Landing down on his two feet. Alan looked at the thousands of shining, blinking arrows coming at him from every direction. His lips slowly curled up in a smirk. It was going to be one hell of an experience.
"... Let's see what this new spell is capable of."
Alan knew, even if he used everything in his arsenal trying to stop something of that magnitude, it was close to impossible. Leaving him with less than likely choices to consider.
Running away was also one of the more absurd options. Useful in many situations, but if your chaser is faster than you then maybe not so much. As the arrows made of lights were thousands of times faster than him, to even consider it.
But, Alan had one more option. Something much better this time around. Powerful enough to obliterate the whole army of arrows without dying, perhaps.
Alan didn't had much time left to think. He had to be quick in making the decisions, before the mainline of arrows firing out of the sun-like spell, hit him and turned him to dust.
Alan sighed cursing out his luck. This mess wasn't his fault, to begin with. At least that's what he thought to himself.
Alan closed his eyes, willing his attribute to guide him through. To the place where the somber attribute resides in him.
The soul tomb.
To inherit the new insight of his attribute.
To his phenomenal luck, Alan had gotten an attribute that had rarely been seen throughout the history of mankind. Shadow was one of the most stupid aspects humans ever make notes of.
It had no attack potency like fire. It wasn't flexible like water. It wasn't bright like its counterpart. Neither it had any special effects like ground or wind. It was the stupidest attribute in the truest sense for any normal human.
But…. What it truly entailed was much more sinister than any attribute could ever hope to be. Shadows were always meant to be treacherous, self-reliant. It was in its nature to be dark and mysterious.
….And It was the wielder who made it truly fearsome.
Alan slowly opened his eyes, blinking slightly. As his head stopped spinning around, he took one clean look around again sighing to himself.
"I am back. Huh?"
Alan wasn't too happy, finding himself back in his childhood room. Where he used to live with his family. Now, which was the base of his soul tomb.
Alan looked around the little room, which reminded him of his childhood. His eyes stopped at the little chair leaning against the desk he used when he was barely 10. His eyes scanned the little bookshelf attached to the wall just above the desk.
Being a minimalist since his childhood didn't do him any favors. Like his nearly empty room. Alan didn't keep much in his room. While the other kids his age were used to filling their rooms with thousands of toys and everything. Alan just used to keep a bookshelf for himself near his study table to study comics and novels. As his only source of entertainment.
"...."
Alan looked around the room irritatedly. He had been here several times before. Hating every second of it every single time.
The soul tomb was said to be made up of a place, where a part of the said person's soul resides, both metaphorically and physically.
The place closest to one's heart.
'...Shit! Why always this place?'
But, to the contrary. Alan resented the place with all of his heart. It was his only lingering connection to his past. It was the reason he was never able to forget his family. It was the damn reason for his constant nightmares. A part of his soul.
Alan looked around his small room irritatedly, before heaving up a heavy breath.
He just needed to look for the insight and head back, hoping the arrows just wouldn't have ended him in the meantime. To his credit, Alan had an idea as to where the new insight should be held.
He moved toward his small table of childhood, tracing his fingers over its side fondly. However much he wanted to deny the truth, it wasn't possible. The proof that he still loved the place was its existence inside his soul tomb.
Alan stopped his fingers at the knob of the first drawer of the table, sliding it slowly. As the drawer opened up with a creak, a smile crept up on his face.
'Found it!'
Alan silently looked at the little dangling shadow looming inside the drawer. It looked alive moving around slightly, like a blob of little slime found in the fantasy novels he used to read, with just a slight difference in color.
"... Let's go little guy. I need your help with something"
The little formless shadow nodded itself, moving its body out of the drawer. Dragging itself on the ground. It looked around the little room and stopped one last time, before merging itself with Alan's real shadow.
'....Now! Let's go back to hell together.'
Alan closed his eyes slowly, willing his aspect to release him out of its clutches. It was time for the showdown.
The scenery around him disintegrated slowly, as his consciousness faded away from his soul tomb. He drifted around in the darkness for a few moments, before feeling a sharp pain running through his body.
"....AAAH!"
Jerking his body in pain, Alan woke up out of his delirium. His body felt wounded beyond belief as thousands of arrows were striking his body down.
"Goddammit! I took too much time"
Cursing out loud, Alan willed his shadow to cover him like armor, but it was a futile attempt. The whole of his shadow armor was decimated by just a few strikes of the bright arrows flying toward him.
'... It's Now or Never'
Even though he didn't have full control over it, he had no choice but to manifest his new insight. Otherwise, his only way out of all this was to die miserably. Which probably wasn't in his best interests.
Writhing in pain on the ground, Alan clutched his chest. He called for his new shadow, in the midst of being hit by the barrage of thousands of arrows. He looked far ahead of himself to the bright arrows calculating their distance away from him.
"... This is seriously gonna hurt."
Slowly chanting to himself.
Reign of Shadows|
His body twisted torturously the moment he chanted the ominous spell. Alan knew the root cause, but even still had to cast the spell. His body was not aligned with his new phase just yet, nor with the new spell. He didn't even had the essence left enough to fully manifest the spell.
In a desperate attempt for survival, Alan dried out his essence to make his last attack as powerful as possible, resulting in terrible backlash to his body.
But the damage was already done to him. And the pain had always been a constant for him throughout his life, so he did not mind it much. On the verge of death, Alan smiled, looking at his small shadow making its way toward the barrage of arrows.
He now was very sure his cause of death wasn't going to be the arrows at least. Even though to any other person it might look like a blob of dark slime. Only Alan truly knew what kind of menace that little shadow was.
"...Erase it all."
Alan ominously commanded the little slime-like shadow. The shadow detached itself from Alan's body urgently, standing itself in front of Alan and the arrows.
"Even light needs a medium to travel to the target. But….What if? I took it away from you."
Alan's little shadow snickered, slowly extending in size. First, it was the size of a human, then the towering millennium, followed by the size of the longest trees found in the northern continent, and in its last moment it already was the size of a mountain.
The darkness instantly covered the whole area, leaving no place for the light to reflect. Even though the light was the fastest thing in the universe. It still needed a medium to travel.
The arrows slowly started to disappear in the veil of darkness surrounding it, as they were one by one reduced to none. Until there was not a shred of light present near Alan.
The shadow again looked around for a few seconds. Completing its task, the shadow shrank itself around its normal size. Moving back towards Alan's real shadow, hopping like a real slime.
Alan gave the slime-like shadow an approving look and nodded before it disappeared in his shadow.
Alan fell to the ground smiling ear to ear. His whole body aching with pain and gushing with blood. He looked at Gelina's figure on the ground with a mocking grin.
"...I won, Shitheads!"
Silently hearing the sound of footsteps closing on him, Alan suddenly tensed.
"Yeah…You did, maniac."
That was the last familiar voice Alan heard before falling unconscious.