NOVPUBWith a fluid movement, Zhao extracted several feathers from his wings.
Aiming with millimetric precision, he launched the first feather. It cut through the air like a bolt of silver light, penetrating three aligned shadow stalkers before embedding itself in the cavern wall.
Without pause, Zhaontinued his assault. Each feather found multiple targets, eliminating shadow stalkers with an efficiency that spoke of decades ofmbat experience. His movements were fluid and nomical, wasting no energy as he positioned himself for optimal firing angles.
His owl eyes enhanced his precision to superhuman levels, allowing him to calculate trajectories that seemed almost impossible. Time itself appeared to slow as he tracked the movement of each creature, predicting exactly where they would be when his projectiles arrived.
"Too easy," Zhao murmured, his eyes scanning the battlefield.
He advanced deeper into the cavern, eliminating shadow stalkers almost distractedly while his mindntinued working on the mystery.
His feathers returned to him after each kill, eliminating even more creatures on their way back while he positioned himself at different angles. Each feather that returned merged seamlessly with his owl manifestation, ready to be used again.
Soon after, dozens of beasts lay dead in the tunnel, and only the wall, product of thembined efforts of Taro, Shizu, Umi, and Larissa, remained standing.
♢♢♢♢
The battle against the shadow stalkers undergroundntinued...
One after another, the students’ beasts began to disappear.
Jun’s monkey was the first. It had been keeping three shadow stalkers at bay simultaneously, its agile movements a blur of fur and claws. But when a fourth wrapped around its leg, the creature emitted an agonizing shriek.
"No!" Jun cried out as he felt the bond break, falling to his knees while the pain of forced cancellation and the difficulty ofntrolling unbound manaursed through him.
Sora’s deer resisted for barely a few snds more. Its antlers had impaled multiple shadow stalkers, the elegant beast charging and pivoting with surprising grace in thenfined space. But thentinuous absorption of vitality finally depleted its reserves.
With a final flash, the majestic creature vanished, leaving Sora gasping and pale, her hands clutching the tunnel wall to keep fromllapsing.
"Fall back!" Maria ordered, her armadillo serving as another defensive barrier, its plates expanding to shield as many students as possible. "Conserve your beasts’ energy!"
But it was already too late for many. Trent’s fire antnsumed itself in flames, unable to maintain its material form. The small beast flared brilliantly one last time, incinerating two shadow stalkers in its final act before winking out of existence.
Mayo’s cloud bird dissipated like mist under the midday sun.
Mako, who had been fighting on the front line from the beginning, finally reached her limit. Her night ambusher’s claws slashed one last time before dissolving, and shellapsed unscious, saved from the tentacles only by Kira’s goat’s quick intervention. The horned beast charged the creatures, knocking them back with powerful impacts before it too began to fade.
Hana’s Venus extended its roots, creating a defensive network around the unscious Mako. The plant’s tendrils wove together in a protective lattice, temporarily keeping the shadow stalkers at bay. It worked for a brief moment, until the shadow stalkers, learning quickly, began attacking the roots instead of the adjacent earth. The plant shuddered and began to visibly wither.
"Hikari, Liora! I need light!" Luna shouted, her shadow wolf struggling to maintain its form while repelling the creatures.
Both responded instantly. Hikari’s firefly emitted a blinding flash that momentarily disoriented the shadow stalkers, while Liora’s will-o’-wisp created a barrier of blue flames that kept the closest ones at bay. But it was evident in theirntracted faces and in the trembling of their hands that they were operating at the limit of their capabilities.
"We can’t maintain this much longer," Hikari murmured. Her firefly’s light pulsed erratically, growing dimmer with each flash.
"Something’s wrong," Maria observed between gasps. "They’re absorbing too quickly, as if they were... hungry for something specific." Her armadillo’s plates had begun to crack in places, small fissures appearing where the shadow stalkers’ touch had drawn out too much vitality.
A different vibration then traveled through the tunnel. It wasn’t the familiar soft scraping of female shadow stalkers, but something more intense, more powerful.
Liora visibly paled.
"It’s the nuptial flight," she whispered in horror. "We must be near the dispersal season."
"Nuptial flight?" Hikari turned to her,nfusion momentarily overriding her fear.
"Ren told me in the tunnels that the males of this species aren’t males like those of ours... they’re not what they seem," Liora explained. "Shadow stalker queens create ’sentinel males,’ not for reproduction, but as carriers and protectors. The males transport young queens to new areas to establishlonies, along with some workers to start the process."
"So in thislony they’re creating more males now?" Hikari asked, her light dangerously flickering as her energy decreased.
"It seems that..."
She didn’t need to finish the sentence. A guttural sound,mpletely different from the hisses of female shadow stalkers, resonated through the tunnel. The creatures that had been attacking them momentarily stopped, as if listening to silent orders.
"They’reming," Lunanfirmed in the darkness what everyone feared. "The males."
Her wolf, now reduced to little more than a shadow outline, growled weakly. Hana’s Venus hadllapsed almostmpletely, its roots now simple dry greenish threads. Matilda’s armadillo maintained its position, but its shell was looking brittle and worn.
The wall at the end of the tunnel gave way, and a creature emerged that made normal shadow stalkers seem harmless bymparison.
The male shadow stalker entered the tunnel. Its tentacles were thicker, more numerous, and extended farther than those of its smallerunterparts.
Behind it, a snd male began to emerge like a nightmare taking physical form.
"We’re finished. You must run, my ladies," Hikari murmured, her firefly now barely a trembling point of light.
The first male extended its tentacles, the energy pulsation in them so intense that the air itself seemed to distort around them. The few remaining beasts positioned themselves in defensive formation, but it was an almost symbolic gesture against such power.
The male attacked.
In the same instant, the ground beneath the shadow stalker exploded upward like a geyser of earth and stone. The creature was thrown backward, its tentacles flailing in momentarynfusion as it was launched into the air.
A figure emerged from the ground with the fluidity of one who dominates the earth element as an extension of their own being. Julius stood up between the students and the shadow stalkers, his wolverine fully manifested, transforming his arms intolossal claws of crystallized rock.
"Takever!" he ordered, his voice resonating with natural authority as the earth around him began to move as if it had a life of its own. The ground trembled beneath their feet, responding to his will like an eager servant.
Without waiting for a response, Julius struck the ground with both fists. The earth responded to hismmand, undulating like a wave that rose to form a protective wall in front of the students. The barrier emerged with startling speed.
The snd male had finished emerging, and now bothnverged on Julius, their tentacles extending like deadly whips, hungry for the powerful mana signature they detected.
But Julius was in his element, literally.
With impossibly precise movements, he created stalagmites that eliminated each of the creatures in sight while simultaneously sealing the tunnel with all the adjacent earth. Tons of weight that hadst Shizu so much effort to move were now like extensions of his own hands, responding to his will with perfect obedience.
In moments, what had been a desperate battle became a one-sided demonstration of mastery over the earth element.
