On this confusing night, the thick, colorful smoke gently sways with the breeze, and everything in the nearby area seems calm and peaceful as usual. Nonetheless, the faint hint of killing intent hidden in the darkness quietly indicates just how terrible and dangerous the night truly is!
The long fight that Punk had imagined in his mind doesn't happen. Right after he finishes setting up his tricks to confuse the enemy, a strange but quite clear change in shadowy energy appears from the eastern part of the smoky area.
"Damn it!"
Punk cursed secretly in his heart. Even without seeing the system's analysis, he knew what the Assassin did. She had just used one of the signature skills of Assassins to escape into the Shadow Plane!
The Shadow plane can be said to be the opposite of the Pheren Plane. If the colorful reality of Pheren was a positive expression of the reality, then the negative side of this reality was the gray and mysterious Shadow Plane.
The Assassin's ability to escape into the Shadow Plane was a skill that consumed a large amount of shadow energy; in exchange, it allowed the Assassin to enter the shadow plane temporarily. The length of this temporary situation was only about two seconds. Hence, the primary function of this skill was to avoid powerful attacks. However, now, the Assassin used this trick to confirm Punk and Kane's position!
The smokescreen spell that Punk created obviously cannot spread into the Shadow Plane. So now the enemy could easily locate them inside the Shadow plane, and then the cover of this smoke would be completely meaningless!
Sure enough, Punk vaguely felt some cold energy attached to him in the next instant. This was a tracking skill of the Assassin class called Shadow-attachment. With this skill's help, it is very easy to locate someone or something within a specific range; So finding them even with the thick smoke could be said to be a breeze!
Although this was a relatively low-level tracking skill and only needed an apprentice-level dispelling spell to get rid of this tracking mark, but that the enemy might not allow him to dispel it, Punk, whose position was now compromised, without hesitation ordered all the mana balls to explode immediately. In a blaze of bright blue flashes, a violent energy wave erupted in all directions. This devastating mana explosion swiftly cleared away the lingering smoke, revealing the now pockmarked flat ground. A faint energy vibration still present in the air."
As Punk himself, and Kane were at the center of such a big explosion, the energy tide was continuously impacting them, however, with their strong defensive both of them resist these fairly easily. But what if they were replaced by a physically fragile Assassin, who specialized in concealment and speed?
"Even though there was a significant chance that she was fully aware of the abnormal energy fluctuations from the mana balls and had successfully evaded the explosion in time, she would still be hit by the energy shockwave afterward, which wouldn't feel pleasant. Moreover, the most critical issue was that she couldn't remain hidden within such a violent shockwave.
"Got you!!!"
Kane, who had been carefully sensing the area with his battle qi, instantly locked to a place where a sudden and very faint energy fluctuation occurred, which obviously meant that some kind of unusual obstacles blocked his battle qi.
Suddenly, the suppressed battle qi burst out from every inch of Kane's body, and he charged straight to that area after activating a fighting skill. Kane ran with his full force, and accompanied by a sonic boom, Kane's figure became a blurry golden shadow and instantly reached the targeting area like a speeding bullet.
"Boom!!!"
A huge sound echoed in the night sky, and a wave of sharp wind mixed with crushed gravel swept away from the place where Kane was stabbed his Lance. Standing in the giant impact crater, Kane slightly shook his steel lance, which now, along with the armor on his body, became glowing red because of the air friction.
"If this blow hit the target, the enemy, being an Assassin, would have undoubtedly turned into a pulpy mess of flesh and blood.
However, the result unfolded before Punk's eyes. His vision clearly captured a graceful figure, entangled in shadows like an illusion, vanishing just before Kane's Lance could strike.
"Do you think you can still hide? Now that I've found you, forget about escaping!"
As Punk declared this, a sharp, cold gleam flashed in his eyes. With the assistance of the system, he keenly detected the subtle fluctuations in the enemy's shadowy form once more. He murmured a spell under his breath and aimed it directly at the exposed Assassin.
"Distorted Lightning."
With the assistance of the system, Punk had already constructed this spell as early as Kane had just rushed out. A cloud of etheric energy had just been summoned, and then it began to transform into lightning at an astonishing speed and lashed out as Punk pointed toward its target. While making harsh crackling sounds, a group of dazzling lightning, traveling at the speed of light, instantly arrived at the area where the Assassin was and covered her whole body. A large number of violent electrical discharges continuously blasted out from that area which left intricate black marks on the surrounding land!
This spell's speed was almost the speed of light, but Punk's casting speed was not. So, at the moment the Assassin noticed the bursting energy in Punk's hands, she dodged Kane and immediately escaped to the Shadow Plane disregarding the strain on her body. And with the help of this very powerful evasion method, she successfully avoided the fatal blow once again!
"Something is wrong!"
Punk frowned slightly. Even if the enemy managed to escape into the Shadow plane again to evade, when she comes out, she would still be targeted and attacked by Punk and Kane.
So, when she fled into the Shadow plane to evade, except for delaying death for a short while, it would achieve nothing. Especially now that Punk and Kane were ready with their attacks, the enemy would not be able to avoid again when she reappears on the Main plane, and if she dares to escape into the shadow plane for the third time, then there was not even a need to attack.
"Being a trainee-level Assassin, entering the Shadow Plane was already a significant drain on her energy. Additionally, using such a skill multiple times in a short period placed a considerable burden on her body. If she entered the Shadow Plane once more, Punk and Kane wouldn't need to continue the fight, as there was a high probability that she would lose consciousness.
Given this, when facing their attack, it made more sense for the enemy to choose severe injury, as it offered at least a glimmer of hope for escape.
"Something is definitely amiss. The enemy is not the kind of fledgling novice who will commit such low-level mistake and ruin her last chance of escape."
Thinking of this, Punk's decisively dissipated the second Distorted Lightning that he almost condensed and started to concentrate.
As a frequent user of prophecy spells, his intuition told him that it was not the Assassin, who was almost out of shadow energy, that was in danger now, but Kane and himself, who seemed to be winning, are in danger!
The night was shrouded in gloomy dark clouds, concealing the usually bright moon, Gall. A cold breeze whispered through the darkness. Suddenly, before the enemy even emerged from the shadows, an overwhelming sense of danger flooded every corner of Punk's mind.