NOVPUBIn the beginning, Shadow Soul was indeed very cautious and conservative.
She pondered whether there would be a door at the end of the secret passage or if someone would guard it, and whether there might be traps or an ambush inside.
That’s why she specially used "Corpse Preservation" to conceal herself.
To ensure she had enough mana to handle emergencies, she found Miss Janet, who was happily entertaining a client.
As a Blood Magus on the Path of Love, Janet could use her life force in place of mana to cast a lesser version of spells. Janet’s Path trait allowed her to actively connect with a target and use her own life force as fuel to bear half the casting cost for another.
Although the Foundry, Shadow Soul, and Janet were not strictly teammates, they were acquainted in reality. They had a basis for cooperation.
The Foundry, being too impetuous, had voluntarily given up on this ritual. Since the ritual was difficult, the two of them had to cooperate closely.
Even though Janet felt he was living just fine and, as a Transcendent of the Path of Love, he had conversion value in the eyes of these Sons of the Moon, he thought that if he behaved well enough, he would likely be bought directly by the client.
But he still readily agreed to Shadow Soul’s request for cooperation.
In simple terms, this meant Janet mimicked "Corpse Preservation" to also hide under Shadow Soul’s cloak, then acted as a blood pool to bear the mana cost of Shadow Soul’s spells, allowing her to store sequence spells.
The petrification ray previously used to trigger the sequence spells was also cast by Janet on behalf of Shadow Soul.
The Blood Magus trait of "mana pool converted into life force" meant that when everyone’s mana pools were low, he could burn life force to obtain a sufficient amount of equivalent mana.
As long as they could capture someone alive, they could perform a feeding ritual to absorb the victim’s life force. This would be equivalent to obtaining a mana recharge.
Preservers were exceptionally good at control spells, making their cooperation potentially perfect. If the Foundry were still alive, their combination would have been even more perfect.
— The Foundry could have summoned them a set of demonized heavy armor and equipped them with Extraordinary Weapons suitable for use in various environments. This was the advantage of a Blacksmith’s profession, they created too many Extraordinary Items themselves.
If she could have hidden both of them inside such knight’s armor, there was no doubt their strength would be much greater than this tattered cloth.
Although she could at most only bring one more person with her, and if she brought someone, she couldn’t cast spells herself. But Janet could mimic "Corpse Preservation" to come in on his own, then both Janet and the Foundry could cast spells from within the armor.
This was simply invincible!
Even if the armor was suddenly shattered, as long as they could buy some time, the Foundry could summon a new set of armor and repeat the cycle—As long as they didn’t summon a Fire Spirit, the mana cost wouldn’t be much, and Janet’s blood pool could be quickly restored by feeding on a Transcendent.
This way, it was like a perpetual motion machine! She didn’t know how she could lose if she could achieve this effect.
Even if the Sons of the Moon came, she was confident she could easily defeat those a tier and a half above her Energy Level!
— At the third Energy Level, they could even fight multiple opponents, and at the fourth, they could still hold their own!
But now, they were as fragile as glass—
Janet didn’t have time to cast the spell to shrink the cloth, he could only strip the cloth off his body and toss it towards Aiwass and others, then turned and ran.
Beyard watched the naked man running away, his brows deeply furrowed, and instinctively shielded Aiwass’ view with his hand, "Do you want me to take them down for you?"
"No need for you, just watch from the side."
A saccharine, pleasant voice sounded.
A pitch-black Shadow Wolf rose from the ground beneath Aiwass, its crimson pupils fixated on the tattered cloth floating in the air, lit up with a dim yellowish glow.
But the wolf’s face displayed a characteristically human sneer, "Choosing to cover the rear voluntarily? That’s quite touching..."
The next moment, countless shadow blades thrust out from the walls on both sides!
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Like closing fangs, they snapped open and shut several times, shredding the cloth into pieces!
A little girl with golden hair tumbled awkwardly from the void.
She looked up, her eyes wide with panic toward Aiwass, "Why would the Grey Path of Adaptation have... "
She couldn’t even finish the word "Shadow Demon" before she saw the petite black-haired girl suddenly give her a fearsome, hideous smile, forcing her to shove the last two words back down.
Shadow Soul immediately realized—
Grey and Alai had switched identities, "Alai" was a man!
— But still, forming a pact with a Shadow Demon at not even third Energy Level, wasn’t that too much?
With such talent, why not join the Rose Cross Society!
"It’s time for you to die once, kid," accompanied by a deep, hoarse voice rising.
She suddenly felt her heart pierced by a shadow blade, her consciousness dragged into the abyss.
This intense, real sensation of death made her struggle frantically as if drowning.
What’s happening, what’s going on?!
I thought I died during the promotion ceremony... but this feeling...!
The next moment, the Shadow Soul suddenly opened its eyes.
"Is it... a dream?"
The young man, who looked to be in his twenties or thirties, suddenly sat up from the bed, his eyes darting around in panic.
He noticed that the room was not red and there was no Ritual Array on the floor.
"...Did I not partake in the promotion ceremony?"
The Shadow Soul murmured to himself.
Could it have been a premonition dream?
But what does it mean to dream of this...
"Perhaps," a light, childlike voice rang by his ear, "it means you wanted to come and play with me."
He abruptly turned around to see a pale-skinned girl at the door of the room, clapping a ball.
The room door had opened at some unbeknownst time, but there was only darkness outside.
Even though the girl didn’t look up, it was as if she was staring right at him.
The Shadow Soul felt his scalp tingling.
All of a sudden, the girl lifted her head and revealed a fierce smile identical to the one the dark-haired girl had: "You believed it."
On the other side, Aiwass’s voice began to rise slowly, "Don’t rush, Shadow Demon. I’m conducting an experiment, hold off on taking action..."
The blonde girl was lying on the floor with a face full of fear, her eyes vacant as she stared ahead.
Behind her, the spirit form of the Earthbound Spirit Alice stood quietly, looking down at the Shadow Soul. Besides Aiwass, the summoner, only Transcendents with spirit vision could see her.
The Shadow Demon sounded a bit annoyed: "And who might she be, my dear master?"
"A new friend; her name is Alice."
Aiwass said with a smile, "When I found her, she was with Little Butterfly; and when I brought her back, you and Lily were together."
"I find it entirely unnecessary."
The Shadow Demon sharply criticized, "Her strength might be considerable to the average person, but for my respected and special master, it can be said to be meaningless. I can take care of weak enemies for you; and she can’t control the strong ones. You deserve stronger followers — like me."
"Don’t worry, she won’t be drinking blood for the time being," Aiwass reassured.
"...That’s tolerable," responded the Shadow Demon grudgingly.
Meanwhile, Beyard chuckled.
Just then, a scream suddenly came from the front.
"The Philosopher’s trap has been triggered."
Aiwass ordered Alice, "Catch up with him and kill him. Then start hunting the Sons of the Moon—start with the weaker ones, prioritize maintaining your own existence."
"Yes..."
Alice replied lightly, glancing down at the Shadow Soul once more.
The Shadow Soul suddenly shivered all over and wet himself.
She was literally scared to death!
Replenished with life force, Alice’s body, which had been semi-transparent, became solid as if real.
She disappeared like an illusion and set off on her own to hunt down the designated target.
"This is what she can do that you cannot," Aiwass said, petting the head of the Shadow Wolf and laughing softly, "You have to stay with me all the time."
The Shadow Demon whimpered like a whining dog, wagging its tail and came over to lick Aiwass’s face.
Suddenly, Beyard felt a bit annoyed again. 𝓃𝓸𝓋𝓅𝓊𝒷.𝓬𝓸𝓂
