Chapter 119: The Peculiar Shadow

After more than four months of idle cultivation,

the Soul Seal Codex had reached the ninth level.

Coupled with the peculiarity of Gune's soul itself, his soul magnitude naturally skyrocketed.

Now, Gune's soul perception domain had expanded to nearly forty meters.

That is to say, a range of forty meters was all within Gune's soul perception domain.

Combined with Gune being the darling of the World Essence, the two together,

the moment this fellow entered the edge of Gune's perception range, Gune saw him clearly and distinctly.

After a moment's thought, Gune let out a low, cold laugh.

"Roar!"

Almost pressing against the shadow's face,

the Demon Lord took a bite at its soul.

With a "crack!"

This bite—the Demon Lord failed to bite the soul.

Fortunately, the Demon Lord was a powerful existence at the rank of Lord, and even without biting the soul, it directly bit off the shadow's head.

"Hmm? No soul? Is this a peculiar projection power?"

This made Gune's heart stir slightly.

The Demon Lord, having bitten nothing, instead revealed its own trail.

The shadow flickered and appeared at the cave entrance, its head rapidly growing back.

"Demon Lord!"

Seeing this Demon Lord, the shadow was somewhat startled.

Then, the shadow gave a dark smile, as if guessing something.

With a leap, it turned into an afterimage and charged into the cave.

The moment the shadow passed the Demon Lord, it saw Gune in the corner.

"Die!"

In a flash, the shadow appeared before Gune at an incredible speed.

At the same time, a dagger shrouded in shadow power stabbed toward Gune's neck.

But just as the dagger fell halfway, countless dense puppet threads bloomed all over the shadow's body.

Within Gune's soul perception domain, he could cast spells from any angle.

That is, within forty meters around Gune, he was in a state of perfect lock-on, impossible to evade.

Moreover, these puppet threads were different from before.

Each puppet thread contained a trace of World Essence, which multiplied their concealment and toughness several times over.

A powerful pulling force sought to bind the entire shadow in midair.

Entangled by numerous puppet threads, the shadow assassin did not give up resisting.

Its shadow dagger slashed at the puppet threads.

The sharp dagger fell.

With a crisp "twang!" a puppet thread was severed.

But by the second puppet thread, the shadow assassin's dagger had exhausted its strength and could not cut through.

Its gaze swept over these concealed yet tough puppet threads.

A flicker of surprise passed through the shadow's pitch-black eyes.

The attack power of this shadow was not weak; it was at the peak of the sixth rank.

It hadn't expected that these unremarkable puppet threads would be so tough.

If he were controlled, breaking free would be nearly impossible.

Taking advantage of the moment the opponent severed the puppet threads, Gune manipulated the threads to rapidly tighten, completely immobilizing the shadow assassin in midair.

The controlled shadow showed no panic; its body trembled slightly.

With a "hum!"

The entire shadow body vanished directly.

"A Transcendent Master's shadow."

This sight made Gune's eyes narrow, and he grew cautious.

A shadow with peak sixth-rank strength could only be achieved by a Transcendent Master.

This Transcendent Master using a shadow for assassination was not to be underestimated.

Before Gune could react,

a faint crackling sound quickly arose.

Like the sound of light shattering into silence.

Then, boundless darkness descended.

The entire cave rapidly turned into a realm of darkness.

"Darkness?" Gune's eyes narrowed.

Standing still, Gune lightly released his Darkness Essence.

Silently, Gune perfectly merged into the darkness.

Apart from World Essence, the essence Gune had comprehended the longest and deepest was Darkness Essence.

And now, this shadow-attribute Transcendent Master used a shadow to cast the Darkness Essence technique "Darkness Descends."

Within the area of "Darkness Descends," darkness would perfectly block the vision, hearing, and smell of other creatures, and even internal movements would not be transmitted outward.

Unfortunately, he did not know that

Gune could fully merge into the darkness he had cast.

As the surroundings quickly turned dark, Gune seamlessly blended into the darkness.

A sharp piercing attack, utterly silent, suddenly appeared behind Gune's head at terrifying speed.

Also merged into the darkness, Gune, relying on his soul perception domain, had long clearly seen all the opponent's movements.

