrow stone bridge, high up in the middle of it, going from his left to right from where he entered. It looked like it was carved into the chamber, connecting two exits. There were numerous stalactites and stalagmites, connecting the floor and ceiling. They looked like they had roughly rounded, grey bulbs on them.

    ¡°Hmm.¡± Shades walked closer to one of the stalagmites and touched one of the strange bulb-like protrusions. The large pillars of stones were filled with them. ¡°They don¡¯t feel like stone.¡± He muttered. ¡°They feel like¡­¡± He knocked on one of them. It sounded hollow. ¡°¡­bone.¡±

    Suddenly that same reverberation sounded throughout the room. This time, some of the bone-like things started shaking as well.

    ¡°Leeaave¡­¡± The voice said again. The sound came from all around.

    ¡°We can¡¯t!¡± Shades shouted. ¡°The door sealed shut!¡±

    The deep bass-like vibration became louder, ringing in his ears.

    ¡°Then¡­you will¡­join us.¡± The last two word were even deeper. Like a final declaration.

    Suddenly all sound stopped. The rumbling disappeared and the bone-like things stopped shaking. Everything seemed to pause for second. Shades and Mel didn¡¯t move, waiting for the other shoe to drop.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    The stone around the round thing in front of him cracked.

    It then crumbled and Shades finally saw what it was as it picked itself out of the pillar, like a corpse picking itself out of a grave.

    ¡®Skulls.¡¯ He thought. ¡®They¡¯re all¡­ skulls.¡¯

    The skull was attached to a skeleton. This skeleton was smaller than the normal ones. It had four sharp, bony claws instead of fingers.

    It was fast, Shades found, as it leapt at him.

    ¡®Not nearly fast enough.¡¯ Hesmirked, as he side-stepped it and brought his clawed fingers down on its spine. Cutting easily through it.

    His smirk got wiped away when he looked around and noticed all the other skeletons waking up as well.

    There had to be hundreds of them. Thousands.

    The pillars of stone crumbled around him and skeletons picked themselves out of the dust and rock.

    ¡°Sheeeit. Mel?¡± He glanced at her floating above him. ¡°We may be in trouble.¡±

    She rolled her eyes. ¡°The bridge?¡± She asked, pointing at the walkway of salvation in the middle of the giant chamber.

    ¡°My thoughts exactly.¡± He answered and sprinted to almost directly under it, before jumping and shooting up to it. He almost missed it but managed to grab it at the last second with the tips of his fingers and pulled himself up. ¡°Hah.¡± He laughed. ¡°Guess they didn¡¯t account for us getting here so easily.¡±

    He ran to one of the exits, wondering what else this place had in store for him.

    The exit slammed shut before he could reach it, however, a large stone obstruction preventing him from leaving.

    ¡°Must you always make things worse?¡± She asked, throwing her hands in the air.

    He inspected the stone wall. Three skull-shaped depressions were carved into it. These ones looked like whichever skull fit in there had horns.

    ¡°Looks like it needs some kind of key.¡± He mumbled.

    ¡°Shades?¡± Mel called as he pondered what to do. ¡°You might want to take a look at this.¡±

    He absently glanced behind him, seeing what Mel wanted, before his eyes widened.

    ¡®Looks like we don¡¯t have time.¡¯ He thought as he looked at the small skeletons climbing the walls of the chamber, digging their claws into the stone and pulling themselves up. They moved like a wave of bones, creeping up the walls. They¡¯d reach them in only a few seconds.

    ¡°It needs a key to open.¡± He said, running over to her. ¡°Three skulls with horns.¡±

    She snorted. ¡°Good luck trying to find skulls in all that.¡± She waved at the mass of bones approaching them.

    ¡°Some of them have to be different.¡± He said, his sharp eyes scanning the horde.

    Soon enough, as almost all of them were the same dull grey colour, he spotted a few black ones with horns. They were surrounded by a few hundred of the normal ones.

    ¡°Fly up to the ceiling.¡± He readied himself to leap down. ¡°I¡¯ll meet you back up here once I¡¯ve got all three.¡±

    She grabbed him before he could jump.

    ¡°No.¡± She said firmly, holding him by shoulders and looking him in the eyes. ¡°We don¡¯t have time for only one of us to do this, they¡¯d swarm you before you got to all three. I¡¯ll grab one as well.¡± He was already shaking his head, having none of that.

    ¡°It¡¯s too dangerous Mel, if they swarm-¡±

    ¡°The same danger applies to you.¡± She stopped him. ¡°You need my help.¡±

    He saw he wouldn¡¯t be able to change her mind on this before the swarm of Reavers reached them. He let out an exasperated breath and held her to him, hugging her tightly.

    ¡°Just stay near the bridge if you can. I¡¯ll throw my skulls to you and distract them while you open the door.¡±

    She reluctantly nodded, letting him go.

    Turning, he leapt off the bridge to the nearest black Reaver, speeding himself up and increasing his mass as he neared it.

    When he finally crashed into them, he sent the nearest Reavers flying. It only gave him a tiny gap before they crashed into him, but it was enough. He formed blades on the side of his arms and legs as well as his normal claws and kicked off the ground, spinning like a tornado and sending bones flying as he cut everything near him to pieces. Still spinning in mid-air, he made a hole in the sea on bones as he landed close enough to the black Reaver, careful not to cut it up as well. He didn¡¯t want to know what they¡¯d have to do if they lost the three skulls they needed.

    He sped himself to almost his limit. The press of bones was becoming oppressive but not enough to cause him too much of problem. With the speed he now had, he slowed his spinning momentarily and severed the black skull from its spine. Grabbing it in the same motion with his other hand, he threw it in the direction of Mel, knowing she¡¯d catch it.

    He lost his spinning momentum but jumped at one of the walls as soon as he threw the skull, bursting out of the wave of skeletal bodies that almost trapped him. His reserves were reaching halfway, causing him to release his powers momentarily as he sailed over the sea of bones, sparing as much as he could. Nearing the wall, he decreased his mass and raised his strength and speed again as much as he could in the split second he landed on the wall.

    As time slowed to a crawl, he scanned the area and got a glimpsed of black. Kicking off the wall, he shot forward like a bullet. He shredded through everything in his path on his way to the black Reaver. Luckily, he landed near it, and with his reaction speed, managed to perform the same move as before, beheading it and tossing the skull to Mel through the hole he created with his entrance.

    Through his heightened perception, he watched as the skeletons slowly pressed in, sharp bones grasping for living flesh. His blood rushed through his head, pumping in his ears with the beat of a master musician. He was smiling as the adrenaline coursed through his veins.

    Tensing his muscles and twisting his body, he exploded upwards, in the direction of the bridge and tore through everything in his way.

    His aim was a little off but Mel managed to catch his outstretched hand and pulled him onto the bridge.

