Shun POV:

The chaotic battlefield worsened with time. Waves of monsters rushed out of black portals. Others descended from the night sky; the darkness cloaking their movements till Adventurers screamed for assistance.

‘Tch.’

Broken ribs. Fractured bones. Bruises concealed underneath the attire I wore reminded me of the battle with Dibla every time I moved. Over a dozen hours had passed, yet Codex Knowledge was still far from its full capacity. Spy could be used but wasn’t ideal. The Profession’s heightened senses also meant I felt pain in a much clearer way.

This wasn’t a flaw in my design; it was deliberate.

The desire for revenge didn’t make you immune to pain. Injuries could only be ignored till the adrenaline ran out. From that point onward, it was willpower. Sha healed, but it didn’t dull the feeling of flesh regrowing. The Water Ki Nature restored, but it didn’t remove the sensation of muscles being realigned in its entirety.

That’s why Healing Abilities exist.

However, this was one reason I chose the Adventurer route of growth: to increase the amount of pain I could bear. Every dungeon I entered added to the pain tolerance threshold.

Killing a Ravendawn needed a mind fortified in the same manner my body was.

“Spy.”

Pain receptors rushed to inform me of the severe injuries scattered in all directions. Electrical impulses pricked my mind to encourage caution and rest, but I declined.

‘Good.’

It was better than I expected.

“Shinobi.”

Once I confirmed the pain was manageable, I prioritised conserving stamina. Movements, techniques, abilities, and focus: they all required the use of stamina. It didn’t matter how large your Ki Reserves were, this fact remained the same.

Conversely, low Ki Reserves did matter. It had a direct correlation to stamina due to Ki being an inseparable component of life. That was why Ki Practitioners passed out once they ran out of Ki; they couldn’t withstand the fatigue.

In other words, Ki Reserves dictated possibilities, but Stamina dictated the limit of those possibilities.

I pulled the optional mask over the lower half of my face before sitting atop the head of a Troll Guardian. The surrounding chaos was enough to take the monster’s attention away from a potential nat in its hair. Even if it wasn’t, the slight tug of thick strands kept it alive, so it began to believe in its mistaken instinct.

The Adventurers engaged in combat far from the settlement. They utilised diverse formations that accounted for the monsters from the sky, while a backline remained halfway between the frontlines and the stone walls.

‘Interesting.’

Their positioning revealed hidden rules the Night Wave followed. First, the settlement couldn’t be attacked within a certain perimeter. The gate was also sealed, and every 5 minutes, another wave would spawn from all directions.

Only a quarter of the total Adventurers inside the settlement responded to the Dungeon System’s announcement. The rest slept, ate, or did other activities. They weren’t the ones fighting with their lives on the line, but why?

Factions.

That was the obvious answer. However, among the monsters joining the battle, many were far above what I could sense. Yet these idiots still had time to waste on diplomatic power in a dungeon.

I surmised that the difficulty of the Night Waves increased based on population size and how long an individual stayed on the Safe Floor. It was a method that would encourage infighting because that Adventurer could be the only one left in their party.

Those divided opinions created separate groups. The birth of leaders or an orchestrated council formed factions, and they were what maintained the fragile balance of this society.

It was easy to exile someone, but it was stupid to believe everyone would accept that decision. When change came, the silent minority would be the first to side with it.

“Shades is here!”

A man with a dark complexion dropped into the middle of the monster horde. He had a high fade paired with locks, forming a topknot to the front and a smaller ponytail to the back.

‘What... is that?’

A dark mist spread out with every step forward. Swirling wisps coalesced; their different opacities not hindering the thicker lines conjoined into intricate patterns. Two fingers pushed the bridge of black sunglasses even closer to the skin and...

Shades silenced the battlefield.

The monsters thrashed around; their hands scrambling toward the throats held hostage. They tried to cleave away the almost imperceptible mist, tightening its grip on their necks.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

“A shade is more than a shadow.”

Shades phased in and out of existence. His hands in his black jacket. His upper body arched forward, unaffected by the giant portal welcoming him to the chaos.

However, what came out wished it could go back in. Ki Pressure brought the horde to their knees before the mist executed them. Heads flew, but the battle waged on.

Shades’s feet came to a stop, and he swivelled his eyes toward me.

“...”

I kicked the head of the Troll Guardian to the ground before resting my arm over my knee.

“...”

Darkness met the shade: a mutual understanding of the benefits the shadows offered. His lips rose. Then he looked away and continued aiding those in need.

‘Is he stronger than that Katherine?’

My eyes curved upward along with a black talisman, etched with a familiar design in white, that I pressed against my chest.

‘Why don’t I find out?’

Imagine Body.

As the name implied, it was an ability that allowed me to change my external appearance, but three restrictions reduced its viability.

The first restriction was the transformation itself. I couldn’t mimic the image of another human being. If I tried to, the ability wouldn’t activate, and a 120-hour cooldown would come into effect.

The second restriction was the form. Whatever I imagined had to be functional; all aspects needed to be understood in detail. This included its diet, methods of procreation, and special traits of the species.

The third restriction impacted Imagine Body the most. If the image was of a pre-existing creature, then no benefits would be applied. The high Ki Cost and Stamina Drain limited the time I could spend in the form as well.

