Shadow…

[The shadow accepts your assimilation.]

[You acquired Shadow Affinity - G(0)]

The vision fades, and I was back at the place where I was fighting Ariandel. No time had passed since I ate the flower since we all remained in the same spot from the time I ate the Onyx Hyacinth.

Ariandel seemed to have picked up that there was something different about me. Well, perhaps it was too obvious since both my feet were releasing some type of dark gas below me. They returned to normal a few seconds later.

How do I use shadow affinity to my advantage?

[Shadow affinity skill slots : 0/1. Assign a shadow-attuned ability to this slot to change their effects. Slots can only be changed once per day. Increase slot count with items or gain a higher-tier affinity.]

[Shadow attuned skills: Dark arsenal (1 slot), Shadow Step(3 slots), Ally of Darkness(2 slots)]

I had no clue what any of this meant. Regardless, I only had 1 option, since the Dark arsenal was the only one that consumed one slot, as opposed to the others.

[Dark arsenal is now infused with the shadow affinity(G) : All weapons conjured now last twice as long. All your conjured weapons can now be recalled back into your hand or switched with other existing Dark Arsenal weapons, with no mana cost. You can swap your location with any other conjured weapon in a 20-meter radius, using 50% of their original mana cost. Reduces the total mana cost of the dark arsenal by 20%.]

[First strike - now lasts for three attacks. Wielding a conjured weapon under first-strike buff grants 20% dexterity.]

The flood of system messages barely took my attention away from the incoming attacks from the wolves. I summoned a spear, noticing the bonus dexterity when I felt that my movements sped up.

With the bonuses, the once nearly insurmountable attacks were dialed down a notch. It wasn’t easy to avoid the barrage of claws and bites from Ariandel by any means, but I could see tiny hints of openings as I gradually learned her tells and preferences.

As our fight continued, the wolves began to accumulate wounds on their limbs. It didn’t take long before my spear finally stabbed through the head of one of the Ariandels, reducing their numbers by one.

There was no system message after that kill, which only meant one thing: None of those wolfs are technically a living entity. They were conjurations of her illusions, yet somehow, they were able to physically hurt me.

With their reduced speed and their wavering numbers, the momentum shifted. The two wolves that were busy dealing with my speed found themselves to be overwhelmed, as they possessed no skills other than their frightening speed and power. Conjured daggers flew towards them as they began retreating, but with good use of shadow step, I caught the other one with my spear.

Two left.

The real Ariandel, which I presumed to be the one throwing these icicles around, remained vigilant in the back. The sole wolf that was in my melee range rapidly returned to her direction when I dealt the final blow to the other one. I felt the loss of speed from losing the effect of First strike on my spear, but a quick re-summoning of another spear gave me that buff back.

“Shadow affinity…” Ariandel’s voice echoed inside my head. Her voice was shrouded this time, as if something was blocking her influence inside of my head. “Interesting… I have not seen a new player wielding its powers before. How long has it been since the last time I witnessed one of its chosen?”

“Who are you talking about? Because there is no way in hell that I am its chosen. Have you seen how much that thing despised me?”

Her chuckle emanated in my ears. “That’s true… I’ve heard that Ezekial is that sort of Deity. He had little in terms of followers, opting to keep its powers to itself.”

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The wounded wolf on her side dissipated, along with all the other copies of her that I had killed. Now, there were only two of us left.

She rubbed her face with her paws. “To participate in this invasion, I had to relinquish a lot of my strength. And my mana is running out.”

Her head then turned towards where the gate stood. Below it, the fight was reaching its end. The wolves were being slaughtered left and right, and the boosts from the system’s pylon were enough to alter the outcome of tonight’s defense. “Looks like they didn’t fare better, too.”

“Let’s finish this fight, Zane. Perhaps we’ll meet again someday.”

Raising her head up high, her eyes gazed at the night sky as she lets out a long, wistful howl. There were no icicles formed on her figure now. No, what I saw was…

How do I say this, unexpected?

A woman now stood in the place of the white wolf. She had similar features to her previous form, the white fur was replaced with her long, ivory hair, which also glowed bright along with the same tail that hung below her back. Her facial features didn’t quite resemble a human’s - it was more wolf-like than what I would consider a human face - but honestly, there was something about the way she looked that caused me to do a second take when I saw her full figure under the moonlight.

