Two nearest revenants abandoned their opponents and charged at Jack. Fast.
Jack immediately focused on his newest acquisition. [Shadow Escape]... He quickly activated that skill.
His body shimmered. Instead of simply vanishing like a ghost, he seemed to melt instead. His weasel form sank. Flattened. And became indistinguishable from the dark shadow on the ground.
He wasn't truly invisible in the traditional sense. But he was now a part of the shadows. A moving ripple in the darkness itself.
As he melded into the shadow, Jack realized that he still possessed his incredible kamaitachi speed. He wasn't merely hiding in the shadow. He was moving. And moving very fast. Faster than he had anticipated in this shadow state.
He streaked across the ground. A dark, fleeting blur that could slip into the tiny cracks in the stone. He glided through the cracks into the castle ruins.
Wrong choice! The revenants could phase through solid objects. They were close behind him. They were at least as fast as he was.
The cold pressure of their pursuit didn't diminish as Jack slid beneath the rubble. Instead, it intensified.
He could sense the terrifying presence of the two chasing revenants. They phased directly through a crumbling stone foundation. Ignoring the laws of solid matter.
Jack cursed internally. It was convenient when he did that in his spectral form. It was terrifying when his much-stronger opponents used that to chase him.
Jack pushed his speed to the absolute limit. He wasn't just fast. He was a silent, black streak of shadow essence rippling on the ground. And through the cracks.
He shot beneath a shattered stone walls. Flowed like a rapid moving tar around the base of a broken pillar. And darted along the narrow seams where the wall-stones met.
Every turn was a desperate gamble. He wasn't merely running away. He was searching for a way to ditch his pursuers. He had to move as a shadow, but think as an intelligent being. Always anticipating the cut, the angle, the shear.
Trying to create a complex route to escape was... not working. The revenants simply took shortcuts by phasing through the walls.
One of the revenants got really close to him. A skeletal hand, still partially phased through reality, plunged downward. It was less than a breath beside him. Striking the ground where his head had just been.
Grit flew everywhere. And the impact momentarily shattered the localized shadow. Trying to peel Jack out of his shadow state. He felt the sheer force of the blow. Through the violent and loud vibration it created.
The near-miss triggered a surge of adrenalized speed. He moved even faster. More frantic. While praying for an immediate environmental advantage.
And, Jack's luck hadn't abandoned him. He could see a pool of green poisonous puddle in the ruin. Not too far away. A door to his safe zone.
Jack zipped forward in maximum speed. A living shadow. A phantom of pure velocity. He reached the puddle and activated him [Mysterious Mirror World]. Immediately disappearing into his safe sanctuary.
He reappeared in his Mirror Space. Breathing heavily. A thrill of success mingling with the lingering tension of almost being caught.
With another smooth, rapid shift, he transformed back. Into his spectral form. The small, furry kamaitachi dissolved. And the translucent, masked specter materialized in its place.
He waited for a few minutes. Before reactivating his invisibility. And pushing it to the max.
"Hopefully, they were gone." Jack whispered. And phased back to the outer world.
He returned back above the puddle. The revenants where nowhere to be seen. Thankfully. Jack immediately moved. Phasing through the walls. Back to Reina's hiding place through roundabout route.
Reina was still observing the battle. Her eyes were glued to her steamrune binoculars. She looked serious. Maintaining absolute control over her illusion blanket. Completely suppressing her presence from the raging war below.
Rune, the fairy companion, hovered silently beside her. She was in her wisp form now. Emitting a faint orange glow that signified neutral readiness.
Jack allowed his invisibility to drop. His translucent, masked specter form appeared. He didn't want to waste time transforming back to human. He had a strange feeling that being in the specter form would help a lot later.
"Dear..." Reina whispered. She had noticed his appearance. "Did you get what you needed?"
"Yes, Love. Three new skills, stolen directly from the source." Jack replied in low voice. "I need to turn at least one of them into a permanent skill later."
He looked down at the massive, swirling battleground in the valley bottom. The castle ruins were completely engulfed in chaotic energy signatures.
"What did I miss?" He asked.
Reina pointed down. Her expression clinical. Not too concerned. "Four more arrived while you were out there. The battlefield has balanced, temporarily. Twelve humans against twelve undead."
Jack raised his spectral eyebrows. Unseen due to his mask. "Twelve? Who else showed up?"
"The Archwitch Elfeather." Reina listed. Ticking them off on her fingers. "On her huge summoned bird. Almost at the same time with the winged werewolf from Night Salvation. Lord Lycan. There was a bishop from the Church of Redemption. I don't know his name. And finally, the ruler of Elrush Kingdom. King Willion himself."
Jack whistled softly. "The King is here? Himself That's quite desperate... putting the King on the front line."
He stretched out his spectral hand. Using the raw telekinetic force of his [Mysterious Anomaly] power to retrieve the heavy steamrune binoculars. The ones he had dropped earlier. He lifted them. Focusing the lenses onto the distant, flickering chaos.
The observation confirmed Reina's list. The King was there. Clad in reddish plate armor that glowed with protection runes. And a regal cloak. He was sending chaotic windstorm and lightning with his spear.
Jack focused his attention at the king's movements. It seemed that his power class was a mixture of Eldritch Knight and Primal Sorcerer.
He checked the others. Archwitch Elfeather was in the sky, riding his demonic heron. Combating against a flying revenant. Not far, the winged werewolf, Lord Lycan, also fought against the flying revenant on the sky. On the ground, a divine acolyte in pale purple robe, battled against another revenant.
