William smiled, deciding to leave the rest of this fight in Sang Pianyi's hands, before passing out once more, collapsing onto the ground, as the focus of the shadows was shifted onto the approaching challenger, eagerly awaiting his next move.
Li Jiaojie and Fei Kangzhen quickly picked him up and continued fleeing, trusting their acquaintance to fend off the man, and trusting in their boss's words.
The Lord of Shadows smirked, the lower half of his face showing under his hood, allowing others to see his devilish grin.
"I have three wolves inside me, one of shadow, one of abyss, and one of darkness!" He proclaimed with maniacal laughter.
Then, seeing the stretcher housing one of his old comrades far behind him, his eyes thinned. He commanded the shadows to surge towards him, though the people behind Sang Pianyi tried to stop them; these shadows weren't corporeal, instead, they seeped straight into the man's mind, ensuring his continued slumber.
'Holy...Eight Grader Syndrome clearly got to this guy...' the man's words momentarily took aback Sang Pianyi. Before a strange-looking book phased into existence beside him. It was dark red in colour, and had a heart and a magnifying glass on it.
His Anecdote of Self!
The book flipped open to a unique-looking page, with some sort of strange imprint engraved onto it. The engraving had the shape of a crow's head, inside a magic circle of sorts. Though it looked rather basic, just a normal circle with lines connecting to the crow's head in the center. Additionally, the engraving looked to be written using some sort of metallic ink, as it shone a dazzling silver under the gaze of the full moon.
The engraving began to flow as Ingenuity was funneled into it. The Lord of Shadows sensed this, yet he didn't act, as the grandest of spectacles, and the greatest humiliation comes at the apex of the battle, or so he believed.
"Come on, try me!" The Lord of Shadows mockingly jeered at Sang Pianyi.
"Where did you transport the rest of them?" Sang Pianyi demanded with stone-cold eyes.
The Lord of Shadows feigned ignorance, "What could you ever be alluding to? Hmmm...I do seem to recall a batch of test subjects arriving earlier today...Oh! Could one of those be a friend of yours?" He smiled knowingly.
Meanwhile, Sang Pianyi continued to give the Lord of Shadows a death stare while pouring all the ghostly red Ingenuity he had into the crow sigil. After a few more seconds, it was complete.
Until this point, noone, whether it be Sang Pianyi's entourage or anyone at the watchtower, knew what Sang Pianyi's core ability was. However, that wasn't because he had never used it; on the contrary, he utilized his ability at almost all times. After all, he was...
The Reader of Efficiency.
He could optimize each and every one of his movements, granting them near-unparalleled efficiency compared to the average human being. This ability also applied to his Ingenuity manipulation, allowing him to be masterfully precise, not wasting even a bit of his internal ingenuity.
Because of this, at his level, only someone like him could tap into a power like this.
The ghastly imprint of a crow slowly appeared behind Sang Pianyi, like a guardian angel, or devil, in this case.
A cold and deathly aura emanated from his body, devouring the local area with it.
"Stay back." He warned his companions, who quickly departed with the unconscious bodies of those from the caravan.
A cacophony of cawing could be heard, as a gigantic murder of crows swarmed the local area, perching on the branches of the trees in the area, coldly watching what was occurring with their empty, abyssal eyes.
Sang Pianyi's back began to sprout large greyish-black crow wings, and his eyes turned pure black. He spoke calmly. "Test Subjects, you say? Then, I guess I'll make sure this is the last experiment you run for the rest of your short, pathetic life."
The crow's wings flapped once, sending him speeding towards the Lord of Shadows. Once he got close, he extended his hand, which had grown talon-like claws, and stabbed towards his chest.
The Lord of Shadows merely laughed at this display of grand power, "Pfft...That's it? You're just a fur-
He didn't get to finish that question as the force of the impact of the talons hit him, sending him reeling backwards. In the place where the talon struck, the Lord of Shadows' body began to decay under the corrupting effect of it.
