Raid: The Blacksmith-Chapter 94: This Is The End: Part 3.6

I turn away from Viper as he dies by fire to look back at the other Shadows. "Right. Who’s next?" They’re flabbergasted. But it’s what happens next, as I approach, that really catches their eyes.

I conjure out flames that envelope my entire body, using Hexagon Element King. Then I use Cultivator to intensify those flames, while circulating them to only burn only through the holes in my body caused by Viper’s arrows. Black steam forms from said holes as the flames burn through my skin. What I’m doing is burning the poison of his attack out of my system.

"It’s not just Spiritual attacks that can counter Spiritual attacks. It may not be on the same level but... Elements work pretty damn well also. I wouldn’t have known this without you, Dawn. So thank you." I utter telepathically.

"Y-you’re... welcome... Master..." Dawn stutters, as if trying to make sense of the situation. "I just... didn’t consider that they could be used that way." She admits.

"Well..." I chuckle. "I had to improvise. I don’t have much in the way of defending myself against Spiritual attacks, after all." I add as the flames dissipate, signalling that the poison has now been fully dealt with.

"You’re amazing, Master." Dawn praises with genuine reverence. In all honesty, I haven’t actually gotten used to how highly she thinks of me, so I just stay silent in response to her compliment as I start approaching the Shadows.

~Sigh~

Sidewinder sighs. Even from this distance, I can hear it perfectly.

"Seems that, truly..." She pauses. "This is the end, indeed. Just not the way we hoped." Her voice is laced with what I would assume to be a mixture of sorrow and acceptance.

"More acceptance than sorrow though... much like him... in fact, she’s not that different at all from him. I’d even say with confidence that this Sidewinder chick is really more or less the girl version of Taipan."

The Shadows take their stances as I approach, walking. Then they immediately attack, speeding towards like an army. They’re determined now. Not to kill me. I think they know now that they can’t do that. No. They’re just determined to see this out. To go down swinging, rather than pleading. I respect that. Enemies or no. I respect that.

So in light of that, I decide to go all out. I had really already decided to do that before taking out Viper, but now it’s not just so I can deal with them accordingly. No. It’s also so that I can show them that I take them all seriously.

I speed towards them as they speed towards me.

"I have three Special Attacks, but as it stands, I can only use two. The most powerful one requires a solid genuine weapon, instead of just some makeshift crap made from Elemental Magic. No offence, Inferno Cyclone."

The first to attack is Mamba with his claws. We get locked in a melee battle for a good while. I fight him off as he launches multiple attacks, trying to basically maul me. He attempts to slash me, over and over, while I evade and parry by clashing the front side of my wrists with the front side of his. He hurls his right hand, horizontally, straight towards my face. I tilt my head to my right by a sufficient distance, then immediately grab his righ wrist with my right hand and turn counterclockwise by an angle near ninety degrees, forcedly pulling him towards me for his face to meet directly with my elbow. It connects in an instant, seemingly breaking his nose as a small amount of blood spurts out of said nose. However, before I can double down, I immediately spot a sizable circular object that looks like a wheel made of blades coming at me from the corner of my eye.

It’s Krait, he’s in the sky, and he just threw his weapon. The bastard catches me off guard a little bit, but I act fast and bend my body backwards, allowing Mamba to escape my grasp, but with the silver lining of Krait’s thrown weapon missing me completely, as it flies just a few centimetres over my chest.

Krait comes crashing down towards me, with his fists joined together to punch me down.

Challenge accepted.

Rising back, I use my Brawler Skill to use the Special Attack, Demolition Strike, gathering a great amount my Mana to my right fist.

~Boom!~

Our attacks collide, creating a great shockwave that spreads from the centre, but does little to affect us, only the surroundings. Thing is, my attack is much stronger than Krait’s, so it sends his ass flying. He easily finds his footing, still, landing safely as he slides back against the ground.

Raising his head to look at me, he pushes his hand out at my direction and makes a gesture with said hand as if he’s pulling something.

"Fuck is he doing?" Is my first thought, but I almost instantly notice it via Treasure Hunt. "!? Shit! The bladed boomerang thingy!"

From behind me, his previously thrown weapon, comes back flying at a great speed towards me, as he yells.

"Spiraling Slash of Death!"

Before I can even think about what to do with that, from the corner of my right eye, I spot two humongous axes hurled at me in a parallel formation as I turn to look. Entirely orange. Growing bigger as they approach. From a distance, I hear the words; "Parallel Slice." being uttered. Cobra’s attack, the bitch.

"No time like the present to finally use this Skill."

With the Expansion Skill already being active, I use it to do something that shocks the Shadows’ minds.

In an instant, Krait, the man who was twenty or more metres away from me just now, is now right next to me by about half a metre, to my left. He hasn’t moved. I haven’t moved. I’ve shortened the space between us using Expansion.