An image of a Bloodied Deadmin overlapped with my body. It compressed, squeezing its form to fit the frame I imagined. Bones wrapped around toned arms. They formed hardened gauntlets beside the remnants of the blood cloak. Red eyes glowed beneath the shadows and accompanied the blurring of hands.

Imagine Body was the ability I had bookmarked.

“Transfer.”

When used when Original was active, I could bypass the third restriction. It meant that I retained use of the current Profession but also gained half of the monster’s traits.

Concealer.

It was an ability that allowed me to change how others perceived my Ki. What made it viable was the inbuilt use of timers. These timers ranged from 5 minutes to 2 hours, and three at a time could be set. As long as the ability was bookmarked or the core Codex ability, Concealer could be used at any point until the timer ran out.

The drawbacks were the target had to be a monster, and my appearance had to be modified to some degree first. The latter’s flexibility meant a simple hoodie with the monster’s design on it was enough to utilise the ability, but the results would be poor.

However, when Imagine Body was active, Concealer’s empowerment would be based on its accuracy. After hearing about the Night Wave, I changed my Codex layout to this combination.

In other words, right now, I was no different to a Bloodied Deadmin.

I switched places with a spare Shadow Monster near Shades location before lowering my centre of gravity. Dark toes fragmented the earth until a burst of wind left a fissure behind me. I flipped. I spun over the monsters, performing acrobatic movements that maintained the speed I had built.

“SHADES!! THAT BLOODIED DEADMIN ISN’T NORMAL!!!”

Adventurers screamed at the top of their lungs, but they were more than two steps behind. My heel arrived in front of Shades’s chin.

“Everyone, stick to your positions. Let’s not give... others a reason to start being troublesome.”

‘!’

Shades remained still. My foot phased through his jaw till the ground on the other side was cratered from the impact.

“B-But...”

“Let’s go! This is better than dealing with those guys!”

I ignored the dozens of Adventurers falling back to their assigned positions and narrowed my eyes. Shades stood on the edge of the crater; his hands still inside his short jacket.

“...”

He turned around but cocked his head to the side, dodging a fist that hit the air. Shades continued to weave through the intense assault until his hands left their home. The mist flared, and two blurs swept over the battlefield.

‘...He’s using me.’

Shades’s movements avoided the Adventurers. Every parry angled the force toward the monsters pouring in. Every dodge lead to their aggro being pulled toward us, and every block invited them to take advantage of the opening he offered.

‘Rin. Pyō. Tō.’

I hid behind a Troll to break the status quo. A white tiger head ripped through the monster’s heart; now able to travel toward a second target. Shades slid back before two fingers pointed at the roaring tiger, empowered by the Bloodied Deadmin’s traits.

The mist rushed ahead. It smothered the technique with a haziness that took control.

‘!’

White turned black. Faint traces outlined its features and revealed the owner it once belonged to. The black tiger latched onto Shades’s right arm, elongating down till it merged into a fingerless gauntlet.

‘What the...’

He caught a Troll Guardian’s club and redirected a stronger force back to it. A sea of mist exploded its body like rising flames from a furnace.

“Here. I modified it for you.”

He splayed his hand before gripping the air. The black tiger head's roar compressed an orb of mist in the centre of its mouth.

The sky shook.

The earth trembled.

Yet the compression continued.

‘Damn it! This guy is leagues above Katherine!’

I dashed away, but the beam tore through everything in its path. Currents of air wrapped around my body to the limit when I performed a sharp turn to avoid the technique’s straight trajectory.

‘!!’

Shades made the beam curve.

‘He understood the mechanics behind the technique this much?’

It spiralled through several targets, splitting off into hundreds more. Despite the angles I cut, the flips and spins, they arrived just the same.

Beams converged back into a tiger head three times bigger than before. Mist blanketed the area I stood in, weakening my senses and slowing down the speed of my movements.

The moment the tiger revealed its fangs, I knew there was no way I could dodge this attack.

So my hands blurred.

Within that three-second window available to me, hand seals weaved seamlessly into one another.

‘Transfer.’

I reappeared on the other side of the Safe Floor, and a Bloodied Deadmin vanished out of existence. Every successive use of Transfer within a 4-hour window doubled the number of hand seals required.

It wasn’t a technique that could be spammed.

Concealer and Imagine Body both reached their time limit. The Bloodied Deadmin facade peeled away. Sweat splashed against the dry earth, and faint shivers made my cheeks rise.

Improvement had been verified.

Growth had been achieved.

But I wasn’t satisfied yet.

Shades’s understanding of ‘Tiger Rin’ was based on the Deadmin Style. Long range, internal destruction, and elemental techniques: Shades pushed each of those aspects to a devastating level.

‘Pyō opens up the possibility for pathing to be adjusted, but it’s too difficult for me to implement those changes into the technique right now.’

I turned my attention to Sai. He rushed forward with fire wrapped around his hands; the shyness no longer present amidst the explosion of flames.

Sai slapped his hands together, and a sea of fire roared outward. He palmed the head of Goblin before flames spiralled around his spinning body. A final detonation sealed the fate of all monsters in that area.

‘He’s not weak.’

After a few minutes of rest, I charged back into the incoming horde.