Is she beautiful? Honestly, I would consider her as such, but it was also painfully obvious that she wasn’t human from the features of her body and face. So yes, she was a beautiful sight, but I wouldn’t think that any normal people would consider her attractive. Majestic was a better word for the way I felt about her.

Shifting my focus from her torso, I stared at her right in her eyes. “Before we end this… Can I ask you something?”

Her nod was enough of an affirmation for me to continue. “You claimed to have met and claimed the lives of humankind from the other sectors, and yet, some of them had defeated you. If so, How are you here now?”

The wolf-like brows on her face raised from my rather obvious question, “This form is a projection of myself, hence the limited strength and mana capacity.”

Projection? I guess I should’ve assumed that.

Readying my stance, I prepared a plan to use the new moves I could perform with my recently gained affinity. She picked up my intention and released a massive gush of mist from the pores of her skin, covering the area we stood in inside of her cold fog.

There was no system message about her bewitchment, so I should assume that the drop in temperature at the moment was real.

Echoes from her footsteps were heard all around me. I snapped towards the direction where she stopped, peering through the white fog with my own eyes.

That’s just a bait… She’s aiming to attack from somewhere else.

Danger. I ducked when I saw a shard of ice the size of a pin about to pierce through my left eye. The small size caused a lot of delay in locating the attack, even with my superior speed.

That wasn’t the only pin that she threw at me, however. A few seconds later, a motherlode of pins surrounded my location, which prompted a shadow step from me to avoid fatal damage. That attack was undodgeable.

My shadow affinity sped up the teleportation process, and I landed somewhat awkwardly from the change in speed. Not only that, I could sense that the cooldown was reduced too, but it was too small of a change for me to notice.

Speaking of cooldowns, the whole gazillion ice pins skill that she used must’ve had a cooldown too. Otherwise, she’d use that skill one more time once I reappeared. Instead, she ran around the mist just outside of my vision, biding her time to strike.

I could sit still and react to the attacks that she would throw at me, or I could try to pursue her fading footsteps in the distance. Frankly, both sounded like terrible options to me. I wasn’t a fan of sitting still and waiting for shit to happen, nor do I enjoy chasing something that was barely audible at best.

Planting my spear on the floor, I listened to her footsteps in the distance. There was an obvious pattern on the path that she took; she was circling me from a distance of about 20 meters away.

I conjured daggers and waited until I calculated the rough estimate of where she would be in the next few seconds and threw both daggers roughly in that direction, angled towards the floor.

Well, obviously, nothing happened. The conjured daggers simply planted themselves on the ground. There was no way I would even know about their whereabouts from this distance when the fog was so thick, but the shadow affinity upgrade had allowed me to ‘sense’ all the locations of my weapons at all times, which was a feeling that I wasn’t used to yet.

The cat-and-mouse fight continued. Ariandel would throw a few other pins here and there, but none of those landed on me. I retaliated with my daggers every 15 seconds or so, allowing my mana to regenerate overtime between dagger throws with my mana cells talent.

She changed her plans once I threw close to 8 sets of daggers all around the area. All of a sudden, her figure rushed through the fog behind me with a set of her own daggers aimed straight at where my neck was.

I picked up the spear that I planted on the floor and met her attacks with a few of my own. She was agile and skilled with her daggers, weaving in and out of my range with a set of creative attack patterns that I could barely keep up with. Every thrust that she dodged was answered with a rush of slashes and stabs, every attempt and grabbing or pushing her away was met with a graceful dodge.

The apparent stalemate was disrupted by the casting of her icicle projectiles once more. She didn’t go all out on her offenses, satisfied to use as little energy as she could to whittle my stamina down.

Her plan was obvious. She wanted to force me to use my shadow step, and once I reappeared, she would then answer it with her unavoidable dome of ice pins.

Using the last few of my mana reserves, I conjured a dagger and threw it at her feet. She barely budged from her location as she sidestepped her right leg just enough to avoid any contact.

And with that, my last card was set.