    ¡°I managed to get the other one!¡± She shouted through of noise thousands of bones clacking and grinding together as they ran to the door.

    They placed the skulls in their sockets, causing the things to glow a deep blue. The Reavers that were climbing up to the bridge then suddenly stopped and as if something cut their strings, they all slowly toppled over and crumbled into huge piles of bones.

    They breathed heavily as the adrenaline left them.

    ¡°Who going to clean all this do you think?¡± Shades wondered, causing Mel to just roll her eyes, though a smile did tug at her lips.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡± She called, hurrying through the exit.

    Shades stood there for a moment, looking at the other exit and wondered what lay there, before turning and hurrying after Mel. Just as he went through the exit, the embedded skulls glowed brightly and released three large golden orbs that flew directly into Shades. Checking his interface, he found an extra three hundred Dayle now orbiting his star.

    ¡°Not bad.¡± He muttered.

    Looking down the endless tunnel, he wondered if the difficulty of these tests would increase as they progressed.

    ¡®Only one way to find out.¡¯

    Day 60

 Chapter 10

    <u>Chapter 10</u>

    Shades¡¯ eyes were drawn to Mel once again. She was walking in front of him, taking a break from flying, for a change.

    They¡¯d been walking for what felt like days. The winding tunnel didn¡¯t seem to have an end. Sloping downwards and upwards, from left to right. Sometimes the floor was rough, like something bulldozed through, other times it was smooth.

    If whoever made this had the intention was making people insane, they would have done an excellent job. Shades knew he¡¯d go crazy, if Mel wasn¡¯t there. Every time his thoughts spiralled out of control, he¡¯d just look at her and they would refocus.

    ¡®Is this why champions get companions in the first place?¡¯ He wondered. ¡®To keep them from going insane?¡¯ The average person wouldn¡¯t be able to survive these ordeals so, Shades guessed, unless the champions teamed up together, they would need something to ground them, something to keep them on the straight and narrow. ¡®Or am I the only one that got someone?¡¯ He¡¯d had those thoughts as well. What if there were people out there that had gone mad due to isolation and turned into killing machines.

    He¡¯d found it slightly suspicious that, in the two months they¡¯d been travelling, they hadn¡¯t found any other people like himself.

    ¡°Hey, Shades?¡±

    Mel¡¯s voice broke him out of his musings, and he found that he¡¯d practically been staring at her ass this entire time.

    She looked behind her as she walked.

    ¡°You alright there?¡± She asked with a mischievous smile, and he knew she¡¯d caught him.

    ¡°Y-yeah.¡± He shook his head. ¡°Sorry, I was thinking about something.¡±

    ¡°I can see that.¡± She lifted an eyebrow, still smiling.

    ¡°Well you try and not to stare when walking behind perfection.¡± He muttered, looking ahead.

    She seemed surprise at that, her eyes wide. She then laughed and turned around, shaking her head, tabling the conversation for a later time.

    Not long after, as they travelled in companionable silence, they spotted light coming from up ahead.

    ¡°Finally.¡± They both said, picking up their pace.

    The tunnel opened up into an enormous cavern. Hundreds of feet wide and stretching so high into the distance, they could barely see the ceiling, even with their enhanced eyes. There were hundreds of holes into the side of the cavern¡¯s walls. Like a huge beehive. They didn¡¯t see any noticeable exit. Near the top and exactly in the middle of the cavern was a circular platform, held there by four bridges, connecting to four different holes.

    ¡°I¡¯m guessing we need to get up there.¡± Shades said.

    ¡°Do we just choose a hole and hope it leads to the correct one?¡± Mel asked. ¡°It would take us forever to search all of them.¡±

    ¡°Hmm¡­ Why don¡¯t we just climb the walls?¡± Shades wondered.

    ¡°Of course, why didn¡¯t I think of that?¡± Mel said sarcastically, smiling at him from the corner of her eyes. ¡°Aren¡¯t there rules to these things? Ways we¡¯re supposed to complete the tasks?¡±

    ¡°Probably.¡± Shades replied. ¡°But where¡¯s the fun in that.¡± He remarked, and walked to the centre of the room.

    Throughout their discussion, they¡¯d stayed at the exit of the tunnel. Not really entering the large chamber. Now Shades strolled to the centre, expecting something to happen when they finally started the challenge.

    He wasn¡¯t disappointed.

    A sound started up, as if something was being dragged across the ground. Something big. Bones started rattling.

    Out of one of the exits, a huge skeletal snake slithered out. About as wide as the average height of a man and tens of feet long, it slowly slid closer. It reared itself up and flared its hood. Bones stretched to either side of its neck, below its head, and began that rattling noise. It almost looked like it was growing more and more agitated as it slid closer.

    Shades saw it preparing to strike and gathered his power, increasing his speed to what he thought was necessary to deal with it.

    ¡®Doesn¡¯t seem too fast.¡¯ He thought.

    Shades was surprised when it finally did strike. Its speed far faster than it appeared at first. He just barely dodged out of the way, one of the snake¡¯s fangs practically grazing his arm.

    ¡°Careful Mel, it¡¯s faster than it looks.¡±

    ¡°No, really?¡± Came the reply.

    ¡®Should¡¯ve never taught her how to be sarcastic.¡¯ He grumbled to himself.

    The snake didn¡¯t give him much time to relax as it reared itself again and struck over and over. It couldn¡¯t correct itself very much while striking, but its speed was deceptive for its size.

    ¡°Hey, Mel?¡± He called.

    ¡°Hmm?¡± She replied from where she was casually floating, fiddling with her hair.

    ¡°Anytime you want to, you know, help out¡­¡± He rolled under another strike. ¡°Just jump in whenever you want.¡±

    ¡°Why don¡¯t you just finish it off yourself?¡± She asked, now on her stomach, watching him dodge the snake¡¯s giant fangs.

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to waste too much energy increasing my speed more than I need to.¡± The ground was now becoming pockmarked with small craters. ¡°We don¡¯t know what else this place has in store for us.¡±If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    ¡°Oh, very well.¡± Her hair began flowing faster as she prepared herself, aiming at a weak point. When she was ready, she shot toward the thing¡¯s spine. Reaching out with a single claw, she severed it where two bones joined, at its thinnest point, practically cutting the snake in half.

    The upper half of the snake fell to the ground, it seemed to writhe, rolling around, bones clacking. Shades almost felt sorry for it, not being able to rise itself up anymore without the help of its lower half. Just as he was about to turn around and start his climb, the snake¡­ changed.

    Its many rib bones merged into two large, bone arms, ending with three-fingered clawed hands. It rose itself up on its hands, the rest of its upper half still sliding on the ground. Now looking like a huge front half of a skeletal lizard, it reared its head, rattling its hood bones as it prepared to pounce.

