Blood Online: Evolving Endlessly-Chapter 179: Shadow

Just as Jeren announced the start of the match.

The shadows coalesced differently this time.

Not the gradual emergence Akhil had seen in the previous rounds, where opponents formed from darkness like sculptures being carved into existence. This was immediate and absolute—one moment the platform held only him, the next moment the darkness simply parted and Najim was standing there, as if he’d always been present and the world had only just decided to acknowledge him.

Akhil’s grip tightened on the Blood Fang.

He’d faced skilled opponents before. Fought monsters and men and things that defied categorization. But the figure standing across from him radiated something different—not killing intent exactly, but killing certainty. The assured patience of something that had ended lives so many times the act had become routine.

Najim was seven feet of segmented black armor that seemed to drink the light around it, edges sharp enough that looking at them felt dangerous. His helm revealed only those flat yellow eyes, and they studied Akhil with the focused attention of a craftsman examining a particularly interesting piece of material.

The arena held its breath.

Then Najim moved.

Not forward—into. The shadow at his feet simply expanded and he dropped through it like a stone through water, vanishing completely in the space between one heartbeat and the next.

Akhil didn’t think. He moved on pure instinct, throwing himself sideways as the platform’s shadow directly beneath where he’d been standing erupted upward. Najim rose from it like a diver breaching the surface, one arm extended, fingers rigid and trailing darkness that solidified into a blade longer than Akhil’s forearm.

The shadow-blade passed through the space Akhil’s neck had occupied a fraction of a second earlier.

Akhil hit the ground rolling, came up in a crouch, Blood Fang already moving in a defensive arc—but Najim wasn’t where the counterattack was aimed. He’d already dissolved back into shadow, the platform’s surface rippling as he moved through it with the fluid ease of something swimming through its natural element.

’He can travel through shadows,’ Akhil’s mind catalogued rapidly, adrenaline sharpening everything to crystalline clarity. ’Any shadow. Anywhere on the platform. Which means—’

The attack came from his left, Najim surging up from the shadow cast by Akhil’s own body. This time Akhil was ready—he spun, Blood Fang meeting the shadow-blade in a clash that sent a shock up his arm and scattered droplets of darkness that evaporated before hitting the ground.

But the blade wasn’t solid. It flowed like liquid around the Blood Fang’s edge, reforming on the other side, continuing its arc toward Akhil’s ribs—

Akhil activated Blood Burst.

He had yet to use his blood essence since coming here, but right now, he couldn’t be conservative about it.

His blood essence dropped by five hundred points as crimson energy exploded outward from his body in a concussive wave. Najim’s shadow-blade caught the edge of it and dispersed, the commander himself sliding backward across the platform, feet leaving thin trails in the stone.

{Blood Essence: 49,500}

They stood facing each other for a moment, reassessing.

Najim’s yellow eyes showed something that might have been approval.

Then the real fight began.

Najim didn’t emerge from shadows anymore—he became them. His form dissolved into flowing darkness that spread across the platform like oil, tendrils of shadow rising and falling in a pattern that was almost hypnotic. Akhil tracked the movement, trying to predict where the attack would come from, but the pattern had no tells, no rhythm to exploit.

The first tendril struck from behind, wrapping around Akhil’s ankle. He cut it with the Blood Fang—the blade passed through shadow like it was cutting smoke—but the tendril had already served its purpose. It had held him in place for the half-second Najim needed to materialize directly in front of him, both hands shaped into blades, driving forward in a double thrust aimed at Akhil’s chest and throat simultaneously.

Akhil activated Blood Step.

The world blurred red as he moved faster than normal physics should allow, his body becoming a crimson streak that left afterimages. He appeared five feet to the left, Blood Essence dropping another thousand points, but alive and untouched.

He didn’t waste the opening. The moment his feet touched ground he was already channeling, drawing on the deep well of blood essence he’d accumulated from their hunting spree. The Blood Fang began to glow, crimson light crawling up the blade in veins that pulsed with his heartbeat.

