The courtyard of the First Temple was blindingly bright. The High Priest, realizing that stone walls were useless against Cain, had resorted to the Divine Arts.
"You are strong of body, heretic," the Priest spat, his voice amplified by magic. "But flesh cannot touch the divine!"
The Priest raised his golden staff. [High Summon: The Lux-Eidolon].
The air above the courtyard shimmered. Beams of sunlight bent and twisted, coalescing into a twenty-foot-tall warrior made entirely of translucent, burning light. It had no face, only a blazing star where its head should be. It wielded a sword made of pure photons.
Isolde gasped, stepping back. "Cain! That's an Eidolon! It has no physical form. Swords will pass right through it!"
Cain looked up at the giant made of light. He looked unimpressed.
"Flashy," he muttered.
The Eidolon swung its photon sword. It moved at the speed of light—instantaneous.
SLASH.
Cain didn't dodge. There was no time. The blade of light bisected his torso, slicing diagonally from his shoulder to his hip.
Isolde screamed. "CAIN!"
The top half of Cain's body began to slide off... but then stopped.
The wound didn't bleed red. It bled darkness. Black mist poured from the cut, pulling his flesh back together like magnetic sand. Within a second, the wound was gone.
Cain rolled his shoulder, wincing slightly. "Hot. I prefer cold weapons."
"You... you are immortal?" the Priest trembled.
"Hard to kill," Cain corrected. "There's a difference."
He charged the Eidolon. He threw a punch that would have shattered a tank.
WHOOSH.
His fist passed harmlessly through the creature's leg. It was like punching a hologram. The intense heat of the light burned the skin off his knuckles, which instantly regenerated.
The Eidolon countered, driving its knee into Cain. The attack connected. Light could touch matter, even if matter couldn't touch light. Cain was launched backward, crashing through a stone pillar.
He landed on his feet, skidding to a halt. He looked at his smoking hand.
"Annoying," Cain grumbled. "It's like fighting a flashlight."
"We have to run!" Isolde yelled, charging a defensive spell. "Physical attacks are useless! We need a dark mage!"
Cain stood up straight, brushing dust off his trousers. A wicked, terrifying smile spread across his face.
"Princess," he called out, his voice calm. "You're thinking like a human. You think light is the opposite of darkness."
He reached into his shadow. The void rippled.
"But light creates darkness."
Cain pulled out a strange object. It wasn't a weapon. It was a black, ragged cloak made of a material that seemed to absorb all light around it.
[Cursed Tool: The Shroud of Fenrir]
[Effect: Absolute Light Absorption.]
Cain didn't put it on. He threw it into the air.
"Scatter," he commanded.
The cloak dissolved into thousands of tiny, black particles—Shadow Bats. But these weren't attacking. They swarmed into the sky, blotting out the sun above the courtyard.
The area plunged into twilight.
The Lux-Eidolon flickered. Without the sun to fuel it, it dimmed, but it was still made of light. It roared—a sound like chimes—and lunged at Cain.
"Here's the thing about light," Cain whispered, stepping sideways to dodge the attack.
He looked at the ground. Because the Eidolon was glowing so brightly in the dimmed courtyard, it cast a deep, pitch-black shadow on the floor behind it.
Cain stomped his foot onto the Eidolon's shadow.
"Gotcha."
He reached down and grabbed the shadow of the Eidolon's leg.
He heaved upward.
CRUNCH.
The physical Eidolon of light screamed. Its actual leg of light shattered as if it were glass.
Isolde's jaw dropped. "He... he's hurting it by touching its shadow?"
"The shadow is the soul of the object," Cain lectured, sounding bored as he slammed the shadow-leg into the ground again. The light-construct smashed face-first into the pavement, mirroring the movement of its shadow.
"If I break the shadow, the object has to follow. Basic physics. Or... anti-physics. Whatever."
The High Priest watched in horror as Cain brutalized the shadow on the ground. Every punch Cain landed on the dark silhouette caused the giant light monster to crater and crack.
"Stop!" the Priest shrieked. "That is a holy avatar!"
Cain ignored him. He walked over to where the shadow's "head" was painted on the stones.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out the Inverted Spear—the jagged dagger that nullified magic.
"Light's out," Cain whispered.
He stabbed the dagger into the shadow's head.
SHATTER.
The Lux-Eidolon disintegrated instantly, exploding into harmless sparkles of gold dust.
Silence returned to the courtyard.
Cain stood up, the shadow bats returning to him and reforming into a mist that vanished into his skin. He looked at the High Priest.
"You have five seconds to tell me where the Divine Solus is," Cain said, pointing the dagger at the old man.
"Or," Cain's eyes flashed crimson, and his canines seemed to lengthen. "I start stepping on your shadow. And trust me... that hurts way more than a punch."
The High Priest fell to his knees, weeping.
"The Capital! He is in the Capital! Just please... spare me!"
Cain sheathed the dagger. He walked past the sobbing priest, stepping over the holy altar as if it were a park bench.
"See, Isolde?" Cain called out to the stunned Princess. "Diplomacy."