    ¡°Now who¡¯s making things worse?¡± He narrowed his eyes at Mel who shrugged innocently.

    He jumped over its head as it tried to pounce on him, stabbing his claws into the front of its skull and dragging his hand over it as it sailed by under him, cutting open its head. He noticed its skull was probably as hard a steel as his claws found more resistance than normal bone would¡¯ve given.

    It collapsed behind him, and struggled to bring itself upright again, but only for a moment as it then fell over and didn¡¯t rise again. A strange black sludge seeped out of the wound on its head. Tilting his head curiously, Shades approached it and noticed how the tar-like sludge ate at the skull like acid. Soon enough, in barely a minute, it dissolved the entire skeleton, leaving nothing behind but a small puddle of sludge. The sludge then moved to the lower half of the snake as if drawn to it and devoured those bones as well. This time, there was no more sludge left.

    ¡°Its own cleaning facility.¡± Shades muttered, slightly amused. ¡°I guess no one really wants bones all over the place. Wonder what happened to the piles of Reaver bones in the other room¡­¡±

    His pondering was cut short as more dragging noises were heard.

    This time, two skeletal snakes slithered out of their holes.

    ¡°Of course.¡± Shades sighed, looking at Mel. ¡°C¡¯mon, let¡¯s not waste our time.¡± He took a running jump to the wall of far side of him. He kept jumping from one wall to the other until he was about halfway between the ground and the platform.

    Grabbing a hold of the wall, he hung there and looked down to the ground. The snake were nowhere to be seen, supposedly returning to their holes.

    ¡°Well that wasn¡¯t too-¡°

    ¡°Shades look out!¡± Mel shouted, but was just slightly too late.

    Shades cried out as he felt a sharp stinging pain in his hand. Looking back at it, he saw it was impaled with a thick black bone claw. He couldn¡¯t pull away without his hand getting ripped off. A sound was heard from the hole next to him, and he saw what the claw was attached to.

    A long, sharp beak, gnashed its teeth at him, exposing its triangular jaw with wickedly sharp, black fangs, biting air repeatedly as it neared his face. Its claw was attached to a leathery winged limb. Just as it was about to bring its other claw around to stab him in the face, Mel appeared. She cut off its arm just at its started swinging.

    Getting over his shock, he severed the arm holding him in place and ripped the claw out of his hand. The creature didn¡¯t seem to notice and reared its head to take a bite out of him instead. Mel didn¡¯t seem like that idea very much as she dug her claws into where she figured its brain was, causing it to tumble out of the hole like a limp sack of leathery bones.

    Looking at the falling creature brought their attention the rest of the cavern. The same type of bone-like bird started crawling out of the hundreds of holes.

    ¡°I guess that answers the question of it being too easy.¡± He said, flexing his hand to check if it was working properly after his regenerative powers went to work, while holding onto the wall with his other.

    The bird creatures started circling the chamber, some of them diving at him at incredible speeds. He had to increase his speed phenomenally to be able to keep up and twist out of the way of their sharp talons.

    ¡°They¡¯re pretty fast, Mel.¡± He looked at her, she was still standing in the hole. ¡°Get ready, this is gonna get dicey.¡±

    She nodded, getting ready. Shades prepared himself, gathering his powers.

    He leapt up from the wall he was on, grabbing the wall and pulling himself up. Practically leaping up the wall, he was making good progress, Mel flying next to him, keeping the creatures off of him, but the birds were diving at him more and more, the closer he got to the platform. Fairly soon, even with Mel¡¯s speed, she couldn¡¯t keep up with them and Shades needed to dodge more and more, delaying him even further and increasing the chances of one of them getting a lucky strike. He was burning a lot of energy to keep up with them, his reserves only at a little over halfway now.

    He pulled Mel into an empty hole to get them some reprieve from the violent onslaught. They were both breathing heavily, Shades quickly recovering due to his red energy but Mel taking a while longer to get her breath back.

    Shades eyed the flying creatures.

    ¡°What are you thinking?¡± Mel asked, seeing his look.

    He smiled, ¡°You¡¯re not going to like it.¡±

    ¡°Do I ever?¡± She replied.

    He snorted, ¡°Right.¡± After a moment longer of staring at the flying shapes, he continued. ¡°Climb on my back.¡±

    She raised an eyebrow, but got on his back. Locking her arms around his neck and legs around his waist.

    ¡°Hold tight.¡± He said. ¡°Don¡¯t be afraid of hurting me.¡± He grinned.

    She snorted, ¡°Me, hurt you? Please¡­¡± She held on tighter nonetheless, hooking her arms under his and around his chest, her legs around his waist. She would have crushed a normal human with the strength she holding onto him with.

    She couldn¡¯t resist, however, with her mouth so near his neck. She sank her teeth into his shoulder, simply savouring his blood and enjoying the feeling it gave her, rolling it around her tongue and inadvertently licking his shoulder in the process.

    Shades was having a hard time focussing on the task at hand with the extremely distracting presence behind him and the euphoric sensations she was causing.

    ¡°Mel.¡± He managed to groan. ¡°Not exactly the right time.¡±

    She moaned sadly as she finally released him, licking his shoulder for any stray drops she might have missed.

    ¡°So what¡¯s this plan of yours?¡± She asked, leaning her head against his back.

    After shaking his head and reaffirming his reasons for stopping her, he finally managed to think about what his plan actually was.

    This caused him to smile as he gathered his power around him again.

    ¡°Whatever happens¡­ Don¡¯t let go.¡± He replied.

    Taking a running leap, he shot out of the hole, his arms outstretched. He didn¡¯t really need to aim, there were so many of the things. Near the middle of the cavern, he finally managed to catch one of the huge birds. Land on it, was probably a better description, as he lowered his weight to almost nothing when he reached it. Mel¡¯s extra weight was barely noticeable.

    In practically one motion, he kicked off of it, shooting to the next bird, and the next and so on and so forth. He avoided most of the birds diving for him through his shear speed, jumping from one bird to the next. The creatures practically dived each other in their need to get to him. Those he couldn¡¯t avoid, he deflected, twisting his body this way and that, or simply cut through them. Even using them as springboards to get to the next.

    His green energy was burning up at a phenomenal rate, he couldn¡¯t keep it up too much longer. Already, it only had about a third left.

    He focused his mind, concentrating as hard as he could as he tried to use less energy for dodging. It reached a point where he practically only relied on instinct, moving and shaping his body to the rhythm of the carnage around him. He opened his senses to their maximum. Becoming as if in a trance. Using just that little bit of energy that much more efficiently. Burning up less and less but using it to its utmost. He became less of a blur of a speeding arrow and more like wind, flowing around his enemies. Using his abilities just a little bit better, just a little bit less, becoming one with the Etherea. He didn¡¯t even seem to land on the birds anymore, barely touching one as he went to the next. Always going up. Always progressing. The only sound, his heartbeat. The only touch, his breath flowing smoothly through his lungs.

