No one was able to see anything, except for the dual knives wielder.
The sound of his footsteps was clear to hear, however they kept on echoing endlessly, drowning the sound of his current footsteps.
The red dots in his eyes had gone unseen to the group, the four of them were able to quickly regroup as they had stayed close to one another.
"You wouldn't happened to have learned something that makes light?" asked Molbas, her sword pointing into the darkness, ready to skewer anything that could show up.
"Absolutely not..." responded Layo, as strands appeared around her, she couldn't see them but could perfectly sense them, including things that came into contact with them.
"...But I should be able to work around it" she finished, sending the strands to spread across the room.
It formed a bizarre web meant to detect the skull head, however, the assaillant kept on walking, adding more and more echoes without touching any of the strands.
'Is the sound of footsteps a trick?' thought Laura, right before feeling something cold against the back of her ankle and almost immediately feeling something slash right through it.
She lost her balance and was falling forward hopelessly but was grabbed by her robe like someone would grab an angry kitten by the neck.
Molarine didn't say anything and simply slightly threw Laura back against Layo's back as she punched through the darkness, a loud sound ensued as it connected and Layo's sensed the skull head crashing back into multiple of her strands.
The strands tried to wrap around him but he quickly got out by slashing through and letting his body be carried by the momentum.
He disappeared again as the sounds of footsteps continued to grow again, indicating that it was most likely indeed tied to the sound of his own footsteps.
But instead of redoing this whole situation, Molarine casually stepped away, moving past the strands to let Layo know exactly where she was.
The skull head couldn't comprehend how she managed to perfectly pinpoint his location, the darkness that was currently around them wasn't normal darkness due to the absence of light, putting the candles out had only been a stunt to prevent them from realising that he had used something else.
The darkness with which he had flooded the room and its surroundings should be preventing them from sensing him through mana and such, the sounds of his repeatitive footsteps should prevent them from hearing the sound he made and the darkness acted as normal darkness and should prevent even darkvision from functioning.
None of them had seemed disturbed upon not being able to see through the darkness at all, so they must be unable to see anything, especially considering what the swrodswoman had said and the attempt from the priestess at detecting him.
He had been able to avoid detection by her thanks to another aspect of his ability, as long as he walked at a certain speed, he could phase through anything that wasn't living or possessed a soul in some measure.
He couldn't think of any reason as to how she could have seen him, unless she was too powerful to be affected at all but in that case, acting oblivious to get one hit on him seemed strange, if she was that powerful, she could have just defeated him right here and there, he had been unable to defend at all.
'Surely, it wasn't blind luck, she is coming right at me right now' he quickly thought, if he could figure out what she was doing and counter it, he would be able to quickly dispatch her.
As he thought, he backed away at his regular speed, phasing through the strands until he reached a room where the priestess couldn't reach while maintaining vision on the pugilist.
She had punched him in the chest, a little off the solar plexus, had it been a hit on it, he would probably had been wrapped in those strands easily.
'Off the solar plexus? She missed?' those thought revealed to him that she couldn't actually see him in full, she must have been detecting him through only a small part.
As he realised what was giving out his position, he had to dodge away from a punch aimed right at his face, he slashed at the wrist but missed by a long shot, her arms moved way to fast for him to hope to score a delibitating blow on her.
He would have to settle for a body part easier to strike at, he thus aimed at her chest, even if she could know his position, she had no way of knowing where the furnitures and such were, he pushed her back against a table, timing his attacks so that he would be on the verge of reaching her before she realised she couldn't back off.
He was surprised at how well she was reading his movements, he even questionned of his guess was any good due to how it shouldn't allow her to see the movements he made in details if at all but seeing how long she took to react to them, it seemed like she used the movements of the air to see them coming.
His strikes weren't fast enough to prevent her from doing that.
He was about to slash her chest, the blade already grazing her as she noticed that she couldn't move back, it looked like the skull head would be winning that exchange and give her a severe wound.
Contrary to his expectations however, instead of slashing right through her skin, the blade got stuck, not against armor or in fabric but against her literal body, the small wound that was supposed to grow longer, contracted and actually blocked him right in his track.
'This is ridiculous-' he thought as he realised the absurdity that was occuring before receiving a blow to the side of his head, a skull cracked but thankfully, it was only the outside one.
The attack threw him into a closet, breaking through the door in an awkward position, the blow completely threw him off in mind too and the darkness he had laid out on top of the actual darkness started to lift, he quickly went away before it was lifted.
He hadn't even been able to use the knowledge of how she was seeing him to his advantage, he had planned on using it get a killing blow after making lose some blood but she had bruteforced her way through his trick before it even happened.
As the darkness lifted, the sound of footsteps echoing endlessly went away and the sound of his escape was clear for Molarine to hear but chasing him through the dark was still not ideal, so she instead regrouped and a candle was lited.
Not by any of the four women but by the baron, he was standing were he had been before the skull head showed up.
"What did I tell you? My pets dislike strangers" he said in his flat tone.
He had no sign of any injury on the side of his head and didn't look like he had sweated at all.
"Your pets can manifest a murderer into existence?" spoke Molbas, not buying it very much.
"My pets manifested whatever it is that you were thinking about, you got lucky really" he said, pointing toward where the exit was.
"Now go before you enrage them any further" he said, actually sounding like he was having an emotion.
As they were about to leave as they couldn't do much more, the baron spoke up.
"By the way, I didn't recognise her at first but I have indeed met that woman before, she was much younger and not nearly as pale, she also didn't have that hair color but anyways, I do recognise that face somewhat" he said, recounting past memories.
"My parents had presented me to her when I was about ten, apparently, I was supposed to be her husband but my parents suddenly died and I don't remember anything else, the deal they had with that family must have been called off because I never saw her again" he said, before any could ask him anything else, he shut the door strongly.
Lomeo waited for some time, making sure all four of them were far before pulling out a small vial, its content had been emptied completely.
Even if he could change his apparel instantly, he wouldn't have been able to hide his injury on the head and signs of fatigue without that.
He wasn't expecting people like that to show up, even if they were technically stronger than him, since he only went after defenseless people, his darkness should have guarranteed his success.
He looked at the destroyed closet and blood on the floor from when he had slashed that girl's ankle, she had seemed fine after going, that priestess had most likely healed the wound.
He clapped his hands and soon, his 'pets' came to clean things up.
"That girl I cut would have made a good one..." he remarked under his breath.
He rubbed the side of his head, thinking back on that pugilist, he didn't know how but she had been able to spot the red spot coming from his eyes when wearing his skull mask, the darkness should have obscured it but she had been able to see that and only that.
'I guess people with greater sight can actually see things such as small lights even through my darkness...' he thought, it wasn't like he had experimented his technique against people of that caliber.
'I should prepare for that to happen again' he thought in the end as he walked away as his adorable pets cleaned up the mess, telling one to follow him.