Chapter 14: Fear and Shadows

"Damn it, just what is this?!" Wang Yu cried out. He stood before Avia and glanced warily at the cursed figure eyeing her greedily.

Without a doubt, this was the same existence the pastor had mentioned in his story. Now, why had it targeted Avia?

From the looks of it, it had no interest in Wang Yu and exceeding interest in Avia.

"Wang Yu, I suspect it has something to do with the void. I can touch it with my right hand, but not my left."

Avia relayed critical information to Wang Yu, who was preparing for a battle.

Wang Yu nodded. His physical attacks were useless against this entity, just like they would be against sprites.

However, this entity certainly wasn't a sprite. Sprites weren't particularly potent and had no connection to the fear or terror that this entity engendered.

He manipulated the void and slathered his sword with void energy. Wang Yu would need it to take on this phantasmal existence...

But by the time Wang Yu finished this, he found that his field of vision had narrowed to a significant extent.

His 10-meter hemispherical range had shrunk down to 5 meters, and the entity was somewhere beyond it.

"Damn it, I haven't had time to develop my latent ability properly. Manipulating void energy weakens my latent ability if I do both together!"

Wang Yu cursed. How could he have been so unlucky as to come across such an existence almost right after unlocking his latent ability as a wizard?

"We need to keep forging forward. If we remain here, we'll only end up wasting our energy."

Wang Yu raised his sword and expanded his latent ability as much as possible. He focused fully on detecting anything moving in his surroundings.

They couldn't remain where they were. If they did, they would be trapped. Come nighttime, the forest would become even more dangerous and troublesome. Either heading deeper into the forest in search of the academy or backtracking and leaving the forest entirely were far better options.

In the end, they chose to proceed. They would ultimately have to head to the academy, after all.

Although Wang Yu had entertained the possibility of burning the forest to a crisp, the price he would have to pay was more than he could afford.

Ever since that entity had appeared, the forest had fallen silent. All Avia could hear were intermittent hagbirds' cries, as if that entity had devoured all the sound within the forest save its own.

Avia felt weak and helpless, a product of her fear. She couldn't do anything. The only thing keeping her moving was Wang Yu's calm, steady back.

Although she had a crossbow, she could hardly aim it properly with just her left hand.

Not only was she useless, this entity had come because of her. She could sense its greed.

As a magician, though, she was unable to cast a single spell nor provide an iota of help. It felt as though she were but a burden.

She didn't want to be a burden anymore. She needed to grow stronger. If she could make it into the academy within the forest, she would dedicate herself to becoming a better magician...

Her guilt and self-criticism caused part of the fear to fade away. She noticed that the entity seemed to turn a little more ethereal.

The next moment, as Avia's gaze landed on it, the entity made a grotesque expression.

It opened its mouth, showing densely packed rows of sharp teeth that extended all the way to its ears. Its eyes bulged as it stared at Avia and smiled.

Avia's fear spiked. She followed closely after Wang Yu as they continued to head deeper into the forest.

The entity seemed to have some ability to teleport. No matter how far they proceeded, it was able to follow alongside them.

𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

It would vanish from Avia's sight one moment and then reappear in the shade of another tree further ahead in the next.

It seemed omnipresent. It appeared hanging upside down from a branch in the distance. It appeared with half its head peeking out from behind a giant boulder. It appeared behind a tree branch, its eyes peering through the cracks between leaves.

The entity, having realized that Avia could touch it, seemed to have no intention of drawing near for the short term.

Rather, it watched over her a certain distance away, peeping at her, eyeing her, coveting her, giving her a sense of formless pressure that eroded her willpower.

"Calm down," the girl whispered to herself. "Calm down." But the malevolent specter that haunted her seemed to possess some sinister strength that evoked fear she couldn't dissipate.

She continued to think through the records she had studied, the legends she had heard, the stories she had read. Just what was this entity?

As she thought and feared, she continued marching inexorably onward. The entity seemed to have arrived at a common understanding with the two humans: if they proceeded onward and didn't stop, they would be afforded a measure of relative safety. But how could the entity be satisfied with that?

As they passed through particularly dense foliage, Avia lost sight of the entity—bringing her not relief, but even greater fear.