    At this moment he wasn¡¯t death incarnate, he dimly realised. He was barely even there. He barely touched the world. He wasn¡¯t a storm of destruction. He was¡­ His eyes lost their red colour and became the black of the midnight sky, the outline of his skin became indistinct. ¡­a shadow.

 Chapter 11

    <u>Chapter 11</u>

    Mel was astonished. Speechless. One moment she¡¯d grabbed a hold of Shades, wondering what his plans were, the next they were flying out of the hole in the wall. She just barely managed not to shout at him for jumping straight at the very things they were trying to avoid. But that was par the course for Shades and wasn¡¯t what surprised her.

    She held onto him for dear life as he jumped in one direction, then the next, twisting his body this way and that, in incredible feats of acrobatics, to avoid the skeletal death birds. In the corner of her vision, she saw his stamina running low. He wouldn¡¯t be able to keep this up forever. She was thinking of ways she could help him, but couldn¡¯t think of something that wouldn¡¯t kill them the moment he lost concentration.

    Her hands over his chest, she could feel his erratic heartbeat, his intense breathing, the strain of his muscles. With another glance at his green reserves, she feared he was almost out. But the strangest thing caught her sight.

    ¡®Wasn¡¯t he supposed to be using more power?¡¯ She thought, bewildered. ¡®It¡¯s barely moving!¡¯ Then she noticed the absence of his previous jarring movements as he leaped from one creature to the next. ¡®Wha-?!¡¯ She couldn¡¯t even form words in her mind as she watched his transformation.

    His heartbeat slowed. His breathing evened out. His skin turned indistinct. Her skin turned indistinct. The world blurred around them and suddenly they weren¡¯t moving through the air anymore. They appeared at one location, before vanishing and arriving at the next. It happened so fast, she barely managed to take another breath before they were at the platform.

    She let go of him as he fell to his knees, his breathing now erratic. His face grimaced as if in pain, his eyes screwed shut. Blood was running out of the corners of them. His hands clawed at the ground, shivering. Not able to hold it in anymore, he screamed. It practically broke Mel¡¯s heart, never having seen him in this much agony.

    Mel was panicking. She didn¡¯t know what to do, how to relieve his pain. She grabbed his hand and bit into it, hoping her bite would help him or calm him as it always did, but it didn¡¯t seem to accomplish anything. She just held his head in her lap, crying, as his body continued to shake.

    It went on for almost a minute before the pain seemed to leave him and his breathing returned to normal. A few more minutes passed when he finally opened his eyes.

    <hr>

    ¡®Not again.¡¯ Shades thought as the same familiar burning hot pain reached him the moment they arrived at the platform and he returned from his trance-like state.

    It, once again, seemed to last forever and he practically cried tears of joy when it finally ended. Opening his ¨C once more blood red ¨C eyes. The first thing he saw was the concerned face of Mel hovering above him.

    He had a something of an epiphany then. The aftermath of the intensely searing pain bringing about a strange momentary clarity. All his past wondering thoughts and musings of what Mel meant to him culminating in that moment as he stared at her anxious-looking face. He didn¡¯t know if it was lingering deliriousness from the episode he just had, but he realised that Mel meant everything to him, and the thought of losing her made the pain he just felt seem like a soft breeze.

    He reached up and wiped the tear marks from her face. Her happy smile forced one from him as well.

    ¡®So beautiful.¡¯ He thought once again.

    ¡°We better get going.¡± He said, groaning mentally at stopping himself from doing what he so desperately wanted to do. But priorities came first, and right now they had to finish this dungeon. Afterwards though...

    As he sat up, he finally noticed his surroundings, as well as why they hadn¡¯t been eaten yet. The platform they were on had glowing green light that ran around its edges, like a railing made of light. It wasn¡¯t there previously so they must¡¯ve activated it when they reached the platform. The skeletal, winged avians didn¡¯t seem to be able to cross the barrier.

    ¡°We¡¯re fortunate to have landed on some type of trigger when we appeared.¡± Mel said, looking at a metre wide circular depression in the ground that Shades had previously been laying in.

    ¡°Yeah¡­¡± It was a stark reminder that Shades wasn¡¯t as powerful as he thought. If the barrier hadn¡¯t appeared when he went through his change, they¡¯d both be dead now. ¡°Let¡¯s try not to rely on luck too much next time.¡±

    ¡°Are you lumping me in with your decision-making again?¡± She said, crossing her arms, trying to seem stern.

    ¡°Hey, how was I supposed to know that would happen again?¡±

    ¡°Again?¡± Another look of concern crossed her face.

    ¡°Oh yeah, you weren¡¯t there when it happened the first time.¡± Shades recalled. ¡°When I got these powers, the energy I use was activated, or transferred or whatever. Looks like it occurs when something major happens to me physically.¡± He scratched his chin, wandering if he¡¯d have to experience that pain again in the future. ¡°I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d have to go through with it again.¡±The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

    ¡°What did happen anyway?¡± Mel asked. ¡°I thought we were done for then you just started vanishing and appearing all over the place.¡± She waved her hands at the things below them.

    Shades smiled, thinking about what he gained as the journal gave him information. He didn¡¯t answer her at first and embraced the power he used on instinct earlier. Doing so turned his eyes pitch black and changed his form to that of an indistinct shadow.

    He only held it for a few seconds before releasing it, rubbing his forehead.

    ¡°I can¡¯t hold it very long for now. Apparently I¡¯m not actually ready for it yet.¡± He explained. ¡°That¡¯s what happened earlier. When I started using less and less of my normal abilities, I accidentally tapped into this, fully embracing Dark Etherea, something only a full Darklord can freely do. My body had to rapidly change to accommodate this new power.¡± He grimaced. ¡°Which, sadly, isn¡¯t a painless process.¡±

    ¡°But what about the part where we just appeared everywhere?¡±

    ¡°C¡¯mon.¡± He smiled. ¡°Let¡¯s get out of here first. Before the barrier fails.¡± He looked at the green light, not really comfortable that it was the only thing keeping them from getting eaten.

    Looking around, they saw that, once again, more than one path was available to them. Shades wondered where the other bridges led, and what the chances were that they¡¯d ever be used, seeing as how he hadn¡¯t seen any other people like him. He just mentally shrugged and chose one of the two that led to the opposite wall from where they entered, leaving the cave of birds behind them.

    It was a few minutes later when Shades continued his explanation as they walked.