Despite being hit with such a powerful attack, the Lord of Shadows remained unfazed. "How intriguing! I've never seen such a power before! Your movements and Ingenuity are refined, yet you also have a unique ability like that, you're truly my ideal rival! The main character!" He rambled on and on without restraint.
'Is this guy's real ability to deal soul damage through cringe? What the hell is he even talking about! Forget it, I have to focus on rescuing her.'
The Lord of Shadows, holding his wound slightly, manipulated a few shadows from the sea to arise and fill the wound, sealing it shut to halt blood loss. Before causing the sea of shadows to start swirling around in a vortex, before pointing at Sang Pianyi, who was flapping his wings mid-air, a few meters away from him. "Disintegrate." He commanded.
The vortex of shadows spawned several massive tendrils that wreaked havoc in Sang Pianyi's general direction, like a shadow kraken. They darted towards him, aiming to pincer him from all angles.
Sang Pianyi's eyes and body movements turned calculated.
'Optimize your movements, the precise flow of them. Left. Left. Right. Left. Right. Right.' He chanted repeatedly in his mind, as he dodged the various tendrils with well-timed bursts of speed and maneuvering.
As Sang Pianyi got close to the Lord of Shadows once more, the latter raised his right hand towards the incoming crow and expanded his palm. Around a hundred shadowy tentacles erupted from the center of his palm, surrounding Sang Pianyi at a point blank range, mere moments away from piercing through his body from all angles and devouring his body.
Sang Pianyi's eyes widened before she quickly twisted his body in the air, turning into a drill tornado of sharp, dark feathers that cut through the tentacles with ease, before then going straight for the Lord of Shadows' chest.
Shadow reacted quickly and manipulated his own shadow to yank his own body back at an extremely quick speed, narrowly avoiding the attack. He then raised his shadow katana, which he had reformed inside of his right hand, and sliced towards Sang Pianyi while the momentum applied to him was still effective, catching him off guard and snagging a clean cut to his back. It wasn't lethal, but it would prove useful.
Arrgh!
Sang Pianyi gritted his teeth from the pain the cut caused. He was currently dangerously close to the Lord of Shadows, who was moving in for the next attack, as he thought. He raised his talon-like claws in preparation for defending himself.
Although his movements were efficient, the Lord of Shadows overpowered him in rank and experience and took advantage of his momentary weakness to land several more clean punches on Sang Pianyi. Pummeling him mid-air with childlike joy, before getting seemingly bored after a bit and letting him go free.
Sang Pianyi coughed up blood, clutching his ribs while wincing.
"Oh come on! You're supposed to be my archnemesis, aren't you? Come on, fight me!" The Lord of Shadows demanded.
Sang Pianyi merely stared at him coldly. He thought of what to do using the things he had on hand.
It seemed the Lord of Shadows had serious attention span issues, as he got immediately impatient, resolving to do something...fun.
From the shadows, he pulled out something, or someone.
It was a clever use of shadow transportation to bring out...a man with light brown hair, soft yellowish eyes, and a prison-like uniform.
"Hmm, you know this guy?" Shadow inquired.
"Nope, not a day in my life." Sang Pianyi replied shortly.
He then tossed the man into the sea of shadows casually, not caring about whether or not he lived or died. To which, Sang Pianyi swooped in to save him and bring him to safety.
Instead of taking the chance to attack Sang Pianyi, he rummaged around in the shadows he conjured around himself, pulling out another person.
She had clean, silky blonde hair and light brown eyes, and she looked extremely anxious while being held by her hair, suspended in the air.
"What about her? Y'know her?" Shadow once again inquired.
After Sang Pianyi finished dropping the man off in a safe area, he turned around to see Sasha being casually gripped by her hair by the Lord of Shadows, her legs dangling in the air, worriedly as she panicked.
As if sensing the inner shadows surging within Sang Pianyi, the Lord of Shadows grinned. "Aha, so you do know her! This will make the battle far more interesting, don't you think?"
A torrent of rage enveloped Sang Pianyi's body.