While the entity remained in sight, it was a known unknown. When it vanished, it became an unknown unknown. Who knew when it would strike or where it would appear?

The anxiety that had taken root in Avia's heart seemed to petrify. Her heart thumped loudly, announcing her anxiety to one and all.

She whirled around her. She feared that the entity would suddenly emerge where there were gaps in the trees, where the leaves cast shadows.

"Where are you? Where are you?!"

While it was in sight, she wanted it to vanish; while it was gone, she hoped it would appear.

As if to ascertain Avia's worst fears, when they passed under the shadow of another tree and Avia raised her head, she found a twisted smile and a grotesque face eyeing her from above.

Upon noticing her gaze, it bared its teeth and dropped down from the tree straight down toward Avia.

Avia was caught off guard by the entity's sudden attack, and the fear that had been growing steadily in the background erupted and stunned her.

The fear froze her body and prevented her from moving. She tried to resist, but her willpower was drowned by fear.

Avia stood stock-still as she watched the entity fall toward her. She was moments from getting swallowed up whole.

At the last moment, a sword whistled toward her. The void energy that had been slathered across the sword struck the entity in a miniature explosion.

The entity slammed into the ground in a heap beside Avia.

Wang Yu pulled Avia behind himself.

He raised his sword and glanced at the entity that was slowly getting to its feet.

"This isn't like you, Avia," he whispered. "You were able to remain calm despite your fear before. Is something wrong?"

Avia had responded well even against Beran, but she seemed particularly distraught against this void entity.

"Yes, yes. I'm sorry," Avia replied, sighing.

Now that Wang Yu had brought it up, her behavior surprised even herself. How could she have been rendered immobile? Even if she were fearful, it shouldn't have affected her to such an extent.

Wang Yu watched the entity warily as it scrambled up. Its bulbous, misshapen limbs were twisted, and it didn't seem to have any joints. Its head twisted 180 degrees to stare straight at Wang Yu.

Considering that this figure seemed to be made up of a whole group of hagbirds, its erratic motions were understandable.

It had directly appeared overhead of Avia without any warning whatsoever, as if it had teleported there.

This shocked Wang Yu and made him grow even more cautious. Such strange abilities generally made foes more difficult to take down.

As if finally realizing that Wang Yu would be an obstacle, the entity shot a withering glare at him, then gnashed its rows of sharp teeth.

Sharp claws had grown out of its hands from nowhere, scrabbling at the earth and rocks in the ground as it made its move.

The next moment, the entity vanished beyond Wang Yu's range.

Unlike Avia, however, Wang Yu didn't panic. Panicking was useless, and he was immune to the entity's fear. He waited patiently.

As Wang Yu predicted, it appeared once again—out of nowhere and without warning, just like before, right behind Wang Yu's back.

At the same time, it swung its sharp claws down as its teeth bit at Wang Yu's neck.

Even so, Wang Yu was able to react in time.

His Ripple ability had translated thought into action near-instantaneously as he defended against the entity's strike.

He infused void energy into the elbow of his sword-wielding hand, then smashed at the entity with his elbow between its mouth and neck.

The entity was sent sprawling to the ground, its neck seemingly broken, as it lay immobile. The next moment, it vanished.

Wang Yu raised an eyebrow. What sort of strange ability was this? It could appear and disappear out of nowhere at will.

How could any creature possess such an ability?

Before he could think any longer, the entity appeared once again, its broken neck seemingly nothing but an illusion.

The entity clung onto a tree by Wang Yu's side, its neck unharmed.

It tensed its limbs and shot toward Wang Yu's left side with explosive strength—his unguarded side.

This time, it was even faster than before.

It widened its mouth, revealing the grotesque internal structure of its body to Wang Yu's inner eye. He wouldn't have time to defend with his sword; he would have to use his hand.

His gauntlets were particularly valuable. If he had had Reynard's armor during the fight with Beran, even just the gauntlets, he could have used his fists to take on Beran's sword—or even block it with his palms.

As for this entity, regardless of what it was, a few punches might well be able to take it down. He threw out a punch with his left fist, imbued with void energy, straight at the entity's face.

This time, he could see a large number of its spiky teeth being crushed as the entity was sent flying. Black fluid spurted from it as it crashed into the bark of a tree.

