William chuckled slightly before getting back on his feet. He smiled at his worried comrades.
"Whew...I really exhausted myself there! Thanks for bringing me back safely." He half-jokingly said to the three.
He turned towards the forest in the direction from which they just come. Recalling the information he had just received, he began to devise a strategy. 'Let's see here...Sang Pianyi should be able to hold out, but I do have some worries...Then again, I'm pretty much exhausted of all my ingenuity, and I'm wounded...' He sighed in exhaustion.
Despite this, he still started to limp towards the scene of the battle, to his companions' dismay.
Lian grabbed him by his right shoulder with stern eyes. "You should really rest, boss!" She scolded him.
Fei Kangzhen put his hand on William's left shoulder, "C-come on, boss, shes right."
Li Jiaojie grabbed the back of William's shirt. After he lost his overcoat, he looked oddly barren, with a simple, dirty grey t-shirt and some basic-looking black pants.
With all three of them pulling him back, he had no choice but to oblige.
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Sang Pianyi, wielding his crow longsword, calmly waited for his opponent to engage.
The Lord of Shadows quickly spun around and flew towards him, slashing at the air with his scythe to send a wave of purple, shadowy energy at Sang Pianyi before slashing towards his body.
Sang Pianyi took a deep breath...Then prepared his sword stance, and parried the wave of energy, before flying back with his crow wings to avoid getting too close to his opponent.
The Lord of Shadows spun around called upon the sea of shadows underneath, propelling a grotesque creature up. The rotten shadow shark that Sang Pianyi had fought earlier leaped out of the dark waters at the perfect timing to intercept his escape attempt.
Chomp!
The rotten creature successfully trapped Sang Pianyi in its horrid mouth once again.
Sang Pianyi scoffed, before cutting a gash into its side to create a hole to escape. Except this time, things were different than before.
The Lord of Shadows waved his hands around as if conducting an orchestra, manipulating the beast's wounds to seal them shut and forcing the creature to change shape into an unaturally shaped shadow-coloured box. Then, he commanded the beast to eliminate the being inside of them by any means necessary.
Inside of the dark box, with pupiless eyes lining the walls, all gazing at the intruder, several arms, tentacles, and mouths extended from all sides of the box to attack Sang Pianyi.
To this, Sang Pianyi shut his eyes so that he could focus more on the flow of Ingenuity of the beast. Inside this monochromatic box he was in hyperconscience. Then, he began dodging, blocking, and parrying every attack coming from the box.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The arms were severed, the tentacles were tied together, and the mouths lost all of their teeth. Soon, the Beast had run out of ammunition to attack Sang Pianyi with.
While this was happening, the Lord of Shadows progressively shrunk the box-shaped beast, condensing it until it was far too cramped for a human adult to be in. Then, he formed ten massive shadow spikes around two meters in length and as dense as steel, and manipulated them to pierce the box creature from all sides.
The ten spikes jutted into the box with immense speed, causing the box to wail in pain. However, they seemed to be getting stuck near the center. "If that doesn't work, then I just have to do it harder." The Lord of Shadows smirked and applied even more force towards the shadow spikes.
Inside the box, Sang Pianyi grunted in distress, as he carefully manipulated blue ingenuity to defend himself precisely at each point the Spikes were striking towards in the form of small hexagonal panels, however, doing this meant having near perfect focus, or else he'd be run through.
The panels vibrated intensely in recoil from the attack, producing a soft humming noise that reverberated around the box.
Suddenly, the spikes were withdrawn and the holes produced by them were sealed shut, as the Lord of Shadows called them back to his side. "Hmm...How boring, let's try this for a change!" He announced, as the shadow spikes began to converge together in a swirl pattern, rotating clockwise with haste in an intricate design, this rotating cyclone of shadows was then thrown towards the box with the Lord of Shadows' full strength with the added force of his shadow manipulation.
Whoosh!
The gigantic shadow javelin shot towards the small box of shadows, with a devastating speed. Sang Pianyi realized that if that attack hit, he'd be done for, yet he also couldn't unlease his full power lest his enemy fight with true determination, so he chose the third option.
He pressed his right hand, which was encased in a crow gauntlet, onto the side of the box.
In the center of his palm, a crow-shaped symbol appeared, and began to glow sporadically, as if impatient.
"I offer this creature as payment, please give them the solace they deserve in the afterlife, in exchange, I ask for their temporarily release from the shackles that have been placed on them."
The symbol glowed with anticipation, showing their approval.
Then, the box began to shift and morph into their original form without the influence of the shadows, a decaying ghost-like shark. Only this time, it wore something akin to a smile on its face. As it looked at the gargantuan shadow javelin barreling towards the two of them, it gave Sang Pianyi a curt nod of acknowledgement, before charging at it head on.
"Tch...Stupid fish." The Lord of Shadows annoyedly muttered.
The ghostly shark launched itself at the javelin with a reckless smile, twisting its body in a counter-clockwise motion and colliding with the javelin with a calm expression of acceptance.
Sang Pianyi silently saluted the creature from afar as this happened, then the aftershock of the collision hit him.
The collision between the javelin and the creature created a colossal explosion that shook the nearby area with a deafening boom and quake. A blazing ball of green and black appeared momentarily from the point where they hit eachother, making a violent repulsion force that pushed everything nearby away, as well as decimating the shadow sea and sending dark liquid all across the valley.
Boom!
Sang Pianyi and the Lord of Shadows recoiled backwards onto the valley edges, and they stood on the opposite side of the valley once more. Only this time, the playing field seemed more even.
The Lord of Shadows quickly started controlling the shadows around Sang Pianyi whilst flying towards him, he was using more precise methods of control this time, unlike his previous, more flashy moves.
Sang Pianyi responded by quickly slashing around himself in a circular motion with his crow blade, severing the shadows and causing them to writhe and decay.
Then, taking the opportunity his brief distraction had granted him, the Lord of Shadows boomed towards Sang Pianyi from above, aiming to engage him in physical combat.
He spun his scythe around his hands, slamming it down towards Sang Pianyi with a excited expression full of bloodlust. "Come on! Give me some entertainment!" He voiced with hunger.
Clash!
As they clashed, their weapons shook with vigor. Shooting colorful sparks into the air as their eyes locked.
The two fighters had two completely opposite expressions, one ecstatic, the other calm.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
Suddenly, the crows in the trees began to caw, as if surprised. As their attention diverted from the fight at hand, to who had just arrived, bowing towards them.