Chapter 1136 - Weakness Overcome

Within the eternal darkness of the Shadow Realm, the goddess who called it her home observed a small corner of this multiverse-covering realm with great interest. A curiosity for sure, considering the involved parties she observed were merely a C- and a B-grade locked in combat.

The entire fight was... sloppy. Almost to a hilarious degree. One fighter was extremely skilled and was, in certain areas, able to be considered unrivaled, especially in his grade, if not among all mortals. Meanwhile, the other was unskilled, untrained, and lacked any outstanding abilities. The only advantage it had was its B-grade stats and power that far surpassed the far more skilled C-grade human.

And sometimes, raw power did overcome technique. The human was struggling, his body unable to keep up with what he required of it. His limbs were giving out with every clash, and Umbra saw the struggle and frustration whenever his body couldn’t adhere to his will.

She guessed the human had some way to turn the tide, but for some reason, he kept stubbornly fighting in the same way. Finally, it reached its limit where it seemed as if he’d gone one step too far, the accumulated damage passing a point of no return. That last hit had broken the dam, his human form showing its limitations.

Yet, he kept just standing there, looking at his hands as if they had just greatly betrayed him. After recovering, the Chimera moved to strike in retaliation, and once more, the hunter did not do as one would expect. In fact, quite the opposite.

With an enemy closing in, he closed his eyes. Even as the two axes were prepared and swung down toward his head, he remained still. Umbra merely observed, having a good idea about what the Chosen was doing. To experience growth in combat was a hallmark of anyone worthy of calling themselves a genius, and this appeared to be one such moment.

The timing could have been slightly better, though. As the axes grew closer, Umbra saw the distortion of time affecting the Chosen, as he used a skill the goddess had only heard of but never seen in person before. From her perspective, it didn’t look like it did anything, but she knew that from the human’s point of view, time no longer moved the same.

To use a survival skill as a way to buy a second of enlightenment was novel, and as the goddess of shadows wondered if it would be enough... she felt it. Nothing that had happened so far had even been worthy of raising an eyebrow. The hunter had shown nothing she didn’t already know about or found truly outstanding.

However, in that moment, she felt a familiar aura from the human. One that belonged to the one man who had shown the multiverse that humanity was a pinnacle race that was there to stay. The aura of a legendary warrior...

Except it wasn’t his aura, even if, for the blink of an eye, it did feel like it. Instead, it had been a very faithful imitation born from the Records of Valdemar. As a human, the Chosen naturally had a deep, innate connection to Valdemar, the same way most dark elves were connected to her.

That didn’t make his feat any less impressive, though. To produce an echo of a Primordial’s aura from mere Records...

Umbra couldn’t help but smile as the human opened his eyes again, feeling quite confident he was hiding even more secrets than she’d first assumed.

--

Jake’s eyes opened as a feeling of power welled up from both his katars and entered his hands and forearms. He felt his grip, tighter than ever, and as the axes descended toward him, a sense of stability and confidence rushed through his body.

Rather than dodge, he moved his hands upwards to block one of the descending axes using both katars. A move that would have resulted in at least four fingers flying off merely a second ago.

The axe struck Jake’s katars, and he felt the force permeate through his body as he was sent flying downwards from the impact... his guard holding throughout. Looking at his hands through the holes in his gloves, Jake dispelled his scales and saw that his skin now had a blackish color. What’s more, it gave off the faint aura of curse energy.

Looking at the other hand, he saw an even deeper black color permeating it, giving off a metallic feeling mixed with something more. Something that Jake couldn’t identify at all, at least not until he realized why he couldn’t identify it... because there was nothing to identify in the first place. Void was the absence of everything, after all.

It was evident that the nature of the two weapons Jake wielded had affected his hands and down to just below his wrist. His soul had merged with his weapons, and in return, his weapons had merged with him, becoming an even greater part of Jake than before.

Jake’s moment of enlightenment had been brief, and from the looks of it, the Chimera had yet to fully realize something had changed. It hadn’t even noticed Jake’s demeanor had grown far calmer, even as it charged again.

With his newfound melee capabilities, Jake met the B-grade head-on, and this time around, he no longer feared blocking or deflecting the blows of his opponent. His sudden change in strategy evidently took the aggressive B-grade by surprise, as it hadn’t expected him to deflect another axe swing before diving straight past a shadow dagger and stabbing the Chimera in the chest for what felt like the umpteenth time.

Previously, when he did this, he also released an explosion of energy to give himself some space, but not this time. Instead, he quickly withdrew his katar and stabbed again, getting in several quick jabs before he was forced to dodge again.

He moved around the B-grade, and on the way, he got a glimpse of his hands again through the gloves and saw his black skin had returned to normal, even if the full effect remained. Jake quickly covered them both in scales as, despite the increase in durability, he hadn’t suddenly transformed his hands into those of a Runemaiden. They were a lot tougher, but still within reason.