Before he can react. Before any one of the Shadows can react, I teleport behind Cobra’s attack, spotting Mamba and Cobra herself behind him, evading said attack, along with Krait’s attack. Though Cobra’s attack dissipates after missing me, Krait’s attack does in fact end up landing on someone, however. And that’s none other than Krait himself. With Treasure Hunt and all, I don’t need to look behind me to see him being cut in half by his own weapon before he can even try to evade.

"Kark!"

He coughs out blood from the distance as his upper body slides down his lower body.

The Shadows look flabbergasted. As if they can’t make sense of what just happened.

"They were ready to die, but I guess it makes sense why a Skill like Expansion would have their jaws dropped."

"I don’t think it’s the Skill itself but how you use it, Master." Dawn chimes in telepathically. "The Harpy Countess only used it to make her domain more spacious. You, on the other hand... I don’t think a lot of people can even think of using the Skill like that."

"Why thank you. I aim to please."

"That’s wasn’t exactly-" Dawn really is the best at giving compliments.

Wasting no time, even in the midst of such a perplexing situation, I continue to dash at my foes. Clashing immediately with Mamba even in his mildly confused state after conjuring out a fire blade from my left and right hand.

"How’s your nose?" I taunt to throw him off as we attempt to overpower one another.

"Keuk!" It works. "Don’t get cocky!" He roars, pushing his claws against my makeshift blades with heated vigor, causing them to seemingly waver as the concentrated formations of flames start to flutter.

Noticing that immediately, I create distance between us, by jumping back, but am immediately attacked with knives. Three of them. Thrown at me from above. They’re Pygmy’s.

"Trinity Barrage!"

She yells.

I do multiple backflips to evade them. They immediately fly back to her, only for her to throw them again. And an extra three. And extra three after those.

As they fly towards me, Rattler and Boa show up basically out of nowhere from both sides. Rattler attacks me with Maru’s Bite, while Boa tries to crush me with Bone Breaking Chain Smash. All the while, Sidewinder, from a distance, sends multiple slashes through openings.

I flip over the first wave of Pygmy’s Trinity Barrage, then bend backwards to slide under Rattler’s Maru’s Bite, only to flip, once again, over Pygmy’s second wave of Trinity Barrage. All, while evading Sidewinder’s slashes as well. Noticing Boa’s chains come down towards me from above afterwards, I use Spatial Guard to conjure exactly one hundred kite shaped barriers in a cross formation, atop one another, above me. The chains go through all of them in almost an instant, crushing down on the ground after, creating dust and forming a small crater.

"Where did he go!?" Boa exclaims after landing down, noticing my absence.

"Look out!" Sidewinder screams as I immediately appear in front of Pygmy.

In an instant, she speeds towards us as I’m about to punch Pygmy in the gut, and pushes her away, her blade in tow as she uses it to counter my attack.

The sword collides with my fist, slicing straight through my hand between my knuckles, as it runs to my wrist.

I pull back immediately, blood splattering briefly on the desert ground as I withdraw and Resilient Regeneration kicks in immediately. I then jump back to create distance, but as I do Asp shows up between me and Sidewinder to close the distance, somewhat. She throws eight darts at me, all obviously laced with poisonous Mana as she utters;

"Poison Bullets."

"Damn it."

I use Gaia and stomp down. A wall forms and emerges from the ground between me and the darts, about five metres high and three metres wide. I punch it, sending it towards the darts as they fly towards me, coating it with layers upon layers of barriers. The darts go through the barriers and the wall, only for me to repeat the same tactic once again, creating three walls this time, each coated with layers of barriers made with the Spatial Guard Skill.

The third wall works in parrying the darts, while all the first two do, is decrease the momentum of the darts.

"Seven Shadows remain. The only way I get out of this Isolated Space is if I kill them all, and I intend to do just that. Starting with-"

A large clawed hand attacks me from my right. It’s Mamba. He almost claws my head off. Almost. But I quickly step back, causing his right hand to miss me as it passes mere centimetres away from my face. Wasting no time, I grab his wrist with my right hand, then push my left palm forward to hit the inside of his elbow, forcing his arm to bend back towards him completely. Thus I Impale him with his own claw. But that’s not all, I also use Soul Freeze through his claws affecting not just his Physical Body but his Spiritual Body as well.

Before he can even die out, Boa and Asp come at me from both sides. I grab Mamba’s neck and spin anticlockwise, doing a full circle, to swing his whole body towards Boa. His frostbitten form collides with her, knocking her off her game, allowing me to focus on Asp. I speed towards her. She does the same. All while launching more of her darts. However, just as they’re about to connect, I disappear, teleporting via Domain Transit, and instantly appear in front of her, cupping her face with my open palm as I use Winter’s Hush. Her body freezes. Not through ice, but paralysis. I grab onto her neck afterwards and instantly snap it. Her limp, boneless form falls flat on the ground afterwards.

