This statement froze them all on the spot and the surrounding fell into silence. The child looked at them with wide eyes. 'Did he say anything wrong?' he thought to himself in wonder.
"What did you say?" Arthur asked with tense voice. He wanted to know if he didn't hear it wrongly. What was this kid saying? He was more confused at the moment.
"Well," he pointed at Dreigh and then pointed at himself. "He and I are the same person," he answered. The innocence on his face and naivety can be clearly seen, it was like what he said was a normal thing and did not have any impact on any them.
Before Arthur could say anything, a tremor that lasted for at least a minute shook the ground they were standing on. The child's face turned dark.
"What's happening?" there was panic on Vira's voice as he looked at his comrades.
"Someone's forcing his way through my barrier," the child answered before he disappeared before their eyes.
The group hurriedly left the Drowsy Weeping Pendula tree to follow the child. They looked around but did not see the werewolf leader anywhere. Not wasting anytime, they followed the path they took to return to the village. With Arthur's help they reached the village within minutes and saw that the place was silent but they did not have the time to think more about it.
More tremors were felt all over the Forest of Phantasm and the more the group sped up to where the strongest earthquake originated from. They reached the entrance they took and saw the child standing there and facing a woman covered with black bandage from head to foot only the redness of her eyes can be seen. Ends of the bandage were attacking the barrier and with each collision it causes a tremor stronger than the first one. From the quakes alone, one can easily guess that the force on those attacks were abnormally high.
"What creature is that?" Vira gasped in fear at how terrifying the woman was. A black smoke was surrounding the woman and this smoke had a highly corrosive property.
"A corpse," the child answered with taut voice. The four remnants, whose first time to see a creature like this was in a state of apprehension.
"Walking corpses are usually harmless but this one is at least at the Steel-Body Stage and it possesses a power that it should not possess. The dark miasma it emits can even kill living things around it," Karina explained, she was now back to herself and observed the enemy.
"Can your barrier withstand its attacks?" from the side Arthur asked as he prepared a spell to help the child.
"Not for long, the miasma around her is too much and my barrier had been exposed to this miasma for a long time now," the child answered calmly as he watched the corpse attack the barrier once again.
Karina was also preparing for an attack as she summoned her death scythe, "how long has this corpse been attacking your barrier?"
"For at least a year now," he truthfully answered which made Karina widen her eyes astonishment. She was impressed with how sturdy this barrier was, with a barrier like this, the child was not an ordinary spirit or whatever he is.
Karina was about the talk again but her eyes widen as she heard the distinct sound of a glass shattering. "Watch out!" with her fastest movement, she immediately created a water barrier in front of the child and flew towards where he stood.
Arthur also deployed his wind spirits to reinforce Karina's barrier but one of the corpse's bandages easily broke through the barrier and headed straight towards the kid. A white as porcelain hand caught the bandage like it was nothing. A 'whoosh' sound passed before him a death scythe and a wind blade had already collided with the bandage.
The force of this attack caused the ground to once again shake and created a deep crater on the ground. Karina was pushed back a little bit and the wind blade disappeared but the bandage was still intact. The child held the bandage tighter, coiled it on his hands and flung the corpse towards a tree which broke due to the force of the collision.
Karina and Arthur did not dilly-dally and followed up with a short range attack and long range attack. A barrage of wind, water and sharp ice shards rained on the corpse which resulted into thick smoke and holes on the ground. Karina stood back and knitted his brows while watching the area clear up.
Several black bandages shoot out from where the corpse landed and attack the three people nearest to it. They all dodged the attack but the bandages did not stop on attacking them while dents were scattered all over the ground and trees being cut off. Dust was rising everywhere obstructing the vision of the remnants.
A stray bandage suddenly appeared in front of Dreigh and the others which they barely managed to evade. Rond made a move and created an earth wall around them. They could feel more tremors outside the earth wall which indicated that the fight was becoming more intense.
Karina was using her death scythe as defense while jumping around to avoid the black bandages that wanted to pierce her with holes. She caught a glimpse of the keeper they met and saw him protecting himself with a light barrier that had hardened. Arthur was similar with Karina and was defending himself with his wind spirits.
"Why don't you freeze those annoying bandages Karina!" Arthur shouted in annoyance at the woman with an affinity with water.
"Tsk, what a demanding kid." Karina raised both her hands a large magic circle appeared on the sky. Arthur protected Karina with wind blades as she concentrated on making the magic circle wider. The circle disappeared and in place of it was rain that froze upon touching the black bandages that were currently attacking them. Taking this opportunity, Arthur summoned his wind gales and shattered the frozen bandages into pieces.
Once the bandages were dealt with, they attacked the source. A whip and a scythe landed on the corpse. A 'clang' rang through the area but the corpse was still standing and it used its arms to block the combined attack. Karina immediately retreated and stopped a few meters away from the enemy.
"It's as hard as steel, this corpse is really suspicious." Karina looked at the tip of her scythe and saw that its tip was stained with black, even Arthurs wind whip broke after the collision.
"It is of Steel-Body Stage so what do you expect and it also wields a strange power. It had a similar feeling to the affinity we possess," a wind spirit became a long whip once again and small gales surrounded the whip while Arthur spoke.
A short range battle happened between the corpse and Arthur, he did what he can to damage the corpse or at least incapacitate with a combination of hand to hand combat and his whip which paid off as he could see that the bandages were taking damage from his relentless attack and he also noticed one thing about the corpse.
Arthur retreated for the moment and joined Karina, "even though the corpse is of a high level, it strangely did not gain sentience and only moves on instinct."
"Got it," Karina summoned a water spirit and let it merge with her death scythe to make it stronger and sharper. The corpse also attacked using its remaining bandages. And exchange of attacks continuously happened without stopping.
Rond brought down the earth wall and they saw shadows dancing before them and sparks of colliding weapons can be seen in different directions. They were stupefied at the intense fight, it was their first time to see a high level battle between powerful beings. Wind blades were flying all around and even ice shards were raining from different directions during the fight.
All the raucous attracted the shadows around the area but they were mainly attracted to the keeper who was currently inside a ball of light that protects him from any of the attacks happening. They slowly surrounded him but with only a wave of his hands, these shadows disappeared into nothingness. The keeper continued to watch the ongoing battle without batting an eye as he waved his hands to disintegrate the shadows clamoring to get near him.
Aside from these low leveled shadows, some Steel-Body Stage shadows also appeared and bared their fangs towards the keeper which he only ignored. These shadows suddenly converge into one and plunging the area into total darkness. The only light to be seen inside this shadow barrier was the light surrounding the keeper.
They both attacked the corpse without stopping but at the crucial moment when they were about to penetrate the steel bandages surrounding its body, the place was suddenly covered with total darkness and a panicked shout caught their attention.