    ¡°So you know how the red sun is basically me and my physical energy, and when I improve it my appearance changes as well?¡± Mel nodded. ¡°Well apparently it¡¯s also some sort of source of all my power. My Dark Etherea. It explains why, when I use the other types of powers, the energy moves from those ¡®pools¡¯ to the main source and back again to replenish them. It¡¯s still a little confusing, and I don¡¯t get why it has to go back and forth like that.¡± He shrugged. ¡°When embracing the Dark Etherea, like I did, that pure energy physically changes my body. The change lets me use that energy to do things that I couldn¡¯t normally do. Shadow Walking and Shadow Jumping are two of those things.¡±

    ¡°What do those do?¡± Mel wondered.

    ¡°You already saw those.¡± Shades smiled. ¡°Me, practically turning into a shadow? That¡¯s Shadow Walking.¡± He turned into his incorporeal form again, but only for a second, before he turned back, blinking his eyes a few times. ¡°As I am now, that pure energy will kill me if I hold it too long. Not strong enough to handle it I guess.¡± He muttered. ¡°Shadow Jumping is pretty interesting though.¡± Here he smiled again. ¡°By flashing the Etherea through me and ¡®holding¡¯ it,¡± He paused dramatically. ¡°Time stops.¡±

    Mel¡¯s eyes widened.

    ¡°So you were just moving while everyone else was frozen in time!¡± She exclaimed.

    Shades chuckled, and took a deep breath.

    ¡°No.¡±

    Mel pouted.

    ¡°What I think happens,¡± He continued. ¡°¡­is that my perception speeds up so rapidly, that everything seems frozen in time, including me.¡± He scratched his chin as they walked. ¡°Sorta like my emerald energy, except that speeds my whole body and isn¡¯t nearly as fast.¡± He walked in silence for moment as he thought about it, wondering if his emerald energy could speed him up to those speeds as well. ¡°Unfortunately, it¡¯s even harder to hold the pure energy than it is to run it normally through my body. Like trying to block the pressure of a bomb instead of letting it pass over me. To me, I can hold it for barely a second. To you, it would seem like I didn¡¯t hold it at all.¡±

    ¡°Wow¡­¡± Mel let out a breath. They mulled it over again for a few minutes, neither saying anything. ¡°But that still doesn¡¯t explain it.¡±

    ¡°Right.¡± Shades once again continued his explanation. ¡°Can¡¯t really describe this part though.¡± He frowned. ¡°When holding the power¡­ I can will myself to a place that I¡¯m looking at. When I let the energy go all at once, I appear there. Along with everything in a small space around me that I want to take with.¡±

    Mel thought about it. ¡°Shadow Jumping¡­¡± She mused.

    ¡°It¡¯s not really called that.¡± Shades added. ¡°None of my powers actually have names, except Dark Etherea. Not according to the journal at least. You can call it what you want.¡±

    ¡°Shadow Jumping works.¡± She smiled.

    They continued walking for what felt like hours. It didn¡¯t bother either of them, each enjoying the other¡¯s company. They talked about trivial things most of the time, just walked in silence for the rest.

    Shades finally added the Dayle he¡¯d gained to each of his abilities, once more increasing Mel¡¯s height an inch. He found it interesting how her glass armour grew as she did, even if it still barely covered her. He noticed an extra sway in her hips in the middle of his observations. Looking up, he saw a slight tug at the corner of her lips, and realised what it looked like he was doing.

    ¡°I was looking at the armour.¡± He muttered, now walking beside her again.

    ¡°Right.¡± She said.

    He sighed.

    ¡®We¡¯re going to have talk about it eventually.¡¯ He thought.

    He was running out of reasons to keep refusing the subtle invitation she kept throwing his way every now and then throughout their travels. Her increase in size and the dwindling differences between their physical appearances ¨C and their race, he supposed ¨C making it rather difficult to come up with reasons not to take the next step.

    He reaffirmed his resolve to wait until they at least got out of this dungeon. Staying alive came first. But he had to say something, he decided, as he noticed the glances she sent his way every now and then. He didn¡¯t need her being distracted in her confusion¡­ He was distracted enough for the both of them.

    ¡°Mel.¡± He finally said. ¡°We need to talk about this.¡±

    She nodded, knowing what he meant.

    ¡°I had wondered when you would finally bring it up.¡± She said.

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    She nodded. ¡°At first I thought that you didn¡¯t see me that way, that I wasn¡¯t what you wanted in a¡­¡± She looked sad for a moment. ¡°But then I noticed the way you look at me on occasion¡­ I see the desire in your eyes.¡± She looked confused for a moment. ¡°On the platform I saw something else. Like desire but different.¡± She looked at him. ¡°I simply wonder why you haven¡¯t done anything about it.¡±

    Shades¡¯ eyebrows rose. ¡®That was¡­ straightforward.¡¯ He thought she¡¯d beat around bush or play innocent like he¡¯d seen other women always do on movies. Sometimes even at school they were like that. ¡®She isn¡¯t just another girl though.¡¯

    He took her hand.

    ¡°On the platform¡­¡± He paused, running a finger over one of her sharp silver nails. ¡°Let¡¯s just make it out of here first. When we¡¯re done with this place and its dangers, then¡­ We¡¯ll see.¡±

    Mel smiled, her eyes turned smoky as she thought about exactly what they would see. She didn¡¯t say anything further though, and they continued their walked. A slight spring in their step at finally having the tension in the air cleared up.

    Both noticed but didn¡¯t comment on their, still entwined, hands.

 Chapter 12

    <u>Chapter 12</u>

    Nothing much changed for the pair after their talk, apart from becoming bolder and more intimate. Each eager to leave the place so that they could explore their bond further. Mel realised, as Shades had known, that any distractions in a place like that was dangerous, and getting rid of the growing tension between them was essential if they wanted to make it out of there alive.

    Their journey continued for what felt like days. Weeks. Most of that time was spent walking through winding corridors and tunnels to get from one challenge to the next. Most of the challenges involved undead monsters of some sort. Usually, they didn¡¯t have to destroy all of them, just get through them to whatever they were guarding.

    Other times, it was a puzzle they had to complete, or a key they had to retrieve to be able to reach the next stage, typically before they were overrun by whatever was protecting the entrance or exit, key, or answer to their puzzle. In every instance, Shades only received Dayle at the end of the challenge.

    Soon enough, they arrived at another set of large double doors. However, these ones were different than those before. About half of each door was decorated by two huge, carved skulls. They had floating green flames in their hollow eye sockets with black, jagged markings on their heads and gleaming golden teeth decorating their clenched jaws.

    ¡°That¡¯s different,¡± noted Shades.

    A sleepy Mel, riding on Shades¡¯ back, lazily opened her ruby eyes and gazed at the strangely decorated entrance.

    She sighed forlornly, not wanting to leave her comfortable perch, but knowing that the sooner they did this, the sooner they could leave.

    ¡°Need an energy drink,¡± she mumbled in his ear.

