I could almost feel let alone smell the sewage-like smell. What are they even doing, shitting on themselves and spreading it around? I haven’t even entered the damn cave yet and I am already feeling repulsed. Thank god being a shapeshifter allows me to turn off or minimize the smell’s impact. I was about to step into the cave to begin my slaughter, however, I had a brilliant Idea. What better way to test the strength of my new shadow minions then let them be the ones to hunt. It allows me to breathe, and I can see just how good they are. I summoned 8 shadow minions, it cost me 800 mana and locked 160 mana. I think eight should be good enough to be considered a ‘hunting’ squad. I sent them into the cave and they melded into shadows in a semi-transparent form. I could sense them from the connection to my soul and I focused on those points. Through the points, I could see their visions, as if I had more eyes that would allow me to see if I focused on those points. After all 8 shadows were being used to see, I had a small tug on my mind, however nothing serious at all. I could estimate after 20 or so entity’s I would start to have a headache. I watched as the shadows crept further along the cave and come to an intersection, 4 paths split off from the original, I separated the 8 into groups of 2. It was only a minute later until I saw the goblin.

It was absolutely gross, covered in brown spots which seemed to look like shit stains, and even fungus growing out of different parts of their bodies. Loincloths of fur and shredded fabric barely covered their ‘particulars’, they had wooden clubs and sharp rocks as their main choices of weapons. A few in the group I could see actually had slingshots to fire stones. They were not bulky at all and looked like your average 4-foot/1.2 meter goblin from fantasy games, however, in reality, they were much much nastier. I immediately thought through my spiritual connection points, Hunt and kill. The shadows seem to send back a mental nod that I oddly understood. Just before each group began to kill the goblins I saw through the vision that each tunnel separates into different factions of goblins, one group had only animal furs for loincloths, one had only fabric. One group had mostly slingers and the last group had all clubs. I mumbled to myself, still in my Emperor of Shadows form. “Damn idiots, they separate themselves on this? This is the worst grouping strategy I have ever seen. Slingers without warriors are just cannon fodder. Warriors without archers are just half as strong as they could be, easy to be flanked and overcome through mere strength…. Oh, wait they’re just goblins”.

The groups of shadows seem to glide going up the walls to the ceiling into even darker areas, the goblins had small wood fires going but it was still really dark in the caves. After reaching the ceiling all groups at the same time, perfectly synchronized, turned to their ‘mini’ void walker forms. All at once, the goblins were decapitated, torn in half, and utterly obliterated by the sheer strength of the void walkers and their perfect assassination. Within moments all the goblins were killed in the area. I could sense that this was just a forward party as more than 3 hundred life-forces could be sensed within the cave. In the deepest, one was really pure, it seemed to instead of just be one ‘hue’ it throbbed and flashed occasionally. Must be their boss, I figured. Just like earlier the shadows glided throughout the cave, I think they could sense my disgust of such creatures and worked to exterminate such filth from my sense. Ahhh, true loyalty is priceless, as both a god and a mercenary I have had encounters that would break normal men’s spirits. However, I knew just how strong greed is. Betrayal is just some people’s way to stepping stones to power. On my enemies cases, it’s just idiocy and their graves. In the face of true strength, schemes and betrayal are meaningless. As I reflected on my past I felt a tug on my soul, it was like a ‘pop’. One of my shadows were killed. Time seemed to slow down, as my perception of reality sped up, I observed his partner’s location. Near the boss I sensed earlier. I looked through my remaining shadow’s vision and saw a monstrosity. It had to of been 15 feet/5 meters tall, long arms it hunched on, a large tree trunk as its weapon, two tusks on its large goblin-like face. Mushrooms seemed to thrive on it’s back alongside blackish hair that looked more like black mold. All I could think is a troll.

I felt the location of the shadow who’s the vision I was using, time still slowed down to a crawl as my perception was working at it’s maximum, I could use blink to get there but I would have to blink a few times and there is not enough time as the goblin cave runs deep. Instead of looking at spacial abilities I could make/use, I looked at my shadow domain ability, control the shadows, be the shadows. I spread my shadows a few feet or a meter around me, still focused on my minion’s location, I practically just sunk into my shadow domain. My shadow minion sunk to the ground to create a pool of shadows that acted as my gateway for my entrance. I quickly formed my Shadow Emperor form and looked at the troll, then smiled, as I technically had no face, a thin line of cyan flame formed to look like a scary jack-o-lantern face with eyes that popped into existence within my hood.

The troll froze as it saw this terrifying figure appear out of no-where, it’s face seemed to scare it more than any demon. The first thing it wanted to do was run, however, the only entrance is where the being stood. So instead, it readied its trusty tree trunk, it smashed the ground as it could see a shadow creep up on it earlier so its trunk was a little chipped at the top from the sheer brutal strength. It swung its weapon sideways in a 180-degree swing, the air seemed to be pushed out of the way as the trunk was swinging fast to the figure. Then the figure rose its hand… it just stopped the tree trunk in its trajectory right there and then. A sonic boom sounded out in the cave however the figure just stood there smiling, the tree trunk the exploded into millions of shrapnel from the reaction force of suddenly stopping it. The shrapnel seems to be scared of the figure and just flew around him, the troll froze again, unable to process the sheer might of such a figure, even the troll king didn’t take a blow so easily and effortlessly.