Jake also noticed something else as he continued his assault while taking full advantage of his newfound momentum. Every blow felt stronger than before, if only by a little. He hadn’t gotten any levels, but the notification he got let him know the reason.

Fangs of Man had gotten an upgrade, and as Jake’s passive melee skill, that meant an increase to the effectiveness of Strength and Agility. Overall, the result was that Jake's hands and arms could now move faster than before, and his overall power had experienced a slight upgrade in concert with the durability increase.

All bad news for the Chimera.

“What did you do?” the monster asked as it whipped around, bringing with it a barrage of tendrils that forced Jake to retreat temporarily.

“Improved,” Jake simply answered as he kicked down while creating a stable arcane platform beneath his foot, shooting forward. “Something you probably can’t relate to.”

His petty insult didn’t appear to have any effect as the Chimera continued attacking, speaking more to itself than to Jake.

“For so many years, I’ve lorded over this Hunting Ground. For so many years, I’ve prepared myself to leave, and now that I finally have my one opportunity, you will not stop me!” the B-grade yelled, releasing a small shockwave of shadow energy that washed over Jake as he passed right through and was nearly upon his foe.

These words from the Chimera did annoy him, though. “You could have left at any point. You said yourself you had been given the opportunity to leave already, but declined it. You only have your own cowardice to blame.”

“I have made no decisions I regret!” the Chimera insisted as Jake dodged the two axes and parried both shadow daggers at once, right as the spear-like tendril shot up from beneath. Rather than try to dodge, Jake purposefully moved his foot into its path and allowed it to smash up into his boot.

As expected, nothing could harm the most overpowered boots in the multiverse. Instead, he was merely sent flying upwards, straight toward his target: the one remaining shadow flower.

Ignoring the pain in his foot from the impact, Jake went straight for the thin tendril as the Chimera desperately tried to get out of the way, but Jake was too fast. Infusing both katars with energy, he used another set of Piercing Fangs as he penetrated into the tendril, and once in there, he twisted and made both his weapons explode in a blast of destructive arcane mana.

The entire tendril was severed as the second flower of flesh wilted, and as it did, the suppressive effect on Jake instantly dispersed. The halfway severed tendril swayed a few times before it stopped moving, and right before Jake’s eyes, it began to seep out black smoke.

Jake quickly retreated after having launched his successful attack, which was when he saw that it wasn’t just that one tendril that had started leaking out shadow energy. All throughout the body of the Chimera, black smoke was emitted, and he saw the tattered cloak that covered its body begin to tatter even more as fragments of it merged with the B-grade.

“Even if the shadows may take me... so shall you be claimed,” the Chimera said, its voice calm.

Right then, a cracking sound echoed throughout the Shadow Realm as the bark on the Chimera broke apart all over its body, revealing the black rotting flesh beneath that began to squirm and move.

In a rain of disgusting brown blood, tendrils one by one erupted from the exposed body of the Chimera, each of them absorbing the shadow energy expelled from the B-grade’s body as new bark-like material formed only at their tips. Some formed spear-like ends, while others were turned into more hands.

Within moments, the Chimera had grown another twenty tendrils to attack with, looking more like some eldritch horror than anything else. All of these tendrils swayed in the air threateningly, daggers of shadow energy appearing in all the empty hands as the spear-tendrils slowly lowered themselves and pointed straight toward Jake.

“Now die.”

The entire Chimera was enveloped in mana as it Shadow Vaulted forwards, appearing again right in front of Jake as it swung its now nearly thirty tendrils all at once. The B-grade had entirely given up any semblance of defense in order to kill Jake, and based on how it was still constantly leaking energy, this truly was its final gambit.

And boy, was it a stupid one.

Could Jake try to dodge all the tendrils? Sure, and he reckoned he would even have a good shot, as even now they were clearly getting in the way of one another. However, why would he bother when he had a far better approach available?

Leaping backwards, Jake summoned his wings and rapidly began flying backwards as the Chimera pursued. Sadly for the B-grade, it was slower now due to its less-than-ideal form, and it had to rely on Shadow Vault to try to keep up.

Meanwhile, Jake pulled out his bow and, with the flowers out of the way, he switched to a full-range fighting style. So what if he’d just gotten an upgrade to his melee skill? That didn’t mean he had to only use that, and besides, he had already succeeded in overcoming the unacceptable weakness he identified.

Evidently, the Chimera had expected Jake to continue using only his katars and was not ready when the salvo of arrows arrived. With its bark mostly gone, it now only had a tattered cloak covering it here and there, and Jake knew just how weak the body could be without any proper armor, be that armor natural or acquired.