    ¡°Go ahead,¡± he answered, ¡°don¡¯t take too long this time.¡±

    The last time she wanted a pick-me-up, they sat for almost an hour, with Mel leaning against his chest, sitting on his lap, as she sipped from his arm draped over her shoulder.

    ¡°Yeah, yeah,¡± came another mumbled reply.

    Shades had built up a resistance against the allure of her venom over the course of their travels and could easily throw off the euphoric feelings her bite induced¡­ if he wanted to. He understood her feelings of boredom over the dull monotone passages. He felt the same, but as the only self-acclaimed responsible one of the pair, he needed to ensure their progress.

    She bit into the side of his neck and took a few mouthfuls. They instinctively held each other tighter, Shades unintentionally groping her rear-end which, in turn, just made her more forceful in her feeding.

    Chuckling, he eased her off his neck and back, much to her moaning protests. They smiled to each other before they turned back to the doors.

    Mel a step behind him, he walked up the doors and grabbed the handles. Pushing them slowly open, the ancient things groaned and creaked. They opened up into another enormous chamber. After a thorough first inspection, they saw it was a throne room.

    Tall, white, marble pillars lined an obsidian walkway, stretching to reach the stone ceiling thirty feet high. The black path ran to the back of the room, stopping short of several marble steps that led to a jade throne. Shades marvelled at the pristine condition the place was in. All the previous rooms were always filled with bone, dust or rubble.

    Sitting on the throne, in regal robes, was a skeleton Shades and Mel had never come across before. It carried a staff with a brightly glowing, emerald jewel on its tip in one hand and a dark skull with sickly purple markings covering it with black smoke seeping out of its empty eye sockets, underneath the other.

    As they slowly approached it, they finally found the only creature in this place that had a level.

    Lich King

    LVL 120

    Shades drew in a deep breath. It was the highest enemy they¡¯d found so far and, he assumed, was the final creature of the dungeon.

    ¡®Lich. They¡¯re magical aren¡¯t they?¡¯ He remembered that liches were always the magical undead.

    ¡°Stay behind me Mel,¡± he said, throwing a slightly concerned glance at Mel, ¡°we¡¯ve never gone against a magical creature before.¡±

    The lich, that had remained immobile until then, turned its head to them, the green fire in its eyes flaring up.

    ¡°Soo¡­ you have finally¡­ arrived,¡± it said in the same deep, tired, decayed voice that warned them the first time.

    ¡°So it was you,¡± Shades remarked, ¡°you tried to warn us that first day.¡±

    ¡°Indeeed¡­ however, the resilience you have shown in besting my creations was¡­ surprising.¡±

    It was the first undead they¡¯d found that could speak. Shades realised that its jaw didn¡¯t move like he imagined it would. Its voice didn¡¯t come from everywhere at once anymore either.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

    ¡°Your creations?¡± He asked.

    The lich didn¡¯t answer, instead it raising its staff an inch off the ground before striking it down three times.

    Barely a second passed before three hands burst from the ground in front of the steps, and out climbed three ten-foot tall armoured skeletons, baring wickedly sharp longswords and tall shields. Shades didn¡¯t see any names appear above them.

    ¡®So that¡¯s why none of the other things had levels.¡¯ Shades had thought they were just part of the dungeon. If they were all creations of this Lich King then it was a lot more powerful than it looked.

    ¡®Then again, if all it can do is summon hordes of undead then this could actually be easier than I thought.¡¯

    The armoured warriors didn¡¯t waste any time and immediately charged the pair. In seconds, they arrived, deadly blades swinging.

    Shades and Mel both dodged to the side, splitting the three up, two going for Shades, the other charging at Mel.

    The two after Shades swung their swords high and low, causing Shades to jump and flip in-between the gap, twisting in mid-air. Landing in a crouch, he went low, forming claws on his right hand and cutting through that skeleton¡¯s leg at the knee, between its two leg armour pieces. Twisting to his left in the same motion, he aimed for that one¡¯s leg but it barely managed to move it out of Shades¡¯ path, still taking three deep marks in its shin plating.

    It brought its shield over, aiming for Shade¡¯s head with its iron-studded edge. He kicked off with his other foot, flipping upside down perpendicular to the ground. With his momentum, he twisted and flipped his legs. Forming a spike at his heel, he pierced the warrior¡¯s helmet along with its skull, extinguishing its green, flaming eyes. It crumbled under Shades¡¯ weight and he rolled forward as he rode it to the ground, hearing a clang behind him. Turning, he saw the first enemy had tried attacking him from behind, but with its heavy armour it fell over with just one leg.

    He quickly finished it off and looked over to see how Mel was doing. She had finished her fight as well. They met up back in the middle of the chamber. Shades looked up at the lich, wondering if that was it. He figured they¡¯d have to fight the boss¡¯s minions before he stepped down personally.

    Its eyes burned brighter as it looked at them for a moment. A couple seconds passed before it struck the ground again, but only once, with its staff.

    This time only one warrior rose from the ground. It was bigger than the previous three by a few feet and wore more elaborate plate armour with more areas covered. It still had a longsword and shield.

    This one didn¡¯t wait either and charged down the obsidian pathway.

    ¡®It¡¯s faster,¡¯ Shades noticed, as it reached them in much less time.

    Once in front of them, it swung its sword horizontally. Mel ducked under it as Shades jumped over. Shades aimed for its head again, but couldn¡¯t twist in mid-air as it swung its shield in the same motion of its swinging sword, almost mimicking the move Shades used previously. It slammed into Shades, sending him flying across the ground. He flipped and landed on his feet and hands, using his clawed fingers to slow his slide across the ground.

    Mel had taken advantage of the opening as it focussed on Shades and slid between its feet, cutting long grooves in its shin plating but couldn¡¯t penetrate deep enough to sever the bone, her claws simply too short. She just sighed and doubled the length of her claws, not knowing why she didn¡¯t do it in the first place. She barely noticed its armour being a lot harder than the previous one.

    It turned, swinging diagonally with its sword as well and she skipped back, avoiding it by inches.

    Shades now shot across the gap between them as the skeleton¡¯s back was turned and formed a foot-long blade at the end of his fingertips. It was just getting ready to swing at Mel again when Shades flew past its neck, severing it between the helmet and shoulder armour. It froze before crumbling into a pile of bones as well.

    The lich barely waited before striking the ground once again.

    The ground that had repaired itself after the armoured skeleton dug itself out of it, cracked open once more, but this time it wasn¡¯t a heavily armoured warrior that clambered out. This time a being only a couple feet taller than Shades pull itself out, wearing thin armour strips across its entire body. It had a mask that covered its face. Instead of a sword and shield, this one had two long, thin blades.