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I looked at the troll, still smiling, and used my shadow domain skill. The ground and ceiling of the cave grew as dark as the void, and lances of pure shadow spewed out slicing and piercing the troll. Within seconds the troll looked like a porcupine, the troll dropped to his knees with a fearful look in his eyes, even demons would be scared soul-less. I then began to slowly walk up to the troll, and began to speak, “I Anubis, announce, your death has come”. I put my hand on the troll’s head and began to suck the life directly out of the troll. It was delicious, the troll must have had amazing regenerative properties, which made the taste all so more delectable. By the time I was done the troll was dried to an ancient looking corpse, and my other shadow minions have finished clearing the rest of the cave. I blinked a few times to get back outside of the cave, I stopped my smelling sense long ago, however, that doesn’t make practically teleporting a few times into goblin shit that was as numerous as rabbit shit, but eight times the size, fun. I was about to meld into the shadows with my minions away when I noticed my minions also have lifeforce in them. I didn’t realize but they also sucked the goblins dry of lifeforce when they killed the goblins. The shadows sensed my perception on them and grew back to their void walker forms. The seven shadows bowed and through our connection poured their gained lifeforce into me. It wasn’t as near as good as the troll but it was still a large amount that was oddly quite pure. The shadows bowed and went back to their true shadow form. I was speechless, the implications of this, what could be done to farm for experience on mass hunting scales across the lands. I could probably decimate the continent within only a few years if I wanted to and be ready to level up again.

System

Level Up(x22) - 10x from lifesteal

Kills - Goblins(x307), Troll(x1)

Then again… if killing 300 goblins a troll and even their lifeforce only gained me 22 levels, I probably need to commit genocide on goblins to even reach level 100. I have to get to level 200 while exp needed gets increasingly costly every level, I should probably take it slow. Continuing on my exploration journey I headed towards away from the mountains and towards deeper into the dark forest.

…

“Goddammit, lord of darkness please consume me. Look at all this destruction”. The mountain tribe leader Akazul was viewing Anubis’s handy work on the goblin hideout with the scouts and the grand elder.

“Listen Akazul”, the grand elder began to speak. “Whatever this being is, it seems to not be alone. The other tunnels that branched, the goblins killed there were killed in a different way than just the same dried up corpse. Although they had no lifeforce left, it wasn’t consumed but gathered as it was leaving their bodies. They were also cut into pieces without purpose, legs and arms were cut off just as much as the head. Some of the other bodies were just torn apart, this isn’t the same effortless style from before”.

The elders looked at each other and sighed, this meant whatever had terrified them before, was now even more frightening. Being alone can be manageable but having minions, this creature is much scarier and more hard to kill them if it was just alone. Not only that, the creatures seem to take after the style of assassination, the goblins could be seen as having not even know their cause of death before even killed. Their hunt, to kill the creature that could wipe out their species if given enough time, is getting harder and harder. The scouts came back and reported, the news just keeps getting worse. The scout leader spoke after kneeling on the ground, “Elders, the creature...creatures seem to be heading deeper into the forest, it’s heading straight for the Shadowed Den”.

The elders now were sweating, which is the only forbidden area for shadow elves in the entire forest. Shadow elementals are born and grow up there. If the creature goes there and starts kill shadow elementals, he won’t even need to kill their species off directly. The shadow elemental’s essence that permeates into the forest is the only reason their species stays in this large dark forest that makes up the south of the continent. The essence allows their species even to breed in the first place and birth more shadow elves. Even though they sacrifice much life force, it is to feed the shadow essence to shape into an elf and begin the birthing process. Of course, this is the highest tier secret of the shadow elves and only the elders know bits and pieces. Shouts rang out and the dark elves started rushing to the forbidden area as fast as possible. The grand elder's mind was in turmoil and thought hopefully, the shadow guard will be able to hold the creature at the border long enough for us to get there.

…

Anubis POV:

I could sense something in this direction, it is like a familiar type of feeling. As if I sense some type of connection to me. I knew I had some type of trail, but wasn’t too interested in meeting them at the moment, I have to know what this feeling is. The trees were starting to turn monotone, grey silver leaves, and really dark brown bark. I could sense birds hiding amongst the silver treetops, I saw one and it reminded me of a raven. However, it was big and looked like a large black hawk with purple eyes. It sensed me looking at it and chirped melodically then flew back over the treetops. Huh, what a nice and friendly bird, I remembered the damn pigeons in my past life, I can remember how many times my fancy cars, motorbikes, and even damn planes were crapped on. I think they had it out for me and followed me.

As I got close to the center of the forest, the feeling of familiarity had gotten stronger. However, I could sense a patrol of some sort ahead. My first encounter of intelligent life here, There is no way in hell I'm counting goblins and trolls as intelligent. A large grey stone wall blocked off my sight to the familiar feeling. Hah, to a wall a shadow that can blink is nothing. I was about to blink past the tall wall of the stone when I saw the patrol guard up top look out into the forest. The first thing I saw was the smooth angular face, then it was the sharp and long ears. The grey skin and strong build made the man look like a damn model in a black and white shoot. Ok, I was kind of jealous that this person who was only a guard on a wall looked better than me than my past ‘Rex’ form, but I put these weird thoughts aside. I knew that a tall wall, with strong looking guards. Something is being hidden here in this monotone forest. This something must be very very interesting… I want it.

...