The moment the opponent struck,

"Sizzle sizzle sizzle..."

A series of rapid lightning flashes bloomed on the shadow's body.

But the annihilating effect of the Lesser Thunderflame Curse seemed ineffective against the shadow; the shadow, enduring Gune's lightning, stabbed toward Gune's head.

Gune instantly used a Blood Escape Technique to evade the attack.

With a light raise of his hand, numerous puppet threads rapidly bloomed.

While sensing his surroundings, Gune pondered inwardly.

"After all, it's a Transcendent Master's shadow; dealing with it is quite troublesome."

"Fortunately, this shadow isn't strong, at best peak sixth-rank strength, just with some bizarre methods."

If Gune wished, he had plenty of powerful means to deal with this shadow.

For example, overwhelming it with raw damage.

Or using Destruction Essence's penetration and eruption.

Or simply running out and shouting, "Help! Someone's trying to assassinate me!"

After all, this Darkness Descends area could trap others, but not Gune.

But Gune didn't do that; fighting this shadow was a rare opportunity to understand the Transcendent Master's methods and abilities.

As soon as Gune moved away, the shadow immediately pursued him relentlessly, and even the puppet threads could barely restrain it.

Gune sneered and continued using the Blood Escape Technique to move at high speed while bombarding it with Lesser Thunderflame Curses.

Although the penetrating power of the Lesser Thunderflame Curse wasn't very effective against shadow-type creatures,

quantity made up for it, overwhelming it with damage.

After continuously casting forty or fifty Lesser Thunderflame Curses,

Gune clearly felt that the shadow's movement frequency and speed had decreased significantly.

"This time, I may have miscalculated."

Looking at Gune Lawrence, who was running faster than him within the Darkness Descends area,

the shadow's eye twitched slightly.

When the shadow was detected while approaching in stealth, the assassination was already half a failure.

And when Gune dodged the first attack in Darkness Descends and counterattacked, he sensed something was wrong.

Clearly, the darkness's blocking of vision, hearing, and soul perception had no effect on that Gune.

Without stealth and surprise, an assassin posed little threat to a spellcaster.

Even though his shadow, due to his peculiar talent, could immunize most spell attack power,

the pervasive, penetrating power was enough to slowly destroy him.

More importantly, he found that Gune's spell power was terrifyingly high.

Even an ordinary Lesser Thunderflame Curse, with each strike, annihilated a significant amount of this shadow's power.

"This level of spell attack might even pose a threat to a Transcendent Master!"

He knew very well that this spellcaster Gune Lawrence had a terrifyingly high single-second overlap.

But now, the opponent wasn't using that high single-second overlap to kill him.

Clearly, the opponent was doing it deliberately, probing his methods.

With the shadow's powerful stealth and the Darkness Descends block ineffective, there was no need to expose too much.

After all, this time, the shadow was likely just scouting.

The real killing move was not on the shadow.

"Sizzle sizzle sizzle..."

As a series of lightning flashes and thunderbolts struck the shadow,

the already weakened shadow could barely hold on.

Finally, after seven or eight thunderbolts poured down,

the shadow's power quickly dissipated, and it died completely.

After the shadow's death, the extreme darkness around quickly faded away.

Emerging from the darkness, Gune's face gradually showed a hint of gravity.

Although it was just an assassination, it revealed quite a lot.

"The higher echelons of the Transcendent Association have been deeply infiltrated."

"Once my whereabouts are exposed, they can even find their way into such an important place—truly pervasive."

"Assassinating me one after another—do you really think I, Gune, am easy to bully?"

Rubbing his fingers lightly, Gune pondered.

"Now, my strength is no longer what it used to be."

"Even against a Transcendent Master's attack, I have some ability to resist, no longer waiting helplessly like before."

"Even this Transcendent Master's bizarre shadow no longer poses much threat to me."

After a moment's thought,

Gune carefully looked around, then raised his hand, and a large number of Ring Technique Bombardments densely appeared in the cave chamber.

While darting outward, Gune directly detonated the mass of Ring Technique Bombardments.

Boom—

A violent explosion instantly erupted in this underground world, then rippled outward in all directions.