SSS Ranked Shadow Monarch: Summoning Infinite Shadows-Chapter 234: Roots
The lizardman rose to its feet, a massive wound in its chest and a look of disbelief in its eyes, stunned by the power output of that attack.
"I’ve had just about enough of you," Aren said as he approached, each step crackling with pure lightning. The lizardman let out a thundering roar and then unleashed a powerful blast toward Aren, but Riker intercepted at the right moment, using his sword to block the attack. He was pushed back, but he planted his hooves into the ground hard, forcing himself to come to a stop.
Using the opportunity presented, Aren bolted, his feet hitting the ground extremely fast, his eyes locked on one target. He had already created several contingencies for every movement that this being could make to attack.
The lizardman stopped the blast and tried to counter Aren, who was now close to it. It swung its tail in a clean spinning diagonal attack, but Aren slid right under the attack, then propped himself up, his feet planted into the ground hard, braking quickly as he turned around, fist launching.
BAM!
His fist collided with the lizardman, its head was knocked back clean. It struggled to stabilize itself, but Riker came in with a slash, forcing it to try and block the attack. It used its tail to block.
Riker saw the tail, he gritted his teeth, pouring soul energy into his slash and striking with full strength.
"Arghhhh!"
His sword cut through the tail clean, and then dug into the shoulder of the lizardman.
"Rawrrrrrrrrrr!" It let out a cry of pure pain and agony, staggering backward towards Aren, who was already charging to attack as well.
Aren leaped into the air, pressed his foot against the head of the lizardman, lifting high into the air. Then he spun around, looked at the lizardman, and attacked with a claw strike.
The claw cut through the air and slammed into the chest of the lizardman, blood gushed out like a fountain as the body collapsed to the ground dead.
Aren landed on the ground. He looked at the lizardman and let out a breath, it was more workout than it was worth. For what it was worth, he would be getting a pretty solid addition to his army now.
He walked over to it and then used Consume. The body sank into the shadows and was reborn as his shadow.
Aren turned around, in the distance were hundreds of panthers that were at least awakened monsters that he had killed. He walked over there and decided to use Shadow Consume on all of them.
When he was done, his army of Shadows had risen massively.
"I guess there was benefit to all the fighting," he said as he looked ahead, searching for where to go next.
"How do I even open my heart to the druid or whatever, if I keep this up, I’ll keep fighting and making no headway?" he said calmly, scanning around for anything.
Rustle!
"What’s that?" Aren’s eyes darted in the direction of the sound, but he didn’t see anything.
"I clearly heard something, another monster?" he asked, but there was nothing to respond to him.
Rustle.
Not long after, another sound came. He turned around to search for it, and then from the darkness behind him, a root shot out.
It was the size of an arm, rushing through the air extremely fast.
Aren sensed it enter his shadow sense and immediately moved out of the way to avoid it, but the root made a quick turn and wrapped around his arm.
"What the hell?" Aren tried to get out of it quickly, but another one shot at him.
"You’ll not capture me that easily," he said, and with his free hand, he attacked the second root with lava. The flaming liquid touched the root and it instantly got burned.
Screeeeeeeech!
A cry of pain was heard through the forest, and that made Aren smile.
"So you feel pain, huh?"
He grabbed onto the one that caught him and then used the lava, the immense heat burned it off and the same cry came.
Aren stood there, a smug smile on his face. "You came after me first," he said, sounding like he had won the battle, but his words only served as provocation.
Multiple roots rushed toward him, these ones larger than the last ones, and more than a hundred of them all at the same time.
"Oh shit." Aren cursed. He unsummoned Riker and immediately started running, but the roots gave chase. They attacked from different angles, and he was forced to dodge and counter as much as possible. He burned root after root and dodged their attacks, his shadow sense was working in overdrive.
It got so intense that he didn’t notice the root that lay on the ground waiting for him, and the moment he stepped into it, the root snatched him up instantly.
"Whoa!" Aren cried out.
He immediately tried to get out of the situation, but before he could make any move, more roots latched onto his body, his hands, his face. They wrapped around everything, if he wanted to burn it all, he would need to burn himself with it, or so the roots believed.
Aren was about to be completely covered, so he activated Shadow Form, and that allowed him to fall right through the roots and land on the ground safely.
"Talk about a broken skill," Aren said before he kept running.
The roots seemed enraged by the move that he pulled off just now, so they turned all those roots that had gathered together into a massive and very tight ball. Then, a green flame lit on the roots, engulfing it entirely.
The roots were hurled at Aren extremely fast. Aren sensed the attack, he was shocked by it. He reacted fast by dropping flat to the ground as the ball of flames flew over and slammed into the ground in front of him.
BOOM!
The explosion shook the ground, a blast of green flames rushed outward.