"A dozen Illuminated versus a dozen revenants. Symmetrical destruction." Jack observed softly. Adjusting the focus. "This is a stalemate waiting to break."
He didn't have to wait long.
The twelve revenants were just now fighting as independent, tactical units. But all of them suddenly stopped moving. It wasn't a retreat or a pause. It was a sudden, absolute stillness. One that cut through the noise of the magical combat.
One by one, they began to dissolve. Into a horrifying sludge of swirling black and white essence. The sludge flowed rapidly toward the center. It was disgusting. Like watching twelve corpses melt and merge into a single, terrifying vat of energy.
The process took perhaps just two or three seconds. But it felt like an eternity of chilling transformation. When the essence coalesced, it rose rapidly. Reforming into a singular figure.
The appearance was jarring. It was humanoid. About two meters tall in height. Lean in tight muscles way. It looked like a mime that had been tortured and injected with super serum.
Its skin was stark white. Slicked with a sheen that caught the moonlight. Its face was dominated by a permanently frozen white mask. Stylized to look like it was weeping thick, black tears. Every single line of its body language denoted profound, silent malice.
Jack peeked into its shallow information through his [Eyes of Judgement]. It immediately looked around. It could sense the probing power. But couldn't identify it.
Too dangerous. Jack didn't dare redo his observation. He was still too weak. But at least, he knew what the creature's name was. This was the... Phantom Clown.
A chilling aura, thick and cold, blanketed the battlefield down there. It was so domineering that it could even be sensed by Jack's repressed spectral senses. Even at this distance.
It was the power of singularity... The fusion hadn't just added the revenants together. It had multiplied their combined force. This thing was no longer just a normal Illuminated Transcendent Creatures. It had touched the limit for illuminated transcendence.
The Phantom Clown reached out one massive hand and plucked a weapon from the air. A sword. It wasn't polished steel. It was a rough, pitted, rust-colored blade. Humming with corrosive, ancient energy.
"Well, crap!" Jack muttered. Completely absorbed in the view through the binoculars.
Reina didn't comment. Even Rune's neutral orange glow changed. Shifting toward a reddish hue. Recognizing danger.
The Clown jumped. No hesitation. No preparatory pose. Just explosive motion. It cut through the nearest Illuminated Beings like a hot knife through tofu.
The first to fall was the winged werewolf from Night Salvation. Lord Lycan. The werewolves were known for their ferocity, resilience, and speed.
But the Clown's rusty blade was something else entirely. Lycan roared. It was too fast to evade. He tried to intercept the blow with his armored forearm. But the blade passed through the protective runes and kinetic barriers as if they were mist.
The werewolf's torso was cleaved open. And he dropped instantly. A heavy, broken lump of fur and muscle. One down.
The remaining eleven scattered. Realizing too late that their numerical advantage had been turned into a severe disadvantage.
The Clown laughed. Though the sound was muffled and wrong. A strange, internal grinding noise that reverberated all over the valley..
It spun. The rusty sword was a blur of destructive force. Cardinal Paddy threw up a wall of faith-based energy. But the Clown simply drove the sword straight through the glowing barrier. Forcing the Cardinal to teleport away. Or be impaled.
The strange creature changed its target. It was now... Elder Keystone.
The old man instantly erected an earth wall to block it. He was a powerful Prime Sorcerer from the Royal Faction. But the Clown was too fast.
The rusty blade pierced the wall and connected with Keystone's chest. There was no theatrical explosion of blood or light. Only a sickening, wet crunch. Elder Keystone collapsed. His life was snuffed out instantly by the corrosive blow.
The King Willion shouted loudly. A cry of rage and command. Rallying General Primefeller and Countess Ashworth to regroup. But the momentum belonged entirely to the Phantom Clown.
'Not good.' Jack thought. They were completely outclassed.
But the death of Elder Keystone led to a different development. It was the trigger for something stranger. A thing that could either be better, or perhaps... worse.
As the old Elder's body hit the ground. A spark of black light erupted from the corpse's body. It was a miasma. Black Miasma.
The black miasma solidified into a perfect, charcoal colored sphere. A black pearl roughly the size of a human head. It didn't pause. It grew. Rapidly.
The black pearl expanded violently. Swelling from a head-sized object into a massive, shimmering globe five meters wide in a blink. The ground around it cracked from the sudden, powerful growth.
The Clown actually paused its assault. Recognizing the sudden, immense power signature. It held the rusty sword ready. Tilting the weeping mask toward the sphere.
The sphere fractured like brittle glass. And shattered. The shards were dissipating into pure kinetic energy.
Emerging from the center of the shattered sphere was a creature that defied categorization.
It was humanoid. But armored in chitinous, midnight-blue scales. One that shone like polished metal. It had four long, powerful arms. And a thorax that appeared to be perpetually smoking.
A massive set of iridescent, buzzing wings unfurled from its back. Like those of a gigantic wasp. Its head was encased in a terrifying helmet that mimicked a wasp's compound eyes and mandibles.
Jack's shallow appraisal from [Eyes of Judgement] swept quickly before disappearing. As expected, the humanoid-wasp sensed it. But it couldn't point out from where. It had gone instantly.
But, Jack managed to gain an important information. This new monster was the Otherworld Wasp. The orb was its egg. Discovered by Elder Keystone in the spatial breach during the invasion of the Cockroach-men case...