[HUGE thank you to Daoist4bMk5P, Zackary_Davis, and Mattirro for being my biggest golden ticket supporters!]
[Also, thank you Epic_Buddie123, Dark_Knight16, Master_Atlest and NotGRE3D for being my biggest supporters through gifting last month. Truly appreciated]
"Lloyd!" Tina shouted as she saw the black-haired man standing in the middle of a foggy field composed of pale blue flas. However, just when she was about to run over to see if he was okay, she felt Roderick's arms wrap around her waist as he pulled her away from in incoming talon before throwing her down to the ground.
Placing an arrow onto the device on his wrist, Roderick quickly aid at the creature before shooting at it until it fell, and when he finally confird that it was dead, he turned around with a cold expression.
"I said stand down. He wants to handle this on his own. We only help him when he's in danger." Roderick spoke.
"But, he was in the shadow the whole ti. How were we supposed to know if he was in danger?" Tina asked, yet she quickly quieted down after seeing Hi stare at her from the corner of her eye.
While the owl had left Lloyd's shadow looking like a fireball, Lloyd knew that the shadows most likely tanked most of the flas, but there was also a chance that the flas had hurt it.
Looking up from the blue flas encircling where he stood, he squinted into the distance. However, he quickly realized that there was no need for that.
While the owl was no longer covered in shadows to make it appear to look black, Lloyd quickly realized that its mutation had also changed the color of its feathers, making it look more like a stealthy ninja owl than it had before with its half-translucent white wings.
"Huh?" Raising a brow, Lloyd squinted again to see why the owl had suddenly stretched out its wings, yet in the sa instant, he felt panic jolt to his stomach as a shower of arrows made out of shadows shot toward him.
'I can block it with the flas... Or at least delay it until I have ti to move away.' Lloyd thought.
Just before the arrows could hit him, Lloyd released a large sphere of flas that stopped them and even managed to completely burn one or two of them away.
With the help of the flas, he quickly accelerated and flew toward the owl, dodging the shadow arrows while the pale blue flas on his feet shot him upwards.
"Bring it bitch!" Lloyd shouted before launching a powerful punch covered in shadows toward the owl. The second the punch made contact, the creature was thrown back several ters and slamd into a tree, resulting in a loud *CRACK* that echoed through the forest.
Before it could recover, Lloyd shot a kick toward its head and followed up with a series of punches, leaving it dazed and unable to stand much longer. Knowing what it would do if it regained its composure, Lloyd shot both hands forward and engulfed the owl in a pillar of flas.
The pillar of flas burned the owl's body until all of the remaining shadows on its body disappeared, and its feathers began to burn, yet it continued to increase in strength, forcing Lloyd to jump several ters away since he was running low on mana.
Suddenly, a surge of mana shot in every direction as the owl advanced to half-step second commandnt, sending gusts of winds through the forest while causing all the small fights to halt for a mont as everyone looked at Lloyd and the ascending monster before him.
The horse-sized black owl monster advanced toward him, and a sense of anticipation and thrill filled the air. The creature was formidable and cunning, Lloyd could see it in its eyes, and he knew he wouldn't be able to hold back even if he wanted to.
Of course, he wasn't about to use his Void Walker abilities, but he would have to use everything else.
'Half-step second commandnt? At this rate, it will reach the second commandnt within a few minutes. Maybe this wasn't a mutation... Maybe it was an evolution?' Lloyd inwardly analyzed while glancing toward his group. He didn't know what he expected, but he could tell you that he didn't expect to see them staring at him like hawks, analyzing his every move.
On the other hand, Hi looked like she was ready to kill the owl the mont she saw him close to being in danger.
The difference between a Topaz stage second commandnt and a half step was like the difference between night and day, so Lloyd didn't doubt that she had the ability to kill the owl with a single attack if she truly wanted to.
Shaking his head, Lloyd took two blades out of his dinsional storage, ready for the fight ahead. The owl charged forward, its massive wings spreading wide as it attacked with its sharp talons. Lloyd dodged to the side, narrowly avoiding the owl's deadly strikes before spinning on his heel and swinging his blades toward it.
His weapons sliced through the air with precision and speed, and despite reacting in ti to move away from the attack, Lloyd also predicted that it would try to dodge.
The owl screeched in pain and fury, its feathers flying everywhere as it tried to defend itself, yet it was too late. Or so Lloyd thought.
Lloyd's sword clashed against the owl's stomach, yet instead of seeing red like he had expected, all he saw were sparks followed by the sound of tal hitting tal.
'Sh*t... Its feathers are as strong as my blade even without its shadow covering it...' Lloyd gritted his teeth.
The battle continued as the owl's powerful talons clashed with Lloyd's weapon. Lloyd struggled to keep up with the owl's quick movents and powerful attacks, but he refused to give up.
He knew that he had to push himself to defeat the owl, but he also knew that even if he tried using his flas, he would not be able to land a powerful attack again since he would have run out of mana.
[Shadow Enhancnt]
Without thinking twice, Lloyd covered his body in shadows and began to fight with precision and speed that rivaled the owls. Yet unlike the owl, Lloyd had quick thinking to his side while the owl was just a stupid animal who would run away at the first sign of danger.