’You know, I always wanted to name one of my skills, now I have blood fang, let’s try it!’ Akhil’s eyes glowed crimson.

"Blood Art," Akhil said quietly. "Crimson Severance."

He swung.

The arc of red that left the blade was sharp enough to cut light, a crescent of condensed blood essence that screamed across the platform trailing crimson mist. It was an attack designed to end fights—five thousand blood essence compressed into a single strike that could cleave through steel like paper.

Najim raised one hand almost casually.

The shadow in front of him solidified into a wall, not black but somehow darker than black, a surface that seemed to curve away from reality. The Crimson Severance hit it and simply stopped. Not deflected, not absorbed—stopped, as if the concept of forward motion had been politely declined.

Then the shadow wall rippled, and the attack came back.

Akhil’s eyes widened as his own technique reversed course, the crimson crescent now aimed at him with all the force he’d put into it. He barely managed to dive aside, the reflected attack carving a furrow in the platform’s stone that glowed red-hot at the edges.

Above them, the gods erupted in commentary:

[God Poloneus: He can REFLECT attacks? Since when can he reflect attacks?!]

[Goddess Vaydrix: That’s not reflection. That’s shadow manipulation at a level I’ve rarely seen. He’s treating the attack like an object and simply redirecting it.]

[DaylithNight: This is bad. This is really bad for my ice girl’s brother. That shadow user is toying with him.]

Najim didn’t give Akhil time to recover. He sank into shadow again, but this time he didn’t emerge—the shadows themselves attacked. They rose from every surface of the platform simultaneously, creating a forest of writhing tendrils that struck from every angle at once.

Akhil activated Blood Barrier.

Crimson energy crystallized around him in layered hexagonal plates, a shell of hardened blood essence that covered him like armor. The shadow tendrils crashed against it from all sides, and for a moment it held—then cracks began to spread, the barrier buckling under the sustained assault.

He couldn’t maintain it. The cost was too high and Najim’s assault too relentless. Akhil let the barrier drop and moved instead, Blood Step carrying him across the platform in red blurs, changing position faster than the tendrils could track.

But Najim was tracking him.

Every time Akhil appeared, shadow was already waiting. A blade formed where his head would be. Tendrils wrapped around where his feet would land. Walls of darkness rose to block his escape routes. It was like fighting someone who could see a second into the future, who knew where Akhil would be before Akhil knew it himself.

’He’s reading my pattern,’ Akhil realized, sweat stinging his eyes, blood essence dropping with every evasion. ’Every time I use Blood Step I’m moving in predictable arcs. He’s not tracking where I am—he’s predicting where I’ll be.’

So Akhil stopped being predictable.

Instead of using Blood Step to escape, he used it to attack. He appeared directly in front of Najim, inside the commander’s guard, Blood Fang already moving in a rising slash aimed at the gap between helm and breastplate.

Najim’s form exploded into shadow—but Akhil had expected that. He channeled blood essence into the blade, not to attack but to sense. The Blood Fang was forged from his own blood; it responded to his will like an extension of his body.

And blood, even his own, could sense other blood.

Even through shadow.

He felt the moment Najim began to reform three feet behind him and spun, blade already completing the arc. The Blood Fang caught Najim mid-materialization, cutting across the commander’s ribs in a spray of something that was darker than blood but served the same purpose. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Najim staggered backward, one hand moving to the wound. His yellow eyes found Akhil’s, and for the first time, they showed something other than patient certainty.

They showed interest.

"Good," Najim said, his voice carrying what might have been approval. "You’re learning."

Then his form blurred and split.

Not into shadow this time—into copies. Dozens of them, each one identical down to the wound across their ribs, each one moving independently. They spread across the platform in a pattern that surrounded Akhil completely, and he couldn’t tell which was real because they all felt real, all cast shadows, all moved with the same predatory grace.

The clones attacked in perfect synchronization.

’Just how many shadows can this guy create?’ Akhil thought, his brows knitting in annoyance.