    It didn¡¯t charge in blindly either, but seemed to stare at them for a few seconds. It snapped its jaw once it seemed to make a decision and dashed across to the pair. They barely had a moment¡¯s notice before it was upon them, twisting in a circle and slicing horizontally with its blades, forcing them to each dodge in opposite directions.

    It directed its focus to Shades and dashed to him, not giving him any breathing room. Slicing and stabbing, it was a whirlwind of steel and Shades just barely managed to stay ahead of it, out of its reach, getting a feel for its speed. Mel stayed out of it for now, observing from the fringes until Shades wanted her to step in. Shades was saving his powers until he needed them, handling his foes with his natural speed and agility, testing to see how far he could go.

    Finally having enough, he saw an opening as it slashed diagonally with both blades. Twisting his body under it instead of stepping away from it, he snapped his hand out from his spin and severed the thing¡¯s wrists with another foot-long energy blade extending from his fingertips. That didn¡¯t stop it, but Shades quickly took off its head.

    ¡®Is that the challenge?¡¯ He wondered, ¡®He summons someone stronger after every battle? Wonder what will happen if I shake things up a bit¡­¡¯

    As Shades walked closer to Mel, he suddenly spun and launched a dagger at the lich.

    It hit its skull dead centre and bounced off, leaving barely a scratch.

    ¡®Woops.¡¯

    The flames in the lich¡¯s eye sockets burned brighter and a rumble was heard throughout the throne room.

    ¡°It didn¡¯t seem to like that,¡± Mel commented.

    The lich finally stood, the emerald gem on its staff shined brighter and brighter. It raised the skull in its hand slightly and the lines covering it glowed brighter as well. After only a few seconds, it started striking the ground again and again. After the first hit, a crack appeared on the ground in front of its throne. Each hit thereafter made the crack wider and wider until undead monsters of every variety started climbing out of it. Fairly soon, hundreds of bone creatures and decaying beasts and behemoths stood between them. Things that looked like hundreds of skeletons were stitched together, large undead ogres, more types of armours warriors. Shades thought he even saw a zombie or two here and there. Only a few seconds later, the lich raised its staff and the throne trembled. At its command, the creatures charged forward, still pouring out of the great crack in the floor.

    Mel formed her claws, each of them now a foot long, while Shades did the same. They both had smiles on their faces at the carnage that was about to happen.

    With a shout, they jumped into the melee, shadows of destruction, leaving only piles of bone and dust in their wake.

 Chapter 13

    <u>Chapter 13</u>

    Twist. Twirl. Shift. Slice. Duck. Jump. Slice. Kick. Slice. Spin. Slice.

    On and on Shades went, Mel barely a pace behind. His entire body, his entire being attuned to the chaos around him. To the wordless shrieks and howls and clattering of bones. Destruction, his vocation. Chaos, the rhythm of his heart. Triumphant, his grin, as he watched one glowing socket dim for but the briefest of moments before being replaced by another, and another, and another. His elation gradually reduced however, as he slowly came out of his haze and realised that the never-ending horde was just that. Never-ending.

    His first hint came as he felt his reserves weakening, but the mass of undead, less so. His second, most recent and most obvious came as he and Mel cleared an area around them for a small respite. He didn¡¯t need to look at Mel to see how tired she was getting. She didn¡¯t have his powers of regeneration and her heavy breathing reminded him of the fact.

    ¡°Mel.¡± He said.

    ¡°I know.¡± She replied.

    He looked over at the lich king still standing tall at the foot of its throne. The skull in its hand had started to crumble as it used its tremendous power. It still had a long way to go and, regardless of how much fun it was to turn bone to dust all day, Shades knew they couldn¡¯t outlast it.

    ¡®No wonder it¡¯s the boss.¡¯

    Shades had to take it out himself, a normal blade hadn¡¯t affected it in the slightest.

    ¡®Or maybe¡­¡¯

    He was just about to fill Mel in on his half-formed plan when their enemies came crashing down.

    ¡®She wouldn¡¯t survive without me,¡¯ he realised, ¡®not while being this tired.¡¯

    They spun around each other, half an eye on the other¡¯s back.

    He couldn¡¯t shout at her, the slightest distraction would be their undoing. They needed time.

    Circulating an extra burst of speed, he twisted around Mel, grabbed her and jumped up to the nearest pillar. He didn¡¯t see any archers so he figured if they stayed high, they¡¯d have a moment. The passing brush of wind of a thrown sword quickly dissuaded him of the notion that they needed archers. Still, it was better than what they had.

    ¡°Can you stay high?¡± He shouted. ¡°I¡¯ll take him out.¡±

    He felt her nod on his shoulder as she caught her breath.

    He didn¡¯t need to tell her to keep moving as he left her on a pillar and jumped on an opposing one, leaping from one to the next as he made his way closer to the lich.

    He¡¯d thought about using his shadow abilities to just appear behind the lich and cut its head off. Unfortunately by the time this thought had crossed his mind through his haze, he had already used the power a few times to avoid a blow he couldn¡¯t dodge. The next time he Shadow Jumped would have to be his last if he didn¡¯t want to end up in pain. If killing the lich didn¡¯t end up destroying its creations, he wouldn¡¯t be able to make it back to Mel in time before she was overrun, and he¡¯d rather not take that chance. He cursed himself for his over-eagerness for a good fight and his arrogance at thinking he could handle anything the lich threw at them.

    A few pillars later, he made it close enough to the lich to jump at it in a burst of speed.

    Appearing in front of it barely a second later, he could practically feel his claws shearing through its spine before they collided against a sickly green energy shield, barely half a metre from contact. He almost growled in frustration before, with a burst of energy travelling up his arm, he was flung away, crashing into another pillar.

    He managed to grab onto it, digging his fingers into the stone to keep from falling to the mass below as he tried to shake the numbness from his arm.

    ¡®Good thing I didn¡¯t go with my first plan of throwing Mel at it.¡¯

    He twisted his head to the side to avoid a thrown battleaxe that lodged itself in the stone barely an inch from his face, closing an eye at the spray of dust. He leapt to another one as the feeling returned to his arm.

    ¡®Alright, new plan.¡¯

    Mel seemed to be holding up fine, he thought, as he watched at her easily avoiding the thrown weapons, flying this way and that.

    ¡®Maybe I could chance it.¡¯

    He looked at the lich again. He couldn¡¯t think of any other way to get to it. To get through that shield. It was the first thing that could withstand his ethereal claws and he was at a loss on what else he could use. If he had some kind of long range ability, he could maybe have overpowered it.

    Steeling his resolve, and hoping that the thing¡¯s creations died with it, he channelled his ethereal power in an explosive burst and held it all in. In the brief second of frozen time it gave him, he fixed the position in his mind and Jumped, appearing behind the lich, already spinning with his clawed hand only a few inches from its spine.This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

    It had no time to react and Shades¡¯ claws cleanly severed its skull from its body. Time seemed to freeze again, its skull floating in mid-air, the rest of its body slowly descending to the ground. Shades realised after a second that the skull wasn¡¯t falling with the rest of the body. The undead horde had stilled momentarily as well.