Lloyd's determination and skill began to pay off, and before he knew it, he started to gain the upper hand.
He knew that his attacks were much more powerful now that he had activated [Shadow Enhancent], but in a situation like this one, it wasn't his body or abilities that held him back; it was his weapon.
Gritting his teeth, Lloyd flipped away from the owl, creating two to three dozen ters of distance between the two.
To everyone's surprise, Lloyd slowly returned his blades to his dinsional storage before-
[Shadow Claw]
Lloyd's eyes shone brightly, and before the owl could react to the claws that ad seed to have co out of nowhere, Lloyd had already shot forward with all the speed he could muster behind his legs.
Lloyd wasn't in any way proficient in using his claws.
It was one of the main reasons why he barely used them. Or at least that was the case before he began his lessons with Hi. Since his claws were sharper and stronger than his blades, he saw that using them would be the best course of action.
*Clang*
*Clink*
*BOOM*
Clashing with the owl's talons, Lloyd could feel that he could produce much more power with his claws than he could with his blades, yet at the sa ti, he felt as if using his claws was a much more dangerous approach than using his blades or even his katana.
Lloyd's katana gave less attack power, mainly due to its quality and grade, but that was not all. A katana was simply much less adaptable than claws attached to one's hands.
Lloyd could use them as gauntlets, claws, 10 razor-sharp needles, and much more, while a katana could only be used for slashing, defending, or parrying, even tho the latter would be much easier with European blades that have a hilt and two sides to cut from.
However, a katana's advantages were clear. It cut better than any other blade, and it had more reach than Lloyd's claws, allowing Lloyd to keep the creature at a distance at all tis.
However, now that he had to get close and personal to attack his opponent, he needed to find other ways to defend himself.
The owl and Lloyd fought for several minutes as the owl continued to gain strength, but simultaneously continued to get hurt. While its powers increased over ti, it still lost large amounts of blood every ti Lloyd hit it wherever it was wounded.
They bounced in and out of the shadows, making it seem like a ga of cat and mouse, but in this ga, the mouse beat the cat before retreating. Lloyd mainly did it to show Roderick that he was listening to his lessons, but it also helped in its own way since the owl's anger was increasing, sothing everyone could see by the killing intent that was becoming thicker by the second.
After a while of fighting, an idea finally ca to Lloyd's mind.
'I got it!' Lloyd thought while a sinister smile stretched across his lips.
Charging forward again, Lloyd stretched out his hand to strike the owl, yet instead of moving away, it chose to intercept with one talon and attack his face with the other.
Unfortunately for it, Lloyd wasn't actually aiming for the owl... He was aiming for the talon.
Grabbing the owl's leg, Lloyd used his body to its maximum output before swinging with everything he had and slamming the owl into the ground.
Seeing this as a mont of weakness, Lloyd focused his energy and unleashed his fire and lightning powers, engulfing the owl in flas while electrocuting it with all the electricity he could create.
The owl screeched in pain and fury, but it was too late.
Reeling his arm back, Lloyd's eyes shone with a hint of rage as his clawed hand descended toward the owl's heart, yet before it could fully reach it-
*SCREECH*
Lloyd felt his face being stretched as the sound waves pushed him back, yet before he could fly too far away, the owl froze.
Lloyd, who had not used a single ounce of killing intent since the start of the fight, had suddenly released everything.
His killing intent flooded his part of the forest, and every creature that stood within it could not help but hold their breath for a mont as the killing intent intertwined itself in the powers of [Monarch's Aura].
After his lessons with Veronica, Lloyd's killing intent had skyrocketed in power. Every day he felt like he was going to die for 5 hours straight, but now that he was in a battle, he finally saw use to those hours of torture.
Flas slowly swirled before becoming a small pale blue sphere, and within an instant, the spheres ripped through the air and shot toward the owl with speeds that could probably put bullets to sha.
The owl also tried to create its own attacks, yet when Lloyd saw it expand its wings out, Lloyd closed his eyes before slamming his hand onto the ground.
'Use the flas as the material, and the shadows as the cent that holds it together.' he thought before opening his eyes and looking straight into the owl's pupils.
[Void Gaze]
[Fire Shadow]
[Hede's chains - Lock Down]
Black and blue chains ripped out of the ground and wrapped around the already frozen owl, and before it could regain its composure and snap away from [Void Gaze] to even attempt to break the chain, several pale blue fiery bullets ripped through the air before appearing before it.
And in that very instant, dozens of fla bullets shot through the owl, destroying its wings, organs, and heart before entering its brain and lting in an instant.
*Ding*
Despite being exhausted, Lloyd looked down at his watch, and when he saw what he wanted to see, a smile appeared on his face, extending from ear to ear as a powerful surge of energy entered his body.
[Shadow Enhancent (Lvl 2 ----> 3)]
[Shadow Movent (Lvl 1 ----> 2)]
[Shadow Claw (Lvl 1 ----> 2)]
[You have 3 gained new abilities]
[Shadow Wings]
[Shadow Expansion]
[Shadow Arrows]
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