As the color of red poured into the crow sigil, the cacophony of cawing from the surrounding crows multiplied by severalfold, as if getting increasingly more excited by what was happening.
"Oho, what's this? Is someone angry? You must really care about her!" He said whilst spinning Sasha around in the air, grabbing onto her hair and rotating her body quickly like some kind of humanoid spinning top, attempting to further provoke his opponent.
As the sigil on Sang Pianyi's Anecdote of Self absorbed the red ingenuity, the symbol of a crow behind him began to look far more ravenous and devilish. With blood-red eyes. A blade of corruption appeared in his hands. It was deep black in color and resembled a crow, with even a small drawing of a crow on the guard and hilt of the blade, fitting given how he had gotten it.
His wings expanded several-fold, becoming around two meters long each, before he began to move. They propelled him at the Lord of Shadows repeatedly at speed so fast that if you blinked, he'd already be sending an attack from another angle. He released a relentless onslaught of attacks on all sides of the Lord of Shadows with as precise and efficient moves as he could muster, and as much of his strength as he could use in each strike.
Meanwhile, the Lord of Shadows merely smiled, holding Sasha in his left arm while casually using the Shadow Katana in his right to parry all the attacks coming towards him without moving any other part of his body. He even blocked the attacks coming from behind him like he had eyes behind his head.
"This is getting fun...Show me more!" He beckoned Sang Pianyi with a hungry expression.
Irritated, Sang Pianyi continued striking at the man with all his might, but he was simply too strong. Even with his special contract with that entity, he wasn't powerful enough to save her.
As a person, Sang Pianyi was the lowest of the low in terms of natural gifts. He was good at nothing except being bad at everything. Which is why his core ability was so helpful to him, allowing him to mitigate a certain amount of his natural incompetence.
However, there was one thing he had.
Each time he caught a glimpse of Sasha, a spark was added to his inner fire. His determination to save his friend had no limits!
"Hold in there...I'll save you no matter what, friend..." He muttered to himself whilst biting his left thumb in deep thought.
He sighed before declaring, "A decade is all I need to beat you." As ten crows suddenly swarmed towards Sang Pianyi and tore some type of illusory substance invisible to the human eye off of him, they began to devour it. Simultaneously, Sang Pianyi felt his power rising exponentially, as his body became noticeably older. Looking to be around the age of thirty.
Sensing the formidable aura leaking out of Sang Pianyi, the Lord of Shadows grinned with delight. "Finally! A worthy subject! I've been waiting for this day." He drooled lightly, which he promptly wiped away.
As Sang Pianyi's wings flapped, the Lord of Shadows awaited his move. Only to be pierced through completely by the crow bestowed sword wielded by Sang Pianyi before he could even process what had occurred. At the same time, Sasha ripped her own hair out of the Lord of Shadows' grasp, sending her tumbling down towards the seas of Shadows, which began to surge in the shape of a mouth to try to devour her.
Just before the shadows reached her body, Sang Pianyi swooped in and saved her, embracing her tightly and bringing her to the rest of his team, before flying back to finish his business.
Clutching the corroding wound delivered onto his body, the Lord of Shadows smiled shakily.
"Why have you returned here? Surely with her safe, you could depart without issue." He asked with interest.
"As much as I'd like to run away now that the person I wanted to save most is safe, there are people here who don't have such a person to save them. I will play the role of hero for them, the ones who don't have one to rely on. That is the promise I made to myself, all those years ago."
The Lord of Shadows smiled before stopping whatever flight skill he was using and allowing himself to plummet towards the sea of shadows beneath him. He was eerily calm, smiling all the way through.
His intuition warning him of something bad coming, Sang Pianyi flew towards the Lord of Shadows as fast as he could, leaving afterimages in his wake. Fortunately, he managed to stab into his chest with his blade once more, thinking he prevented whatever move he was planning.
To which, the Lord of Shadows's grin only intensified, before he clutched onto the sword, embedding it deeper into his own body along with Sang Pianyi's arm, before pulling both of their shadows towards the sea.
Sang Pianyi suddenly felt an uncontrollable suction pulling him towards the shadowy sea underneath, and with the Lord of Shadows latching onto him like this, he tried to end his opponent's life in the short few moments they had before they were consumed.
With his free hand, he utilized the talon-like claws that had materialized on it to attempt to sever the man's head by clenching his neck so hard that it would be crushed.
However, the man seemed only amused by this attempt on his life.
"Wherever there is light, there is shadow. The shadows cannot be killed so easily." He lectured the man before forming his own free hand into a shadow chain to grab onto Sang Pianyi easily. The shadowy arm wasn't strong enough, however, and it would definitely break under the sheer force applied by Sang Pianyi in a second or two evident by the cracks already starting to form on the chain.
But, before that could happen, the two of them were plunged into a sea of eternal darkness.
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(Heyyy, it's been a bit since I've checked in, right? Life's been pretty rough recently, so I've been trying to focus on bettering myself out in the real world.(Can you believe that I even graduated? University, here I come!) Hmmmm, yknow, this whole dynamic between Sang Pianyi and Sasha is gonna be real hard to write. I'm a bad writer a best, and an abysmal one at worst. Plus.....I've never been in a relationship before! How am I supposed to write romance! Eh, probably by watching a bunch of romcoms and listening to some calm music. Anyways, just checking in to vent about my writing struggles...The quota! Skewers are tasty.)