"Noo!!!"

The other Shadows lose it. Specifically Boa and Cobra. Boa, after regaining her bearings, jumping over Mamba’s corpse, with obvious pain in her facial expression, hurls her chains at me. I give her similar treatment to the one I once gave Sonoran, catching both chains with my hands and pulling back hard, forcing her to fly towards me. Then...

"Demolition Strike."

My fist basically penetrates her gut, nearly going all the way through before sending her ass flying a couple of kilometres away. The shockwave is immense, causing a strong gush of wind to emerge from the center, creating a great volume of dust only to clear it almost immediately. With Cultivator, Soul-Piercing Eyes and Treasure Hunt all active, I don’t need to go after her to confirm whether or not she’s dead.

Then there’s Cobra. This speeds at me in an attempt to catch me off guard. Instead of long ranged attacks, she fights me head-on this time. Launching multiple slashes with her axes in order to cut me down. I dodge, evade and parry by directly clashing her wrists with my palms.

Thank you Brawler.

It’s still a low level Skill, sure, but with the others backing it, it definitely manages.

We get locked in a hand-to-axe battle, me and Cobra, while the other Shadows see fit to chime in at specific angles. Sidewinder sending slashes. Pygmy throwing knives to retrieve them and throw them again. And Rattler attempting to impale me with his rope dart over and over.

I dodge all Sidewinder’s slashes while fighting off Cobra, using hundreds to thousands of layers of barriers to counter Pygmy’s knives, and expertly evading Rattler’s attacks as well.

Pygmy then comes up from above, behind Cobra, and yells.

"Number six, move!" Cobra instantly steps back about ten to twelve metres away from me. While Pygmy from above launches all her knives at me while yelling.

"Full Barrage!"

"Shit!"

In a fit of panic, I instantly use Soul-Piercing Eyes to figure out the exact distance now between me and Cobra. Then, I immediately use Expansion to keep that space fixed. Then afterwards, I cast Domain Transit to teleport that exact distance away from Cobra herself, forcing her to instantly appear in the exact location I occupied before teleporting, placing her in the way of Pygmy’s attack.

"No!" Pygmy screams as she notices, attempting to pull back her knives, but it comes too late.

All her knives impale Cobra from behind, going through her completely before flying back to Pygmy, leaving her body with holes all over, blood pouring out as she slowly falls flat on the ground, without even a single whimper.

Three Shadows now remain. And not just any three, but three of the strongest there were. They gather, in front of me, looking flabbergasted, frustrated and terrified all at the same time..

"Okay." I sigh as I stretch my neck. "There’s only three of you left now... so let’s get this over with, shall we?"

I immediately speed towards them, wasting no time. They do the same, gathering they have no choice at this point. Then...

We clash.

Minutes later...

"At... at least... tell me how..." Sidewinder pants weakly. "How you were able to get so... so strong... so fast..." She pleads.

She’s currently kneeling. Much like Taipan was. She has a hole in her chest. Much like Taipan did. Her teamates are now all dead. Only she remains.

"Hm..." I pause, trying to think of a good enough reply for her. I find none. "I really can’t explain it... From the moment I killed my first monster, something just... clicked deep within me. I felt like I could do anything... No... that’s not right. I felt like it didn’t make sense for me not to be able to do anything. Like the only thing that made sense, was me being stronger than just about anyone. It wasn’t cockiness. It didn’t feel like cockiness, or pride or arrogance or whatever... rather, something like assurance. Like it was an undeniable truth. I don’t why I felt this way. I can’t tell you why I felt this way. I just did. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a hard worker, but it’s no secret that my powers are definitely a cheat. This was never a fair fight... And I doubt they’ll ever be such a thing when I’m around." I finish.

Sidewinder just looks up at me and chuckles faintly. "Heh... wow... you’re right. That really isn’t fair." She utters. "I’m glad though... You seem like a very decent guy... If your abilities were obtained by some... tyrannical villain, then... this world would have a lot more to worry about than just the Dungeons." She adds weakly, as if whispering. She’s slowly dying. I don’t need to finish her off. "But instead... It seems... it’s the Dungeon that are in trouble. That’s... refreshing. We may have been enemies... but I’m glad to have met you. Go knock them dead, kid..." She finishes as her eyes start to lose focus. They waver, as if closing, them along with her body. Then she falls flat on the floor. Or she would’ve, if I hadn’t used Tetrax to soften her fall.

Such is the end of the Reinhardt Family Household’s covert surbodinates. Such is the end of the Twelve Guardian Shadows. Such is... The Shadows’ Demise.