It fell limply to the ground and lay there paralyzed, as if it had lost all combat ability.

The next moment, however, it vanished again. Wang Yu frowned. This ability was far too difficult to deal with.

A strange sensation made Wang Yu turn toward his left fist, where something seemed to be squirming.

He glanced at it. The Nightblade emblem appeared to have come to life.

The strange eyeball that had been pierced through by an ornate blade was squirming furiously.

Despite the fact that its feelers were carved from steel, they too were writhing as they tried to pull out the ornate sword from the eyeball.

The eyeball was gleaming with a faint golden glow as it continued to seal and suppress the eye...

What did that mean? Wang Yu frowned as he considered his gauntlets' strange behavior. A thought was conveyed to his head by his Ripple ability.

"Void and suppression..."

Could his Nightblade gauntlets have some special power that he hadn't manifested?

The gauntlets seemed to thirst for stamina for some sort of transformation. Could the trigger for this strange behavior be contact with the entity he had just sent flying?

Wang Yu turned toward the entity who had just appeared from behind a boulder, once again seemingly unharmed.

The punch that Wang Yu had thrown appeared to have no consequences whatsoever.

It was cackling silently as it shot toward Wang Yu in what was ostensibly Wang Yu's blind spot.

Wang Yu, who had attacked it twice to no avail, thought that it was time to try something different as well.

He sheathed his sword, whirled around, crouched down, and spread his arms wide as if he were about to hug the entity rushing toward him.

He caught the entity's arms, preventing it from biting him with its densely packed rows of sharp teeth. The entity wasn't particularly strong or speedy, and was much easier to grapple than Beran. However, its ability to negate injuries and teleport was far more sinister.

If Wang Yu didn't find some way of finishing off the entity quickly, this fragile equilibrium would quickly be broken once he made a careless mistake. Wang Yu decided to test out his idea.

Using his Ripple ability, he conveyed stamina to his gauntlets, which rapidly absorbed the stamina he infused into them.

Wang Yu could sense his growing lethargy as the Nightblade sword grew brighter and brighter.

The strange eyeball it had pierced through stopped struggling and returned to stillness.

The ornate sword, on the other hand, seemed to become more exquisite. Its strength spread all the way over the gauntlets.

The entity's arms began to smoke as if it were being burned. It began to struggle and tried to virtualize in an attempt to vanish—but for some reason, it was unable to do so. It continued to writhe madly, but to no avail.

With a wicked smile, Wang Yu forced the entity's arms toward its head.

Its bones began to twist and break.

As Wang Yu's gauntlets grew warmer and warmer, the entity seemed to become more and more furious. It directed concentrated malice toward Wang Yu.

The more stamina he conveyed to his gauntlets, the stronger they became.

The entity's bones and physical body were warping as black smoke seeped out of it. Part of its body was even vaporizing away.

Wang Yu ignored the entity's malicious expression as he slowly crushed its head bit by bit. From Avia's perspective, Wang Yu almost seemed like a crazed murderer himself.

The entity's broken bones and headless corpse fell limply to the ground.Surely it couldn't recover from such a blow!

Wang Yu got to his feet as he panted. These gauntlets were incredibly strong, but they drained an incredible quantity of stamina as well.

If he were an ordinary human, he might very well have fainted on the spot, but he was bolstered by his willpower and superhuman physique.

"Avia—" Wang Yu was about to say something when the entity's corpse vanished again.

Wang Yu immediately cut himself short as he looked around warily. How many times would it revive?

The entity was hovering not too far from Wang Yu, a half-smile on its face. With its unblemished body, it seemed to be mocking Wang Yu's lack of ability and skill.

Wang Yu turned expressionlessly to the entity. He was serious but not fearful.

What an annoyance this entity was! He would have to try some other approach...

He stretched a little as he tried to make the most of his remaining stamina.

"Wang Yu, knock me unconscious!"

Just as Wang Yu was thinking about what else he could do, Avia suddenly yelled at him.

She was fearful but resolute.

Wang Yu cocked his head in confusion, but he knew Avia must have thought of something. Without any hesitation, he did as she commanded, straightening his fingers and striking Avia with the side of his palm.