    Then the skull¡¯s sockets started glowing a bright white and a strange rune appeared on top of it, seeming to draw in the air and dust to a single point beneath the skull. It sockets glowed brighter and brighter.

    Feeling what was a coming, Shades, in a burst of speed, leapt away from the skull. He was just too late however, and a massive, explosive shockwave of force erupted from the skull, causing Shades to rocket forward and crash into another pillar once again. Thankfully he managed to decrease his weight just before collision, only cracking it instead of having it in break half and fall on him.

    ¡°This is getting annoying,¡± Shades grumbled as he shook his head to get rid of the daze the impact caused.

    Getting a handhold, he surveyed the damage.

    Some of the closest pillars to the throne lay in big piles of rubble while others had large cracks here and there.

    The death of the lich had rendered all the undead lifeless. Well, more lifeless than they were in any case.

    Spotting movement, he saw Mel extricate herself from a pile of bones, spitting out dust and rubbing off the worst of the dirt covering her. Shades knew he definitely needed a bath when they got out of here.

    Whistling to get her attention, he pointed to the dais that, strangely enough, was the only place not covered in rubble or bone. He saw her nod and leapt to the platform, soon joined by a floating Mel.

    ¡°Well...¡± He started, ¡°That worked.¡±

    ¡°Thankfully,¡± she replied, ¡°I don¡¯t know how much longer I could have lasted.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, my bad. That frenzy in the beginning really messed up my thoughts.¡± He grimaced. ¡°Probably not a good idea in the future unless we actually know what we¡¯re up against.¡±

    Mel just nodded, before pausing, a frown on her face.

    ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± she pointed at a dark purple glow, obstructed by a pile of bones at the foot of the dais.

    Going over to it, he cleared the bones and picked up something they had forgotten about.

    The purple skull.

    He felt a small tingle in his hand but thought nothing of it, assuming it to be left over power still being radiated. He brought it over to Mel.

    ¡°It¡¯s the skull the lich got all its power from.¡±

    ¡°Should you be touching that thing?¡± She asked, dubiously looking at it. ¡°Just throw it away and let¡¯s get out of here.¡±

    The tingle started getting worse and Shades could feel pins and needles up and down his arm. He tried throwing it away but it just stuck to his hand. Grabbing it with his other hand to rip it off, that hand just got stuck as well. No matter how hard he pulled, he couldn¡¯t get rid the skull.

    He hissed as a sharp pain spiked through his hands and the skull felt like it was growing hotter and hotter.

    ¡°Shades? What¡¯s wrong?¡± Mel made to grab onto the skull but Shades jerked it out of her grasp.

    ¡°No!¡± His face was scrunched up in pain now as the skull felt like it was searing his skin. ¡°Don¡¯t touch it.¡±

    The pain rocketed up a few hundred notches and Shades couldn¡¯t keep the groan of agony escaping his lips. It felt like the searing heat in his head, only on his hands.

    Soon it felt like the skull was burning the flesh off his hands, and before his eyes that¡¯s exactly was happened. Starting from his fingers, the flesh slowly blackened to ash and disintegrated. His arms started trembling as it felt like they were getting electrocuted. The pain made him scream in agony, his regeneration working overtime and was the only thing keeping him from getting vaporised in seconds, but the slow advancement making the pain all the more excruciating.

    ¡°Cut them off, Mel!¡± He shouted, looking at her through the tears in his eyes, ¡°My arms, cut them off!¡±

    Her own tear-streaked face stared at him in distress before his words sunk in. She¡¯d been trying to find a way to help him and came to that conclusion just as he shouted it at her.

    Firming her resolve, she formed her claws and sliced through his arms before she could think twice.

    The skull quickly turned the hands attached to it to ash, but was connected by a strange glowing tether to his severed stumps and kept burning it up, the ash flowing through the tether into the skull, slowly devouring Shades.

    His pain intensified and he fell to his knees, barely able to think through the haze that clouded his mind.

    Mel was crying and searching for a way to help him, kneeling beside him, not able to handle his pained cries. It had almost reached his elbows by now.

    Her eyes caught the brightly glowing skull.

    She knew. She knew what would happen if she managed to destroy it. That violent energy needed to go somewhere.

    Her face became resigned. Her heartbeat stilled. She always knew that when the day came, she¡¯d give her life for Shades. She¡¯d do it a hundred times over. She simply wished that it didn¡¯t have to happen so soon. She wished they could experience a life together, no matter how difficult. She wished they had longer. She wished¡­

    But the choices before her made it apparent that there were no choices at all.

    She knelt in front of him and held his face as his entire body trembled. Shades blinked through his tears as he gazed at Mel.

    Her face looked so sad.

    She leaned in closer to his ear and said something that he had wanted to hear for so long.

    Then she kissed him and the pain dulled as his heart swelled. The haze in his mind cleared just enough for his thoughts to catch up and he realised what was happening as she drew away. His eyes managed to focus on her as she crawled to the skull.

    ¡°No¡­ Mel¡­¡± He managed to croak out.

    He tried crawling after her but fell on his face as his elbows couldn¡¯t catch him in time. The trembling in his body increased as the pain spiked once more but it was nothing to the pain in his heart. His tears were now for an entirely different reason.

    ¡°Mel,¡± he groaned, digging his arms into the ground to try and get to her. ¡°Please¡­ No¡­¡±

    She formed a single large claw, sharper than any before, using all the energy she had left.

    ¡°Mel!¡± Shades screamed.

    This wasn¡¯t happening. This couldn¡¯t be happening. There had to be another way. Some way to use his ethereal energy to counteract the curse. Something. Anything but this.

    ¡®Anything but this!¡¯

    He had just managed to get his trembling feet under him when Mel turned to him, a sad smile on her face. She didn¡¯t say anything. Nothing needed to be said.

    A tear drop fell from her chin. Time froze as the violet glow illuminated it. It glinted in the light like the rarest of amethyst gems, the sight searing itself into Shades¡¯ mind like the pain of losing his limbs, the moment forever captured.

    Sound faded away as time resumed its inevitable course and Mel¡¯s hand descended on the skull, piercing through the top and splitting in half, the crack like a gun shot in the silence.

    A howling could be heard then, like the very air was screaming in pain, before a violet explosion of force and light erupted outwards in a shockwave many times worse than the one preceding it.

    Shades was flung to the other side of the throne room, cracking the hard wall as he smashed into it. Falling unconscious, his last fleeting thought was of that jewel frozen in time and Mel¡¯s final words.

    ¡°I love you.¡±