Arrows pierced into flesh one by one as Jake kept his distance through a clever use of arcane blasts and using his wings while maneuvering around the Shadow Realm. As he already knew, Shadow Vault worked in straight lines, so as long as he kept flying in an unpredictable pattern, the Chimera never quite locked him down and make use of all its tendrils.

Instead, it could only struggle as the damage accumulated with every poison-coated arrow. The flesh was beginning to come apart in several places, and the rot was spreading at an alarming rate. The insane Vitality of the Chimera still allowed it to hold on for a while longer, but by now, the ending already felt like it was written.

The Chimera’s final gambit had been an utter failure and only sped up its own demise, and under the watchful eye of the goddess of shadows, Jake prepared to finish the job. He continued his assault for a few more moments, waiting for the Chimera to make its next desperate move, and luckily, he didn’t have to wait long.

After using another Shadow Vault, the Chimera threw every single shadow dagger at once, each one aimed straight for Jake as they rapidly flew toward him. Relying a bit on luck, Jake used One Step right before he was hit and found himself teleported half a kilometer diagonally away from the Chimera, dodging all the daggers.

Taking advantage, Jake released a Rain of Arrows upon the Chimera that responded by trying to destroy all the arrows before they struck. However, right as the arrows met tendrils, all of them exploded at once. These explosions focused on scope rather than intensity, as they were absolutely massive and were several dozen kilometers in radius each.

The explosive arcane mana masked what Jake did next as he finally took out his Protean Arrow, which had been slow-cooked in his quiver all this time. It had been done for a while, but with the flesh flowers, he never had an opportunity to use it. Not before now.

Jake began charging an Arcane Powershot, and to buy himself a little more time, he also used the power of shadows a bit himself. A second version of Jake appeared as his Eternal Shadow shot forward, straight through the rapidly fading arcane energy.

Less than a second later, the Chimera spotted Jake–or at least what it thought was Jake–as it used Shadow Vault to pursue. Jake’s Eternal Shadow kept running away from the Chimera as it tried to attack over and over again, but as it was effectively a clone of Jake, his Eternal Shadow was also quite good at dodging.

With its increased duration within the Shadow Realm, the clone managed to buy even more time, but alas, the Chimera simply had too many tendrils by now. Eventually, the Eternal Shadow was struck by a shadow dagger, but to Jake’s surprise, it didn’t immediately disperse. Instead, its entire body turned black and shadowy, revealing to the Chimera it had been a clone all along, but for a brief moment more, the Eternal Shadow remained tangible. Tangible enough to strike and land one more solid hit before finally becoming one with the shadows.

This brief moment gave Jake one more second to charge his Powershot, though he reckoned at that point it was already good enough. Letting go of the string, a shockwave of arcane energy temporarily pushed back the shadows as it flew toward the Chimera. Every bit of Hunting Momentum had been poured into it, and right before it struck, Jake used Gaze to stop the Chimera from dodging away with a Shadow Vault.

The arrow struck true and upon impact, flesh and blood exploded everywhere. The Chimera had its entire mid-section destroyed, two dozen tendrils were severed and sent floating through the shadows, and at that point, all knew the fight was over.

As a final measure, Jake raised his hand and activated Touch of the Malefic Viper to stimulate the poison within the Chimera’s body truly. In addition, he triggered the Arcane Charge from Hunter’s mark, the shadow realm lighting up in a flash of arcane light a second later as the Chimera screamed before it fell silent.

All the squirming tendrils that were still attached fell down limply as the entire body of the Chimera turned black and semi-translucent, as if it were about to use Shadow Vault again. Except Jake knew it wasn’t.

It was simply becoming one with the shadows, as its body slowly began dispersing like smoke, its voice echoing for a final time, its words not making much sense.

“Shadows... I see... finally...”

With those words, the rest of the Chimera faded away as the B-grade truly became one with the shadows for good, a notification confirming its death.

You have slain [Darkwood Chimera – lvl 359] – Bonus experience earned for killing an enemy above your level

’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 319 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points

’DING!’ Race: [Human (C)] has reached level 316 - Stat points allocated, +45 Free Points

’DING!’ Class: [Arcane Hunter of Horizon’s Edge] has reached level 320 - Stat points allocated, +50 Free Points

Several notifications, in fact, as levels were evidently back on the menu. Two this time around, which seemed pretty fair considering this had been one of the harder fights Jake had gone through, especially with the interference of Umbra.

Speaking of...

“I believe congratulations are in order,” the voice of Umbra echoed from all around. “As well as your promised reward.”

Where the Chimera had died, only the tattered cloak now floated, but with the goddess’ words, the shadows gathered around it. These shadows clearly contained some of the Records of the Chimera, but also those of the Shadow Realm itself, and shortly, Jake’s forgotten cloak had been given all new life.