One month had passed since they started training with their shadows and things had gone as expected. They all improved quite quickly when battling an ever adapting copy of themselves. They all learned to adapt pretty quickly and started learning new skills, techniques and ways to counter the adaptation and possibly kill the shadows. It had been uneventful but fun filled training month. Sadly, the main goal and reason why the shadows were created was missed entirely and thrown away as they had switched to trying to destroy the shadows with everything other than the projectile skills.
Jason had improved his stamina greatly due to his shadow hounding him every time he tried to rest or take a break as it had adapted to his fast and powerful motives. This had forced him to continue fighting on literally no energy at all and exhausting was an understatement for how he felt after battling his shadow.
Yoruichi had improved her control over essence and her apparition quite well due to the fact that the shadow would just cancel any charge up skill she would try to use which forced her to start relying on other quick but less effective skills.
Alsvid had greatly improved his technique creation. He now had an arsenal of techniques within his two offensive skills and he was currently trying to create more skills for himself. His shadow had either just dodged his essence bursts which ended up causing huge essence wastage or block his low costing projectiles before he could form his usual techniques which were what forced him to improve.
Kage had been paying attention to his students' training since it started and had watched all of them improve quite well. On this day as they were training father's words rang in his head as he decided to teach them the new art.
"All three of you gather here." Kage said to them as his shadows disappeared.
"Today you have all qualified to learn something new. This is an absolute skill that allows its user to be one with their apparition gaining excellent results in everything they do with it. This skill guarantees absolute defense as long as you have essence and a great damage output for the same reasons." Kage said to them as they were waiting for him to teach them the skill.
"Ok, pay attention carefully." Kage said as his shadow rose up.
Then something unexpected happened. Someone walked out of the forest. He had an all black cloak that covered every part of his body including his face.
"Kage, who's that?" Jason asked.
Kage turned around to see the person and was both alarmed and confused. He had never seen this person before but his instincts were telling him to run away.
"Umm guys, I see him moving but I don't hear any footsteps." Yoruichi pointed out.
Kage wasted no words as he summoned a giant shadow snake to devour the person. All seemed well, the snake was upon the unknown person and it seemed like they were going to die. Then suddenly kage lost control of the snake as a part of the cloak lifted to reveal absolutely nothing. It was pitch black within the cloak and nothing could be seen. The snake suddenly started deconstructing as the shadows that formed it were devoured by the cloak.
"What is that thing?" Yoruichi asked.
Kage didn't answer, instead he used a signature skill of Jason's and shot about twenty shadow disks at the person. The exact same thing happened as the disks disappeared.
Kage's shadow rose up behind him as he got ready to battle. The person pulled a black scythe out of nowhere and entered his shadow popped up from Kage's shadow. Kage reacted in time and grabbed the handle on the scythe before it was swung as it became a battle of strength. The person managed to push Kage before swinging the scythe at his head. Kage managed to duck in time and survived the swing.
The students tried to help out. Jason created his ten blood disks and shot them at the creature, at the same time Alsvid used his essence burst and Yoruichi attacked with a column of black smoke.
The blood disks stopped a few centimeters from the person as they shot back at Jason even faster than he had initially fired them and Alsvid's essence burst redirected itself into the sky.
Two more beings emerged from two different sides of forest. One was an unimaginably dark four limbed beast. It was covered in a cloud of darkness and every step it took caused something that wasn't anchored to the ground to disappeared. The other was worse. It was a grotesquely disfigured pile of flesh that had an endless amount of blood drooping from its body in unhealthy quantities. While Kage was busy fighting the empty cloak, these two were slowly making their way to the students.
Jason managed to dodge his blood disks as his as well as the other two's attention were drawn by the new creatures. Jason knew the situation was dangerous so he activated a skill he hadn't used in a while. A small amount of blood essence shot down from the sky at the bloody flesh and hit it square in the center.
Alsvid shot three dark orbs at the four limbed creature. The orbs flew in different directions but all converged on top of the creature as he fired a charged orb from his palm at the converging orbs which caused a large explosion of dark essence.
The two creatures survived from that unscathed as they kept moving towards the students. Once they reached a certain distance they stopped.
Kage was still fighting the empty cloak. The cloak kept swinging its scythe towards Kage who kept dodging and retaliating with a conjured shadow sword. He had created it at some point in their battle.
Once the two other creatures got close enough all three of them stopped moving.
The shadow that the cloak produces rose up and entered the cloak itself. The shadow took shape as the cloak formed a body for itself. A loud roar came from the dark creature as its featureless face cracked a dark grin. squelching could be heard from the grotesque pile of flesh as an upper humanoid body grew out of it. Now it looked like a bloody human from the waist up and everything else below just looked like grotesque flesh and it was all covered in an endless seeping blood.